The first Zeiss planetarium projector installation in the Americas occurred on 1930 May 12 in the new Adler Planetarium and Astronomical Museum (now known as the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum) in Chicago. Five members of the recently formed (1929 June 9) Amateur Astronomers' Association of Pittsburgh (AAAP) drove to Chicago to learn about this new astronomical teaching tool. AAAP co-founder Leo J. Scanlon and other members prepared a glowing report, on the planetarium's great educational potential, for the Academy of Science and Art of Pittsburgh (which had been formed decades earlier by Henry Thaw and John A. Brashear, among others). The report recommended that funds be sought for the construction of a planetarium in Pittsburgh.
With the onset of the Great Depression, funds were scarce for such an endeavor. However, in 1935, Pittsburgh's Buhl Foundation (then the 13th largest charitable foundation in the United States) announced that it would fund such an institution (the final construction cost: $1.07 million), in the memory of Henry Buhl, Jr., who had been the co-owner of the very successful Boggs and Buhl Department Store on Pittsburgh's North Side. On 1937 July 20, the City of Pittsburgh leased property (one block north of the Boggs and Buhl Department Store), which was then occupied by the old Allegheny City Hall (no longer needed, since the City of Pittsburgh had annexed the City of Allegheny in December of 1907) to the Buhl Foundation for the construction of The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science; the lease was for 99 years, at a cost of one dollar per year.
With a gala event on the Tuesday evening of October 24, 1939 at 8:30 p.m., The Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science was dedicated. On that date, the Buhl Foundation also gifted and conveyed the entire facility to the City of Pittsburgh, but agreed to fund any unfunded deficits of the institution for at least six years; the Buhl Foundation actually operated the museum for more than 42 years.
Constructed in the heart of Buhl Planetarium was the 65-foot diameter, 425-seat Theater of the Stars (one of the largest planetarium theaters in the country) including the Zeiss Mark II Planetarium Projector then the fifth such projector in the Americas. Today, it is the oldest operable major planetarium projector in the world ! The Zeiss II Projector was the first planetarium projector mounted on an elevator, custom-built by Pittsburgh's Westinghouse Electric Company, to facilitate other uses for the Theater of the Stars.
When the projector was lowered completely below floor level into the Zeiss Projector Pit, a small stage was created above the projector in the Theater. However, a second, larger stage was included on the north side of the Theater of the Stars, the first permanenty theatrical stage in a planetarium (and, using electric motors, this stage actually expanded into the Theater of the Stars, when needed!). The Theater of the Stars was also the first planetarium theater (and, perhaps, the first theater !) to install a sound system specifically for the hearing-impaired; headsets used with this sound system were available for either air-conduction or bone-conduction of sound. With the start of World War II, Buhl Planetarium's Theater of the Stars was used to train military aviators in celestial navigation techniques.
An Astronomical Observatory was constructed for public use on the building's third floor, including two outdoor "wings" for the use of portable telescopes. The primary instrument for the Observatory, the rather unique 10-inch Siderostat-type Refractor Telescope, was not completed until 1941 November 19, with a dedication which included a keynote address by well-known twentieth century Astronomer Harlow Shapley (then, Director of the Harvard College Observatory).
The second largest Siderostat Telescope in use, and the only specifically designed for public use, this telescope allowed the public to view celestial objects in the warm Observing Room while the telescope remained in the often cold Telescope Room. As the telescope was permanently mounted on a concrete base, there was also no fear of a child accidentally bumping the telescope during an observing session.
Before completion of the Siderostat Telescope, the Observatory used a 4-inch Zeiss Trrestrial Refractor Telescope which had been purchased at the same time as the Zeiss II Planetarium Projector. However, Buhl Planetarium had orderd an astronomical refractor telescope, not a terrestrial refractor telescope from the Zeiss Optical Works in Jena, Germany. While a terrestrial refractor allows objects viewed to be right-side-up, an astronomical refractor provides an upside-down view of higher quality (for celestial objects, a right-side-up view is not necessary). The Buhl Planetarium staff were disappointed with the mistake in the order. However, with the outbreak of World War II in September of 1939, it was unlikely that the terrestrial telescope could be sent back to Germany and exchanged for an astronomical telescope. Hence, Buhl Planetarium learned to make-do with a terrestrial telescope, and now this telescope (in use during public observing sessions at The Carnegie Science Center, usually on clear Saturday evenings) has a very interesting history.
