Father Pitt

Category: Carnegie

Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Carnegie

The mad genius, con man, and would-be dictator Titus de Bobula designed this church, which was built in 1906. Today and tomorrow the congregation is holding its annual Ukrainian food festival, which seems like a good time to celebrate the church and its ancillary buildings with a longer look than we’ve taken in the past.

The church has a complicated history, which you can read about on the parish site. We summarize it here. The congregation began as “St. Peter & St. Paul Russian Greek Catholic Church,” but what did “Greek Catholic” mean? The church was originally Byzantine Catholic, and just a few years after it was founded some members with Orthodox sympathies founded Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church, whose blue domes you see just down the street. Then the church separated from the Roman church and briefly became Orthodox; then for quite some time it was independent; then its priest put it back in the Byzantine Catholic orbit; then there were lawsuits; and finally, in 1951, the church became Ukrainian Orthodox, as it still is. (The Byzantine Catholics founded their own church, which still flourishes as Holy Trinity on Washington Avenue.)

This date stone seems to mark extensive renovations in 1961.

The original 1906 cornerstone is engraved in Titus de Bobula’s own distinctive Art Nouveau lettering—the same instantly recognizable lettering he used to sign his architectural renderings. On the other exposed side of the stone, we get to see his style applied to the Cyrillic alphabet.

Next to the church is the parish hall and school, which was designed by Harry H. Lefkowitz in 1928. Lefkowitz caught some of De Bobula’s quirks—note the tall, narrow blind side arches and the stonework over the central arch, for example—and created a building that fits with the church without being simply an imitation.

Finally, the rectory is a simple house, but built of the same brick and with quoins proportioned to echo the brickwork of the church next to it.

Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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September 12, 2025
First Methodist Episcopal Church, Carnegie

Built in about 1893, this church was designed by James N. Campbell, who gave it his usual outsized corner tower with enormous open arches for the belfry. It was later known as Carnegie United Methodist Church, which left it a few years ago. But it appears to have been adopted as a community center by the prospering Attawheed Islamic Center next door in the old Presbyterian church, which the new owners obviously treasure and pour a lot of labor into, so we hope the future of the building is secure.

Olympus E-20N; Canon PowerShot SX150IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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September 10, 2025
Congregation Ahavath Achim, Carnegie

Ahavath Achim (“Brotherly Love”) is an independent Jewish congregation that describes itself as “traditional, but egalitarian,” meaning that women and men participate equally in traditional Hebrew services. The synagogue was founded in 1903, and the modest and tidy little building blends two styles so successfully that drivers on busy Chestnut Street probably don’t notice the blending. When you stop and look, though, you can see that the foyer is a modernist addition on an early-twentieth-century synagogue (built in 1937, according to a correspondent). The bricks are matched, however, and the sharply drawn lines of the addition seem to fit well with the early-modern rectangularity of the main building.

Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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August 23, 2025
Church of the Atonement, Carnegie

Utility cables were removed from this picture, because Father Pitt could not remove them from the street.

With almost complete confidence, old Pa Pitt attributes this Episcopal church to Ingham & Boyd. It speaks the same dialect of Gothic as some of their other churches, and they are known to have designed the parish house that was built just before the church. However, Father Pitt has not yet found the documentary evidence that would remove the “almost” from his statement.

The cornerstone was laid on October 5, 1930. At the same time, one stone taken from the foundation of Old St. Luke’s in nearby Woodville was also laid in the foundation of this church, to tie it to the pre-Revolutionary tradition of Episcopalianism in Allegheny County.¹

Olympus E-20N.

This parish house is known from several listings to have been the work of Ingham & Boyd,² and it was built just a little before the church itself. The architects looked to vernacular Western Pennsylvania farmhouses for their inspiration. We do not know what inspired the designer of the modern vestibule.

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August 10, 2025
Old Post Office, Carnegie

Olympus E-20N.

Oscar Wenderoth was director of the Office of the Supervising Architect, which was responsible for designing federal buildings all over the country. Even though he was in office for only about three years, from 1912 to 1915, those were very productive years, and the nation is littered with post offices that bear his name. This one is typical of the buildings put up under his supervision—respectably classical, with big arched windows to let light pour into the main lobby. The post office has moved into a much duller building down the street, but as the Carnegie Coffee Company this building is beautifully kept and a lively gathering place for the town.

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August 9, 2025
Harding School, Carnegie

In 1922, President Harding was popular—just about as popular as any president since Washington had ever been. He was a little less popular a few years later, after he had died and members of his circle who had not shot themselves began serving prison terms. But the name seems not to have been enough of an embarrassment to change the inscription on the school. It retains that inscription in its new life as a retirement home more than a century later.

The first school on this site was the old Chartiers Public School (we assume the date 1878 refers to the building of that school). In 1922, this much larger building went up around the old school—for it appears that the original school may still exist, invisible under a layer of 1922 construction.

The architect of the new school was Frank M. Crooks, the M. standing for McCandless, who was a lifelong resident of the little town of McDonald west of Carnegie.

Olympus E-20N; Samsung A15 5G.

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August 1, 2025
Deutche Vereinigte Evangelische-Protestantische Johannes Kirche, Carnegie

This old church was built in 1872, just a few years after the Civil War. It is now (according to neighbors) used for storage of lumber and building materials. Because money is not spent on extensive alterations, storage is, from a preservation point of view, one of the best uses that can be found for a church. Several Southern churches from the 1600s were preserved because they were turned into barns in the late 1700s, when the future Bible Belt was the most irreligious section of the country.

Inscription: “St. John’s German United Evangelical Protestant Church, A. D. 1872.”

Olympus E-20N; Samsung A15 5G.

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July 27, 2025
Chartiers Creek, Carnegie

Chartiers Creek, as it runs through the middle of Carnegie, is a placid minor river—most of the time. Every once in a while it becomes a raging demon and floods most of the town. Here we see the Main Street bridge, with the Husler Building at right.

Olympus E-20N.

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July 24, 2025
A Stroll on East Main Street in Carnegie

Main Street in Carnegie has a good assortment of styles from mid-Victorian on. Here we walk up the eastern half of the street, taking in a few of the buildings we haven’t separately noted.

Olympus E-20N; Nikon COOLPIX P100; Sony Alpha 3000.

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June 13, 2025
Dual Presbyterians in Carnegie

This church, formerly First Presbyterian of Carnegie, now belongs to the Attawheed Islamic Center, which keeps the building up beautifully and lavishes a lot of attention on the landscaping. We can see from an old postcard from the Presbyterian Historical Society collection (undated, but probably about 1900) that this side of the building has hardly changed at all—except for the improvement in the landscaping. Even the stained glass is intact, since it is not representational and therefore causes no offense to Islamic principles.

At least two layers of educational buildings are behind the church.

Diagonally across Washington Avenue is another Presbyterian church…

…but this one was First United Presbyterian. The United Presbyterians were a Pittsburgh-based denomination that finally merged with those other Presbyterians in 1958. The building now is used as a banquet hall.

Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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June 8, 2025