Travel Channel spotlights Pitt’s Cathedral

Editor’s Note: This PBRTV contributor is a University of Pittsburgh employee. Opinions expressed and stories chosen for PBRTV do not necessarily reflect those of the university or its affiliates.

It’s not the bar in Boston where everybody knows your name, but Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning was good enough for former “Cheers” star John Ratzenberger.

Host of the Travel Channel documentary series “Made in America,” Ratzenberger and a camera crew in November toured the iconic skyscraper classroom building at the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland.

The resulting footage will appear on Wednesday’s episode, according to the university’s newspaper, Pitt Chronicle. The show airs at 9:30 p.m.

Ratzenberger talked to Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and other university staffers about the building’s unique history, its one-of-a-kind “Nationality Rooms,” and the peregrine falcons that nest on its roof.

A 42-story building designed in “Gothic Revival” style, the Cathedral of Learning was designed in the 1920s, but Depression financial conditions slowed construction. Thousands of Pittsburgh area schoolchildren helped raise money for the work.