Historic Anecdote: On the same evening of the Observatory dedication, Buhl started a new Planetarium Sky Show and opened a new gallery exhibit. The Sky Show, regarding Celestial Navigation, was titled "Bombers by Starlight." The new exhibit, in Buhl's lower-level Octagon Gallery(which encircles the planetarium projector pit, below the planetarium theater) was titled "Can America Be Bombed?" This exhibit opened two and one-half weeks before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii!
Other facilities built as part of the Buhl Planetarium building included a 250-seat Lecture Hall (a.k.a. Little Science Theater), beautiful wood-paneled 800-volume Library, beautiful brass and marble Pendulum Pit with a Foucault Pendulum, Amateur Astronomers' Workshop, and a Club Room along with classrooms. In the beginning, Buhl Planetarium had several "talking" exhibits, including the Foucault Pendulum (the original speaker, the last remnant of these talking exhibits, can still be seen in the Pendulum Pit). At the push of a button, a visitor could activate a record turntable, remotely located in a special sound room (across the hallway from the Planetarium Sound Room), which would provide an audio explanation of the exhibit.
In addition to these specialized facilities, the Buhl Planetarium building has five exhibit galleries, two on the first floor and three on the lower level. The Main Gallery or Great Hall on the first floor includes the Foucault Pendulum, as well as access to the Theater of the Stars and the Little Science Theater. Originally, the Orrery and Weather Exhibit (which included current weather conditions from instruments mounted on the Observatory's East Wing) were also included in the Great Hall. In later years, the Great Hall would include the large Mercator's Projection Map of the World, Rand McNally Geo-Physcical Relief Globe, Eva Mirabal's mural of World War II parachutists later replaced by a mural of two 1960s satellites, steel industry mural from the U.S. Steel pavillion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City later painted over with The Rise of Steel Technology by Washington County artist Nat H. Youngblood, Minerals and Fossils in Our Region Exhibit produced by the Mineral and Lapidary Society of Pittsburgh, the "Phantom Planet" (PPG Industries) and Image/Imagination (Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and Society of Analytical Chemists) optical illusion exhibits, Gemmaux "Masterpieces in Glass" Exhibit (art works in lighted glass, including a work of Pablo Picasso) provided by PPG Industries, several "Science Serves Industry" exhibits, five planetary weight scales, BioCorner Embryology Exhibit (chicks, and occasionally ducklings, hatched each weekend), and of course the one-million volt Oudin-Type Tesla Coil.
The hallway on the east, west, and south sides of the Planetarium Theater included lighted picture boxes, inbedded into the wall, which would show photographs of astronomically-related objects and phenomema. Later, this hallway was used to house the NASA History of Manned Space Flight Exhibit (Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space missions), and even later classic push-button exhibits which had originally been displayed in the Hall of the Universe.
The second gallery on the first floor was originally known as the Hall of Astronomy, but later was named the Hall of the Universe. The Hall of the Universe included a couple dozen classic push-button exhibits in a dark exhibit hall lit only by black-lights (ultraviolet lights). Several large astronomical murals were hung in the Hall of the Universe.
Three large fragments of the large meteorite that impacted the Barringer Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona were displayed in a special display case at the entrance to the Hall of the Universe. In the mid-1980s, the largest of these fragments (fifth largest meteorite fragment from the crater) was displayed on a special movable pedestal, so people could touch it. As this fragment weighs 746 pounds (340 kilograms), there was no concern that a visitor could walk-off with it, although many people did try to move it (with little success), particularly teenagers who patronized the evening rock-and-roll music laser-light concerts shown in Buhl Planetarium's Theater of the Stars. However, as the other two fragments did not weigh as much, and could possibly have been stolen, they were placed in storage.
