Father Pitt

Category: Churches

  • Church of the Atonement, Carnegie

    Church of the Atonement
    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.

    Cornerstone of the Church of the Atonement

    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

    Door of the Church of the Atonement
    Foliage ornament
    Lantern
    Cross on the roof
    Church of the Atonement
    Parish house
    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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  • Noblestown Methodist Episcopal Church

    Noblestown Methodist Episcopal Church
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Yesterday we looked at the Oakdale Public School, one of the earliest commissions for James E. Allison. Here, just a short distance to the west in the old village of Noblestown, is another Allison building1 from a little over a year later—a small frame church that, although it has been coated with artificial siding, still retains some of its distinctive character. The form is the irregular square popular in small Romanesque churches of Victorian times, but the details are Georgian, including the big window. The half-round protrusion in front indicates a Sunday-school room built on the popular Akron Plan. The congregation dissolved a few years ago, but the building is in use by a veterans’ organization called Heroes Supporting Heroes.

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  • Gustavus Adolphus Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church, Bloomfield

    Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church (Evaline Lutheran)

    Gustavus Adolphus was a Swedish congregation that began in Lawrenceville, but in 1908 it bought this lot at Evaline Street and Friendship Avenue. O. M. Topp, the favorite architect among Lutherans, was commissioned to design this imposing Gothic building.1

    Rendering of proposed church by O. M. Topp
    Topp’s design, from “Cornerstone Laid in Storm,” Pittsburgh Gazette Times, July 13, 1908.

    The cornerstone was laid in a howling storm on July 13, 1908,2 and the church was completed in seven months—except for the main auditorium. It seems the congregation ran short of money and worshiped in the basement social room for several years. The main church was finally finished in 1916.

    Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church (Evaline Lutheran)

    The church is now called Evaline Lutheran, but it is still Lutheran, and its spires still point heavenward—an unusual survival: probably a majority of churches of the era have lost their spires and must be content with bareheaded towers. It also has not been cleaned of its historic soot, making it one of our increasingly rare black stone churches.

    Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church (Evaline Lutheran)
    Olympus E-20N; Samsung A15 5G.

    The Tudor-style parsonage next door was also designed by Topp and built at the same time; it was connected with the church through the pastor’s study.

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  • Beechview Christian Church

    Beechview Christian Church

    T. Ed. (for Thomas Edward) Cornelius was the architect of this little Arts-and-Crafts Gothic church.1 Cornelius was a lifelong resident of Coraopolis, but he flourished for decades as a designer of small to medium-sized projects all over the Pittsburgh area. This building has not been a church for quite a while, but its current owners keep it up neatly, though they have adapted it to radically different uses.

    Beechview Christian Church
    Beechview Christian Church
    Olympus E-20N.
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  • Deutche Vereinigte Evangelische-Protestantische Johannes Kirche, Carnegie

    Deutche Vereinigte Evangelische-Protestantische Johannes Kirche

    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.

    Deutche Vereinigte Evangelische-Protestantische Johannes Kirche
    Inscription

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

    Ornament
    Deutche Vereinigte Evangelische-Protestantische Johannes Kirche
    Olympus E-20N; Samsung A15 5G.
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  • Old St. Luke’s Church

    Sign for Old Saint Luke’s Church

    Built in 1852 for a congregation established in 1765, Old St. Luke’s is a picturesque country church with a churchyard stuffed with Revolutionary War veterans. For some time it was abandoned and falling to bits, but over the past few decades careful restoration has gradually turned it into a picture-perfect wedding chapel. Much work has recently been put into the churchyard, with illegible tombstones supplemented by new granite monuments that duplicate the old inscriptions.

    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Plaque honoring General John Neville

    This plaque honors congregation founder John Neville, George Washington’s childhood friend and the man who, as tax collector for the district, found himself on the wrong side of the Whiskey Rebellion. His house at Bower Hill was burned by the rebels. The plaque was installed only when everyone who would have spat on it was dead.

    Witness Tree

    This huge oak is probably as old as the congregation, and certainly older than the present building. It was recently recognized as a “witness tree”—a tree that has seen the whole history of the United States from the beginning. Wisely, the tree keeps its opinions on that history to itself.

    Plaque for the Witness Tree
    Witness Tree
    Old St. Luke’s Church
    Sony Alpha 3000; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • St. Mary Memorial Protestant Episcopal Church, Oakland

    Gate to the church

    It feels like a little old country church in the middle of the city—and indeed, when this church was built in 1899, it was in the middle of a wide open space, with only two other houses on this block of the newly constructed McKee Place. By 1910, the block had filled in with apartment buildings and other accoutrements of city life, but the gated front yard of this church still leaves an impression of village serenity.

    St. Mary Memorial Protestant Episcopal Church, Oakland (Pittsburgh)

    The church has been a school more recently, and now appears to be turning into apartments.

    St. Mary Memorial Protestant Episcopal Church, Oakland (Pittsburgh)
    St. Mary Memorial Protestant Episcopal Church, Oakland (Pittsburgh)
    St. Mary Memorial Protestant Episcopal Church, Oakland (Pittsburgh)
    St. Mary Memorial Protestant Episcopal Church, Oakland (Pittsburgh)
    Broken cross
    Perspective view of the gate
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  • First Presbyterian Church, Ingram

    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania

    Built in about 1898, this church was designed by James N. Campbell,1 and it displays all the usual quirks of his style, including the corner tower with tall, narrow arches and the half-round auditorium made into the most prominent feature of the building: compare, for example, Beth-Eden Baptist Church in Manchester. It has been a Masonic hall for quite a while now. There are, however, still Presbyterians right across the street: the First United Presbyterian congregation was there, and the two denominations merged in 1959.

    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania

    In this case the Masons have not blocked in most of the windows the way men’s clubs usually do when they take over a building. An old postcard from the Presbyterian Historical Society collection shows that the basement windows have been filled with glass block, and the open tower has been bricked in. But the stained glass is still intact through most of the church.

    Postcard view of the church
    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania
    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania
    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania
    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania
    Dormer
    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania
    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania
    First Presbyterian Church (now Ingram Masonic Hall), Ingram, Pennsylvania
    Olympus E-20N; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
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  • Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church, Scott Township

    Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church

    This little country church in the village of Woodville kept going when its neighbor, Old St. Luke’s, was abandoned and crumbling. But now the tables are turned: Old St. Luke’s has been gradually restored and is now associated with a rich Episcopalian congregation, whereas the Presbyterians have given up—and their building has been bought by the owners of Old St. Luke’s. It is now officially the Annex of Old St. Luke’s Church.

    Rear of the church
    Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.
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  • The Life of Christ in Relief at East Liberty Presbyterian

    Nativity

    The life of Christ is depicted in relief at the main entrance to East Liberty Presbyterian Church. We believe the sculptor was John Angel (but we would be delighted to be corrected). Above, the Nativity.

    The baptism of Christ by John the Baptist

    The baptism of Christ by John the Baptist.

    Sermon on the Mount

    The Sermon on the Mount.

    Commission to the Disciples

    The Commission to the Disciples.

    Christ washing the disciples’ feet

    Christ washing the disciples’ feet.

    The Last Supper

    The Last Supper.

    Come unto me

    “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Parables and miracles of Christ are illustrated in the smaller panels below.

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