Opening Shots#

Before talking about The Pitt, we must first talk about the first Jack Reacher film starting Tom Cruise. This movie fatally misunderstood Pittsburgh geography and the sun. As detailed on IMDB, and in the scene on YouTube, Jack Reacher states that the sun would have been in the shooters eyes when this occurred in the morning. In reality, the sun would have been at his back. Later he talks about the bridge that could have been used with the sun behind it. But, as shown in the image below, the sun is behind Mount Washington, which would have been at sunset, not sunrise. If a movie where a major plot point is the position of the sun makes this mistake, then are there high hopes for a medical procedural drama?

As perfect parallel to the above image, the opening shot to The Pitt shows the Fort Duquesne bridge from the other direction, but still showing the sun in the background. Yet both of these were supposed to show a morning in Pittsburgh. The Pitt got this right with their beautiful arial shot of downtown on a hazy morning.

The next shot shows Heinz Field with the correct morning sunlight as well, further indicating that these initial arial shots were filmed first thing in the morning. As an aside, I do know I referenced Acrisure Stadium as the older Heinz Field name, but most from Pittsburgh would usually refer to original names/nicknames such as the old Igloo/Civic Arena.

Diving even deeper into the lore, people have projected that season 1 must take place on either September 5th 2025, or September 19th, 2025. Based on the sunrise times in September of 2025, I would actually conclude it was September 5th since sunrise would have been at 6:51AM, which very closely lines up with the opening shot. On September 19th, sunrise would have been at 7:04AM, which is maybe a hair too late for the shot as people are arriving. In either case, the timing is very accurate, especially when compared to Jack Reacher.

Ambulance 45#

Our next shot shows an ambulance, specifically ambulance 45, going over the Rachel Carson bridge from downtown towards the North Shore. This is the most up-river of the Three Sisters bridges. This is the correct direction to head towards Allegheny General Hospital (AGH), which is the stand-in for Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center (PTMC) in The Pitt and used for the external scenes.

As we continue along, our next shot is of ambulance 45 passing Robby walking into PTMC. This occurs at the intersection of Center Ave and Suisman St. The shots below show Robby crossing just after the ambulance, and the corresponding street view linked above. The direction of travel is correct for both, and this would be the likely path ambulance 45 would follow to PTMC.

After a breakaway to Robby walking, which we will get back to in a minute, we see ambulance 45 in the background, at the top of the entrance into AGH. (I’ll get back to how this isn’t the right location in real life to go to the AGH ER) This location is directly at the end of Cedar Ave where it tees with E North Ave, so the direction of travel and ending location is very realistic. Amazingly there is Google Street View from August 15 that shows a shot very close to what we see on The Pitt.

The last piece of information about ambulance 45, is that each medic or ambulance unit in Pittsburgh has a home location. The map below shows the locations of the nearby ER facilities as well as all of the medic unit bases in Pittsburgh. As can be seen, ambulance 45 very far east of the AGH/PTMC and we only see the very end of its drive, indicated in the blue line. While there are several hospitals, such as West Penn closer to where ambulance 45 would most likely respond to, it would not be unreasonable to have it responding to the Strip District, where AGH would be about the same distance as other nearby ERs. I find this as the most reasonable explanation. Since ambulance units are a basic life support (BLS) unit, whereas the medic units are advanced life support (ALS), it would be less likely they would be carrying a high level trauma case.

Overall, the path of travel for ambulance 45 is very realistic. It could reasonably have had a call where PTMC would have been the logical destination. The trip across the Rachel Carson bridge and up Cedar Ave would be the fastest way to get where it stopped at the entrance. The only unrealistic part is an ambulance wouldn’t be going to there at PTMC or AGH, but we will see that in later discussions.

Robby’s Walk to Work#

As discussed above, we first see Robby first as ambulance 45 passes him at Cedar Ave and Suisman St. While we do not know where Robby lives, many Pittsburgh busses have stops in downtown Pittsburgh. While many routes now do go to places other than downtown, a lot of routes still use downtown as the terminus. Many of those bus stops are a 20-30 minute walk to PTMC, which could be a way for Robby to ease into the morning. Given that in season 2 we see Robby cross the Rachel Carson bridge on his way into work, this doesn’t contradict his walking path.