Two Life Sciences programs were performed in the Little Science Theater. Originally, a special instrument called an epideoscope projected life in a drop of water onto the Lecture Hall screen in a program called the Micro Zoo. Later, Transpara the Talking Glass Lady used a life-size transparent plastic model of a woman to show the organs of the body and how they worked, during a fifteen-minute, pre-recorded presentation; one presentation was for children and another for adults.
The three exhibit galleries on Buhl Planetarium's lower level, included the Mezzanine, Bowdish Gallery (originally called South Gallery), and the Octagon Gallery. For many years, the Mezzanine was home to the Bell Telephone Exhibit, which included such popular exhibits as the Cybernetic Tic-Tac-Toe (which used mechanical relays for the "computer" to play the game with the visitor) and the Picture Phone booths (where two visitors could talk to each other via real-time, black-and-white, video telephones).
The Mezzanine also included a bicycle, sponsored by Duquesne Light Company, where a visitor could pedel the bicycle to see how much electricity they could generate, displayed by how high a wattage light bulb would light-up. Along the north wall of the Mezzanine, generally between the men's and women's rest rooms (the rest rooms were built with walls of beautiful Sienna Marble) hung eight astronomical paintings by Pennsylvania artist and architect Daniel Owen Stephens. A photograph of one of thsse paintings, "The Old Astronomer," has been published in Astronomy textbooks, as well as in a 1961 black-and-white filmstrip for schools called "The Race for Space." A portait of Nicholas Copernicus was commissioned by the Polish Arts League of Pittsburgh.
Bowdish Gallery, which was the long-time home of the Miniature Railroad and Village, was named in honor of the Miniature Railroad's creator, Charles Bowdish, at a special dedication ceremony in November of 1983. For many years, the gallery was also used during the annual Pittsburgh Regional School Science and Engineering Fair (as was every gallery in the building) to display children's Science projects. However, by the 1980s, it was decided not to go to all of the trouble to completely tear-down, and then rebuild, the Miniature Railroad platform just for the Science Fair exhibition.
The Octagon Gallery was primarily used as a traveling exhibits gallery for many years. In June of 1983, the Computer Learning Lab (which replaced a smaller area with five Texas Instruments educational computers) was constructed in the east portion of the gallery, with more than a dozen Apple IIe personal computers, set-up in an early "LAN" network by Buhl Planetarium computer technician and planetarium lecturer John Fairman. Just outside of the Computer Lab, an early touch-screen computer called "Pixel Paint Pots" allowed the public to use their fingers to make colorful images on the computer screen. Later on, the west portion of the gallery was home to "The Right Moves," an exhibit on motion which included a popular pitching cage where the speed of a visitor pitching a baseball could be measured by a radar gun. Also, the front of the gallery included a recycling exhibit, sponsored by the ALCOA Corporation. In the center of the Octagon Gallery (named for the eight sides of the hall), away from public view, is the Zeiss Projector Pit where the planetarium projector is stored when not in use in the Theater of the Stars.
Other Buhl Planetarium programs included the static electricity presentation including the Van de Graaff electrostatic generator; annual Pittsburgh Regional School Science and Engineering Fair, the third oldest Science Fair in the United States (the oldest regional Science Fair in a major metropolitan area; the two older fairs are state-wide fairs); the annual Tropical Fish Show sponsored by the Greater Pittsburgh Aquarium Society (at the time, the longest such collaboration between a museum and a fish enthusiasts club); and the annual Summer "Solstice Day" event which included several special activities.
Operating a public museum, such as Buhl Planetarium, was not an inexpensive undertaking. In the first year, the Institute of Popular Science (the museum galleries) was free-of-charge to the public, while there was a small charge for admission to a planetarium show. After the first year, a small charge was added for Institute admission, primarily to discourage the homeless (known as bums and hobos back then) from spending the whole day in the heated or air-conditioned museum galleries (a problem that continues to plague public libraries).
