Oakland (Pittsburgh) in the context of "Cathedral of Learning"

The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the university's central administration and over 31,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The 132-acre Pittsburgh campus includes various historic buildings that are part of the Schenley Farms Historic District, most notably its 42-story Gothic revival centerpiece, the Cathedral of Learning. Pitt is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Pitt traces its roots to the Pittsburgh Academy founded by Hugh Henry Brackenridge in 1787. While the city was still on the edge of the American frontier at the time, Pittsburgh's rapid growth meant that a proper university was soon needed, and Pitt's charter was altered in 1819 to confer university status on it as the Western University of Pennsylvania. After surviving two fires and several relocations, the university moved to its current location in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood, and by act of the state legislature was renamed the University of Pittsburgh in 1908. Pitt was a private institution until 1966, when it became part of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as CMNH) is a natural history museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896. Housing some 22 million specimens, the museum features one of the most extensive paleontological and entomological collections in the world.

The Schenley Farms Historic District, also referred to as the Schenley Farms–Oakland Civic District, is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places that is located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

It comprises two separately designated City of Pittsburgh historic districts: the Oakland Civic Center Historic District consisting of publicly and privately owned institutional buildings, and the adjacent Schenley Farms Historic District consisting mainly of a planned residential development of the early 20th Century. The Schenley Farms Historic District is roughly bounded by Forbes Avenue including the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh on the south; South Dithridge and North Bellefield on the east, extending to include St. Paul's Cathedral and Rectory on Fifth Avenue and North Craig Street; Bigelow Boulevard, Andover Road, and Bryn Mawr Road on the northwest; and Thackeray Street through to Fifth Avenue on the southwest.

The Carnegie Museum of Art is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The museum was originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was located at what became the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The museum's first gallery was opened for public viewing on November 5, 1895. Over the years, the gallery vastly increased in size, with a new building on Forbes Avenue built in 1907. In 1963, the name was officially changed to Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute. The size of the gallery has tripled over time, and it was officially renamed in 1986 to "Carnegie Museum of Art" to indicate it clearly as one of the four Carnegie Museums.