Category: Churches

  • Oakdale United Presbyterian Church

    Oakdale United Presbyterian Church

    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.

    Entrance
    Oakdale United Presbyterian Church
    Oakdale United Presbyterian Church

    Addendum: The architect was John A. Long; the church was built in about 1911.1

    Oakdale United Presbyterian Church
    Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • First Christian Church, Carnegie

    First Christian Church, Carnegie

    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.

    First Christian Church, Carnegie

    The corner-tower entrance is typical of Pittsburgh churches, but the stone porch is not.

    First Christian Church, Carnegie
    First Christian Church, Carnegie
    Tower

    The arches and spindly columns of the belfry are the touch that says “Mediterranean” to old Pa Pitt.

    First Christian Church, Carnegie
    Olympus E20-N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    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.


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  • Dormition of the Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church, McKeesport

    Dome of Dormition of the Holy Virgin Church

    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.

    Dormition of the Holy Virgin

    The serviceable canopy over the side entrance replaced a much more characteristic original, as we see in this 1970s photograph.

    1970s photo of the side of the church, showing former canopy
    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.

    A Characteristic Church, from John L. Stoddard’s Lectures
    Cornerstone with date 1974
    Front of the church
    Entrance
    Dormition of the Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church
    Sony Alpha 3000; Fujifilm Finepix HS10.

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  • Evangelical Congregational Church, McKeesport

    Evangelical Congregational Church

    New England Colonial style with an outsized octagonal tower that certainly commands attention.

    Evangelical Congregational Church
    Entrance
    Tower and spire of the Evangelical Congregational Church
    Evangelical Congregational Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.

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  • Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church, Carnegie

    Tower and Dome of Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church

    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.

    Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church

    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.

    Front of the church
    Domes of Holy Virgin Church
    Olympus E-20N.

    We also have pictures of Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Church in the winter, when the leaves are off the trees.


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  • Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Carnegie

    Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church

    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.

    Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church

    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.)

    Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church
    Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church
    Saints Peter and Paul
    Date stone with date 1961

    This date stone seems to mark extensive renovations in 1961.

    Cornerstone

    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.

    Cornerstone
    Domes
    Detail of the front
    Corner with urn
    Domes
    Apse
    Sts. Peter & Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church and hall

    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.

    Hall and school
    Hall and school
    Hall and school
    Hall and school
    Rectory

    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.

    One more look at the church
    Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • First Methodist Episcopal Church, Carnegie

    Carnegie Methodist Episcopal Church

    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.

    Tower
    Carnegie Methodist Episcopal Church
    Rear of the church
    Closer view of the rear
    Olympus E-20N; Canon PowerShot SX150IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • Holy Cross Church, Glassport, by Titus de Bobula

    Holy Cross Church in its original state
    From The New Holy Cross Church, 1954, a booklet published when the current Holy Cross Church opened.

    This was perhaps the last church designed by Titus de Bobula in his short architectural career, and it was an extraordinary work. It was faced entirely with concrete, and the architect gave free rein to his love of sweeping curves and tapering forms—note, for example, how the continuous tapering of the tower was supplemented by an inverted tapering of the arch at the entrance.

    In the 1950s, the congregation built a much larger church from a design by the prolific Monessen church architect H. Ernest Clark. But the old church was kept as a social hall, and—thanks to the eagle eye of our correspondent David Schwing—we have discovered that the building is still standing.

    Holy Cross Church

    Almost everything that made the church a unique work of art is gone. The windows are blocked in; the decorations are stripped off; the spire is gone and the tower truncated. But we can still see the outline of that unique arch at the entrance. And this is the only one of Titus de Bobula’s concrete-faced churches to have survived at all—at least as far as old Pa Pitt knows. With just a few minutes to stop in Glassport on his way from here to there, Father Pitt took a bunch of pictures with three different cameras to document the church before it succumbs to complete decay.

    Front of the church
    Entrance arch
    Holy Cross Church
    Tower
    Side of the church
    Holy Cross Church
    Rear of the church
    Holy Cross Church
    Front of the church
    Tower
    Front of the church
    Sony Alpha 3000; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

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  • Spire of Calvary Episcopal Church, Shadyside

  • Double Presbyterians in McDonald

    First United Presbyterian Church

    McDonald was a very Presbyterian town, with at least four Presbyterian churches all within an easy walk of one another. In 1897, two Presbyterian churches went up in McDonald side by side—a Presbyterian church and a United Presbyterian church. They seem to have been called First Presbyterian and First United Presbyterian at first, but later took the names Trinity and Calvary. After the denominations merged, so did the congregations—but they kept the two buildings, now called the Calvary Center and the Trinity Center of McDonald Presbyterian Church.

    The United Presbyterian church, now Calvary Center, was the larger of the two. The architect was James N. Campbell.

    Tower
    First United Presbyterian Church
    Church and parsonage

    Behind the church is a neat and prosperous-looking foursquare parsonage built of matching brick.

    First Presbyterian Church

    The smaller Presbyterian church, now the Trinity Center, was designed by the Washington (Pennsylvania) firm of McCallum & Ely.

    Tower of First Presbyterian
    First Presbyterian Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.

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