While the Buhl Foundation continued providing a small annual subsidy, for the operation of Buhl Planetarium, more money was needed to keep pace with the ever-changing science and technology of the post-war era. In December of 1954, Buhl Planetarium presented the "Christmastown Railroad," which was a larger and more enhanced display of a miniature village and railroads that had been displayed formerly in the home of Brookville, Pennsylvania (about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh) creator Charles Bowdish. Well, this exhibit was an instant hit with Pittsburgh-area residents; people would stand in line for one, sometimes two, hours to see this exhibit. The Great Miniature Railroad and Village quickly became a Pittsburgh tradition at Buhl Planetarium. And, eventually, it came to the point where the revenues, received from the four months display of this one exhibit, pretty-much paid for the rest of the year's operation of Buhl Planetarium!
Buhl Planetarium had a long time period in the late 1960s and through the 1970s when little changed, primarily due to a lack of money. The Transpara the Talking Glass Lady presentation did begin during this period. Buhl Planetarium also started a sex-education program designed specifically for school groups called "Wonder of Wonders"; parental permission was required for a student to attend this program (and, special evening presentations of the program were scheduled for parents to preview the program).
In the late 1970s, "Laserium" laser-light music concerts premiered in the Buhl Planetarium's Theater of the Stars. Although some of these concerts consisted of classical music and Christmas holiday music, the most popular laser shows were the evening rock-and-roll music concerts attended by thousands of teenagers and young adults. Laser Images Company of Van Nuys, California started this new form of entertainment. In later years, Buhl laser shows were also produced by AVI (Audio Visual Imagineering) and Laser Fantasy companies. These entertainment shows, which were seen in many planetaria throughout the country, was another way to bring additional revenues to Buhl Planetarium.
However, despite these new programs, Buhl Planetarium was rapidly getting the reputation of becoming a stuffy old museum where little changed. An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, around 1980, documented the problems Buhl Planetarium was having keeping pace with changing science and technology. The Buhl Planetarium Board of Directors started bringing in new science staff members, and eventually new management, to deal with these problems.
In February of 1982, after nearly forty-three years of operating Buhl Planetarium, the Buhl Foundation decided they wanted to use their resources for other projects. So, they provided the newly named "Buhl Science Center" with a small endowment, and Buhl formed their own Board of Directors. A new President was hired, Joshua Whetzel, who had been President of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.
Well, with so many years that had gone by with little change, now Buhl Planetarium endured the oppositie extreme: rapid change of programs, exhibits, and staff. The new management sought a new emphasis in computers and robotics, considered the future industries of Pittsburgh. Many thought that this led to a deemphasis in astronomy and space sciences. Although Buhl's Institute of Popular Science had always included exhbits and programs from many other physical sciences, and a few life sciences, the Buhl Planetarium Theater of the Stars had always been the core of the institution. For practical (i.e. financial) reasons, this continued to be the case.
However, the new management was also actively seeking an expansion of Buhl Planetarium, or even construction of an entirely new Science Center facility. At first, they seriously considered constructing a large series of underground galleries, under the Allegheny Square plaza in front of Buhl Planetarium. An Ominimax Theater would be constructed above this underground gallery. The current Allegheny Square fountain, in the center of the pedestrian plaza (also in the center of a moderate-sized, outdoor amphitheater) would be moved to the eastern portion of the plaza.
