Wilkinsburg’s own Milligan & Miller designed this rambling Gothic church, which is still in use by its original congregation, now South Avenue United Methodist. “One of the most important additions to the structural beauty of the place,” said a 1907 Pittsburg Press feature on Wilkinsburg,1 “will be the new South Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, which is to replace the old burned down last February. It is to cost $125,000 and will be one of the finest church buildings in the community. The construction is under the charge of Architects Milligan & Miller, who designed the plans.”
The architect of this Byzantine-modern church was Charles J. Pepine, who designed a number of postwar churches in our area.1 It was dedicated in 1949 under the name “Nativity of Our Lady”; later it was known as Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, but it was usually just called St. Mary’s. It closed in 2010. Some attempts were made to turn the building into apartments, but they ran into objections from neighbors and we know not what other troubles; currently the building is vacant, though with building permits dated 2015 and 2019 in the front window.
The distinctive high domes of these towers were not part of the original plan when the new church was first announced in September of 1948, as we can see from this sketch by the architect.
If there must be parking lots, they should be marked by architectural elements in keeping with their buildings—like these pillars at the parking-lot entrance for St. Mary’s.
This fine corner-tower church, whose cornerstone was laid in 1911, was designed by O. M. Topp and Charles M. Hutchison.1 The plan was probably made in 1906, when a small chapel was put up with the intention of building the larger church when there was enough money. This is one of the very rare cases, incidentally, where the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation is wrong. The PHLF plaque has the church designed by F. Hoffman & Co.; but F. Hoffman & Co., was a Wilkinsburg contractor (probably the one that got the contract for the building), not an architectural firm.
The congregation is gone, but some attempt is being made to restore the building as a Center for Civic Arts. Old Pa Pitt wishes the Center good fortune, because this fine building deserves to have a future, and Wilkinsburg deserves art. As we can see from this old postcard from the Presbyterian Historical Society collection, the building has hardly been altered at all:
The congregation prospered, and in 1928 a large educational wing was built—now abandoned and in bad shape. The architect was Lawrence Wolfe, with O. M. Topp—by then one of the grand old men of Pittsburgh architecture—listed as “associate architect.”2
A church in a typical Pittsburgh interpretation of Perpendicular Gothic. The stubby battlemented towers make it look like a chapel built into the wall of a castle; we would guess that the larger one was meant to hold up a spire. The white Kittanning brick gives some of the effect of stone without the expense of stone.
Addendum: The architect was John A. Long; the church was built in about 1911.1
Update: Thanks to our correspondent David Schwing, we know the story of this church better. It was a Shingle-style frame church dedicated at the end of 1896.1 In 1953, it was “Perma-Stoned,”2 so that the end result is an odd mixture of Shingle-style forms—like the flared roof—and 1950s aesthetics.
The original text of the article follows.
Father Pitt is not quite sure what to call this style: maybe arts-and-crafts Mediterranean.
The corner-tower entrance is typical of Pittsburgh churches, but the stone porch is not.
The arches and spindly columns of the belfry are the touch that says “Mediterranean” to old Pa Pitt.
From this angle we can see that the building has the usual Pittsburgh problems to solve: the lot gains almost two floors’ worth of height from lower to upper corner.
The star-spangled blue dome of this church is an almost startling sight rising above the streets of downtown McKeesport. The church, generally known as “St. Mary’s” by locals, was built in 1974 from a design by Sergei Padukow,1 a specialist in Russian churches who adapted very traditional Russian forms to a late-twentieth-century style.
The serviceable canopy over the side entrance replaced a much more characteristic original, as we see in this 1970s photograph.
From “Our Eastern Domes, Fantastic, Bright…,” by James D. Van Trump. PHLF; reprinted from Carnegie Magazine.
A comparison with this illustration of “a characteristic church” in Moscow (from from John L. Stoddard’s Lectures, 1898) shows us how neatly Padukow adapted traditional Russian forms to a modern idiom.
An Orthodox church founded by members of Sts. Peter & Paul next door who fell on the Orthodox side rather than the Byzantine Catholic side—though Sts. Peter & Paul would swing Orthodox years later. The blue domes, next to the gold domes of Sts. Peter & Paul, are one of the most striking features of the view of Carnegie from the Parkway.
We believe that the architect was Daniel A. Crone, notable for the Kaiser Torah synagogue and the old Tree of Life, later the Public Theater, demolished a few years ago. In August of 1919, he was taking bids “for a Greek Catholic Church for St. Mary’s Greek Catholic Church, Carnegie, Pennsylvania.”1 Russian Orthodox churches were often described as “Greek Catholic” in those days, and this one is dedicated to the Intercession of the Holy Virgin and built in 1920, so the attribution is very likely.
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.
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.