Immediately after the ambulance passes we see Robby dodge a tree and then cross the street. This area is just north of the intersection he just crossed, and the door with the distinct red circular medallions along the frame is visible in the shot of him dodging the tree, crossing the street, and in Google Street View. I do not know why Robby jaywalked at this location, given it comes to a tee where he would later meet up with the ambulance, but it does look more dramatic than crossing at a crosswalk.

We do not know the full path of Robby’s walk, but the image below shows his path as we were able to see and infer based on the cuts. Overall it is a normal walking path (minus maybe the jaywalking) to get to the PTMC main entrance.

PTMC vs AGH#

At this point, we need to discuss the fundamental differences between the fictional PTMC and the actual Allegheny General Hospital. The image below shows where Dr. Robby entered the hospital, with the ER entrance directly below it (which we will discuss soon). In real life, this entrance has often been closed at the hospital and the lower entrance is for employees only. In reality, both the ER and main entrances are around the corner, ironically with the ER being on top of the main entrance. The ambulance entrance is also right next to the main ER entrance, which doesn’t match the ambulance bay we see later on. It does make sense that you can’t really film at the level 1 trauma hospital actual ER entrance, especially with all of the change in signage for filming. Also, from an artistic point of view, both PTMC “entrances” are far prettier to look at and film with.

As we continue to follow Robby into the building, the next shots are in the main lobby of the South Tower.

I believe that they conveniently kept the camera shot low in the lobby to prevent it showing any of the AGH signage up higher in the room. This signage would be right above the “Hospital” sign.

I am not 100% certain, but I do believe that Robby entering the stairwell is in AGH, and the cut occurs somewhere in the stairwell to the soundstage in California. Part of this is the change in the sign for Level 1 in the first shot, to A in the second shot. I do appreciate that they maintained the accuracy of PTMC where he did enter above the ER and is going downstairs to enter it.

The last bit I would like to do as a comparison between AGH and PTMC is the actual ER waiting room. The actual AGH ER waiting room was rather sterile the last time I was there. The set designers for The Pitt actually made the design to be much more in line with the main building of AGH. I especially like the marble columns with ornamentation and flooring, as well as the the ample use of yellow brick. Both of these really tie together the space to feel like it is part of the outdoor entry and lobby we just saw.

Dr. Abbot Roof Scene#

The roof scene with Dr. Abbott is an actual rooftop that is part of the AGH complex, although not the main building Robby entered or the ER is in. This was filmed in Pittsburgh, on site, and is accurate. Like the opening scenes, it was filmed early in the morning based on the sun location, so the time of day for the shoot was accurate as well.

With the location of the stairs in the background here would be the location of where this was filmed. If you have already seen season 2, you’ll see this same set of stairs in the background of episode 15.

The look downwards shows the helipad matches where Abbott was standing. Since this was filmed on location, the helipad, rest of the hospital, and skyline are all accurate.

Chase Out of the ER#

At the end of the episode, we see Robby chasing the troubled teen out the PTMC ER entrance. We can see that it is directly below the entrance Robby used at the start. This also matches the street view of the location as well.

The teen makes a left turn and runs down E North Avenue, crossing it before Moravian Way. The street view confirms where David was running, just outside of the PTMC ER entrance.

Finally we can roughly trace his path and see that while this is a short run, the creators chose to maintain continuity and were not tempted to film on another nearby street that was more photogenic.

Summary & Rating#

All of the Google Earth and Street Views are linked above but also can be found in my shared Google Earth map.

For the first episode, the Pittsburgh scenery was overall pretty accurate. Except for the AGH and PTMC ERs being in different locations, there were no major location errors in the filming. There are some minor questions like why Robbie crossed the road or why the ambulance parked at the main entrance. But none of these are major factual errors like some other shows (including this one later) make. Overall, I would give this an A for being accurate to the locations within the city, their continuity, and using actual shots of the city and buildings.