Another possibility considered was to simply buy the large Allegheny Center Shopping Mall, a block south of Buhl Planetarium, and convert it into an expanded Buhl Science Center. The thinking was that this center city shopping mall would eventually not be viable as a retail center. Actually, this prediction turned out to be true. One-by-one the three shopping center anchors closed. The Zayre's Department Store was bought by the Ames chain; then Ames webt bankrupt and ahd to close many of the stores, including the Allegheny Center store. The Sears Department Store closed before its lease expired at the end of the twentieth century, after a new Sears store was built at the suburban Ross Park Mall (the other Sears store in the City, in East Liberty, also closed around the same time); despite a statement by Sears local management, in a newspaper article around 1980, that they could not build a store Downtown until their Allegheny Center lease expired, there was no attempt to build a new Sears store in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Finally, it was decided to build an entirely new facility, on the North Shore of the Ohio River. The City of Pittsburgh was extremely interested in the Science Center jump-starting development in this area, which had lagged for many years since the construction of Three Rivers Stadium in 1870, surrounded by seas of parking lots. A Gulf gasoline station, built to emulate the look of the new stadium was built shortly afterward, waiting for an accompanying Holiday Inn Hotel which was never built (at that time, Holiday Inn and Gulf had a cooperative arrangment to co-locate facilities). Eventually, the gasoline station was razed, which provided land that would eventually be used for the construction of The Carnegie Science Center. The Science Cenrer project started as a $32 million project, but grew to $37 million, particularly when it was decided that the building was not large enough; the final price tag was $40 million ($17 million came from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania).
At the beginning of the project, it was anticipated that the building would simply be known as the new Buhl Science Center. Buhl did get the exclusive right to build an Omnimax Theater in Pittsburgh. However, state and regional leaders felt Buhl was too small, with too poor a financial history, to operate such a large building. Hence, funding for the new Science Center building was not forthcoming from the state or the foundations.
To move the Science Center project forward, Buhl agreed to merge with the much larger Carnegie Institute (a.k.a. Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh), which legally occurred in January of 1987. From then on, Buhl was known as "Buhl Science Center, A Component of The Carnegie." However, for the new building The Carnegie Board of Trustees decided it would be called The Carnegie Science Center.
There was a lot of discussion of what would happen to the original Buhl Planetarium building. The Buhl Planetarium building is owned by the City of Pittsburgh, and then-Pittsburgh Richard S. Caliguiri (who died in office of a rare blood disorder called amyloidosis, on 1988 May 6) made it clear that he expected the Science Center to continue operating the original building; the City of Pittsburgh did not want a vacant building on its hands, in such a prominent location. So, through what could be called a "gentleman's agreement," the Science Center agreed to operate both the new and original Science Center buildings.
There was also discussion of what to do with Buhl Planetarium's original Zeiss II Planetarium Projector. Science Center Director Alphonse DeSena wanted to move the historic projector to the new Science Center building, where it would be put on display as a non-working exhibit, a sort-of sculpture to the past. The author, strongly lobbied against moving the projector to someplace where it could not be used. And, despite pressure from his boss (the Science Center Director), Planetarium Director Paul Oles insisted that the Zeiss Projector must remain in the original Buhl Planetarium building.
The author, among others, was asked to submit proposals of how to reuse the building. Finally, it was decided that the original Buhl Planetarium building would be used as a turtorial center, the home to all of the Science Center's astronomy, science, and computer classes. This had the added advantage of freeing up additional exhibit space in the new Science Center building, since there would be no need to build classroom space in the new building.
The original Buhl Planetarium closed as a public museum on 1991 August 31, the Saturday of the Labor Day weekend. The author had proposed, in a memorandum, that Buhl Planetarium remain open through the entire Labor Day weekend, which would mean additional revenues for the Science Center (as The Carnegie Science Center was not scheduled to open until October) and nothing would be moved to the new building until the day after Labor Day anyway. The Science Center management, only thinking about the new facility, rejected this proposal.
After the public operating hours concluded at 5:00 p.m. EDST on 1991 August 31, there was a special, invitation-only final museum event for Buhl Planetarium members and special friends that evening. The author arranged for the visitors that evening to view the Planet Saturn in the 10-inch Siderostat-type Refractor Telescope of the Buhl Planetarium Observatory; Saturn had been the first object viewed by the public when the Observatory was dedicated on 1941 November 19.
