Father Pitt

Why should the beautiful die?

St. Peter’s Church, North Side

St. Peter’s Church

Andrew Peebles was the architect of St. Peter’s, which was dedicated in 1874. In 1876, it became the cathedral of the new Roman Catholic Diocese of Allegheny, carved out of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which was left with all the debt while the new Diocese of Allegheny took all the rich churches. That went about as well as you might expect, and in 1877 the Diocese of Allegheny was suppressed and its territory reabsorbed by Pittsburgh. But a church never quite gets over being a cathedral.

West front of St. Peter’s, North Side

In 1886, a fire ravaged the building and left nothing but the walls standing. Fortunately Peebles’ original plans were saved, and so the restoration, which took a year and a half, was done to the original design.

Perspective view
St. Peter’s
St. Peter’s
Front of the rectory

The rectory was built with a stone front to match the church, but the rest of the house is brick.

Rectory
Rectory
Nikon COOLPIX P100.

We also have a picture of the front of St. Peter’s at night.

See a random picture
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Father Pitt

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One response to “St. Peter’s Church, North Side”

  1. von Hindenburg

    I used to love going here for holy days of obligation when I worked on the North Shore. It really would still make a fine cathedral.

    The Allegheny diocese just never made sense. At that time, there weren’t any other dioceses in western PA, aside from Erie. So you had these two dioceses with cathedrals nearly in sight of one another, both with massive, lightly populated hinterlands stretching off into the state. Waiting a few years, followed by erecting Altoona-Johnstown, followed by Greensburg, with their cathedrals and administrative centers in more central locations just made more sense.

    Reply

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