The Carnegie Science Center was dedicated and opened to the general public on 1991 October 5, following a parade that marched the one mile from the original Buhl Planetarium building in Allegheny Center to the new Science Center building on the north shore of the Ohio River. However, the new Science Center did not meet financial projections in the first year of operation. This is despite the fact that public building hours were reduced, admission prices were increased, and more than 30 staff members (several of them long-time Buhl Planetarium employees!) were laid-off, all in the first year of operation. It is now obvious that The Carnegie Science Center had been much too optimistic in their financial projections, and hence, had hired too many people and had expanded public hours to too many evenings.
By contrast, the Buhl Planetarium building, in it new incarnation as the Allegheny Square Annex tutorial center, was in the black financially, due to the tuitions for the various classes. The only exception to this was in the Summer when the air-conditioning was in use (Note: the third floor Observing Room of the Observatory was heated, but never air-conditioned; the Telescope Room was never heated nor air-conditioned, due to the need to keep heat from disrupting the telescope image).
The author wrote a 1994 January 3 letter to then-Carnegie Institute President Ellsworth Brown asking that the decision to completely close the original Buhl Planetarium building be reconsidered. The author received no reply to this letter, and the closing of the building took place as scheduled.
It is the opinion of the author that money-saving reasons were only one consideration in the closure. Another may have been the embarrassment that the new Science Center building continued to be troubled financially, while the original Buhl Planetarium building pretty-much paid its own way; so, they got rid of this embarrassment!
During the Spring of 1994, the Carnegie maintenance staff completely emptied the Buhl Planetarium building, by disposing of nearly everything that had not been moved to The Carnegie Science Center. The only things that were not disposed of were major pieces of equipment artifacts and anything, such as the epideoscope, that looked valuable. The author, and another former Buhl Planetarium employee, Tim Barczy (who has authored a second Internet web site on the history of Buhl Planetarium) saved a few things found in the dumpster, at the rear of Buhl Planetarium. The author also noticed that the incubator and hatchery, from the very successful BioCorner Embryology Exhibit (which hatched chicks, and occasionally ducklings, each weekend) had also been thrown in the dumpster. The author telephoned a Carnegie Science Center staff member, who had been involved in the BioCorner operation, and suggested that she should save this valuable equipment before the dumpster is emptied; it is not apparent that this equipment was preserved.
Ib the following months, there was a lot of speculation regarding what would happen to the Buhl Planetarium building. One staff member later stated that Carnegie management had made inquiries to the cost of demolishing the building.
As the building is owned by the City of Pittsburgh, the author contacted the City Councilman for the North Side, Dan Onorato (now Allegheny County Chief Executive). The timing of this inquiry was quite fortunate. Councilman Onorato invited the author to attend a special meeting that was soon to be held in the Mayor's Office, regarding the future of the Buhl Planetarium building.
This meeting, held in the Mayor's Office in June of 1994, included several city and civic leaders, including Carnegie Insitute President Ellsworth Brown and his assistant Lorene Vinski (Ms. Vinski had been one of the supervisors of the author at Buhl Planetarium). Also in attendance was Gerald Voros, who had been appointed by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy as one of the City's two representatives on the Board of Directors of the newly-formed Allegheny Regional Asset District (ARAD). ARAD had been authorized by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, in a lame-duck session in November of 1993, to distribute the proceeds of one-half of a new one percent sales and use tax, that the Allegheny County Commissioners had levied in Allegheny County, to subsidize "regional assets" (i.e. libraries, parks, museums, sports venues, and other cultural organizations). Depending on what the Buhl Planetarium would be used for, it may need a subsidy from ARAD.
At the very beginning of the meeting, after each person introduced themselves, the Mayor's Special Assistant, Tom Cox (who was chairing the meeting; the Mayor did not attend) asked if demolition of the building should be considered. I hesitated for a moment, to see what other attendees would say. After a few seconds, when it became obvious that no one else was going to say anything, I emphatically stated, "Heavens no !" Fortunately, no one disputed my statement. Hence, it is certainly possible that my short statement saved the Buhl Planetarium building from the wrecking ball!
The meeting proceeded considering several possible new uses for the Buhl Planetarium building. However, with no funding yet earmarked for any such option, the meeting ended with no firm decisions made.
In the meantime, rumors were circulating that The Carnegie Science Center was planning to sell the historic Zeiss II Planetarium Projector and 10-inch Siderostat-type Refractor Telescope, possibly to the Astronauts Memorial Planetarium and Observatory near Cape Canaveral, Florida. After conducting some legal research, the author wrote a 1994 October 24 (55th anniversary of Buhl Planetarium) letter to the new Carnegie Science Center Director, Ssddon Bennington, providing legal documentation that the Zeiss II Projector was property of the City of Pittsburgh, and The Carnegie Science Center could not sell the projector without approval of Pittsburgh City Council. No reply to this letter was received by the author.
As time went on, the author attempted to gain the support of the Amateur Astronomers' Association of Pittsburgh, in the effort to keep the historic Buhl Planetarium equipment and artifacts in Pittsburgh. As mentioned earlier in this article, the Amateur Astronomers' Association had been instrumental in the creation of the original Buhl Planetarium. However, club members were uneasy about being dragged into a political controversy, particularly one which may estrange the club from The Carnegie Science Center. Hence, in March of 1995, the club membership voted to take no official position on the controversy.
In April of 1995, suddenly without warning, a bill was introduced in Pittsburgh City Council to transfer ownership of several historic Buhl Planetarium artifacts to The Carnegie Science Center. The author immediately secured the signatures of 25 City residents on a petition to temporarily stop the transfer, until a public hearing could be held before Pittsburgh City Council.
The public hearing occurred in the Pittsburgh City Council Chamber on the afternoon of 1995 May 18. Ten speakers spoke against the sale of the Zeiss Projector and Siderostat Telescope. Also, 33 letters were submitted to City Council, from other people who could not attend the hearing--all opposed to the sale of the Zeiss Projector and Siderostat Telescope. In fact, two of these letters had just been faxed that morning from former Buhl Planetarium staff members living in Honolulu and Boston.
One speaker, from the North Side Chamber of Commerce, took no position on the sale, but said they would like to see the Buhl Planetarium building placed back into use.
Carnegie Science Center Director Dr. Seddon Bennington, and Planetarium Director Paul Oles spoke in favor of the sale. Also, regrettably, a member of the Amateur Astronomers' Association spoke in favor of the sale, wanting to support his "good" friends at the Science Center. And, although the astronomy club had officially decided to not take an official stand on the controversy, this club member implied that he spoke for the entire club.
City Council was in a quandary. They really do not like to contradict a recommendation by officials of a major city museum, such as The Carnegie Science Center--officials who are supposed to be the experts in these matters and are supposed to be doing what is in the best interests of city residents (although City Council was not happy that the Science Center had nearly executed a sale of city property, without their knowledge). Yet, a very convincing case had been made that the Zeiss Projector and Siderostat Telescope were extremely significant to the history of Pittsburgh.
City Council would probably have stopped the sale anyway. But, the author gave City Council the perfect excuse, so that they could save-face in front of the Science Center officials. The author provided documentation that proved that, on 1938 August 23, City Council had authorized the Mayor to enter into a legal agreement with the U.S. Customs Service that clearly stated that the City of Pittsburgh agreed to never sell the Zeiss Projector! In return for that agreement, the U.S. Customs Service waived all import duties on the importation of the Zeiss Projector (and, likely, also the 4-inch Zeiss Terrestrial Refractor Telescope) from Germany. When City Council members asked the City's Director of General Services about the legality of this Customs Service agreement, the Director of General Services simply said she was aware of the agreement and they were investigating it further. That was good enough for City Council. City Council members, simply, took no official action on the proposed sale of the Zeiss and Siderostat--and, hence, the sale simply died. There was talk about setting up some type of committee to determine what to do about the building and artifacts. To my knowledge, nothing really happened on this proposal
