Father Pitt

Category: Churches

Holy Innocents Church, Sheraden

Looming up from the quiet back streets of Sheraden, this titanic Gothic church would put many a cathedral to shame. Built in 1924, it was probably the grandest work of William P. Hutchins. Though it has closed as a church and has been stripped of some of its ornamental details, it is still in use and thus maintains at least a precarious hold on existence.

This article will be a feast for lovers of utility cables. The rest will just have to put up with diagonal black lines in the pictures.

The apse of the church is a commanding presence on the street, making strollers-by feel almost as if they have wandered into a medieval cathedral city. But how many Gothic apses in those stuffy European towns have a garage in the basement?

November 5, 2023
Christ Central Church, Elliott

This is is an especially fine example of the very last phase of Gothic church architecture in America. Old Pa Pitt does not know the whole history of this church. It was a congregation of the United Churches of Christ until ten or fifteen years ago; the current congregation is Southern Baptist.

November 2, 2023
St. John the Baptist Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church, Marshall-Shadeland

The congregation moved to a generic late-twentieth-century church building in the North Hills this year, finally following most of its members to the suburbs. (The congregation was secure enough to be able to move without taking out a loan, which is good news for them even if it’s bad news for the North Side.) That leaves this building in an uncertain state. Right now it is still being well maintained, but its neighborhood is not yet valuable. Perhaps with the revival of city living, it will be worth doing something with in the next few years.

The church was built in 1937, when the Depression was still with us and its congregation probably was not rich. The building is a curious construction in a style old Pa Pitt has decided to call “Modular Byzantine.” The parade of identical rectangles across the tall face of the church makes it look as though it was put together by a methodical and meticulous child playing with blocks.

Because of the extreme slope of the lot, the front has to be very tall if there is going to be any back at all. Since the main entrance is on the lower level, we can add this to our list of churches with the sanctuary upstairs.

The gold domes are a landmark on this section of California Avenue, and we hope they can be preserved.

November 1, 2023
Beechview Christian Church
The building now belongs to Mercy Intellectual Disabilities Services, which has altered it to suit a radically different purpose. But the outlines of the church are still clear. The architect was T. Ed. Cornelius,¹ about whom Father Pitt knows nothing except that he seems to have had a fairly successful career designing middle-class houses and modest churches—this one was budgeted at $25,000 in 1923, which was not a great deal to spend on building a church.

This is another case where old Pa Pitt went looking for one of his pictures and discovered that he had never published it. The picture was taken in August of 2022, but only recently did Father Pitt discover the name of the architect.
1. Source: The American Contractor, June 9, 1923: “Church: $25,000. 1 sty. & bas. 60×80. Shiras av. & Broadway. Archt. T. Ed. Cornelius, Magee bldg. Owner The Beechview Christian Church, Shiras av. & Broadway. Brk. Drawing plans.” ↩︎
October 30, 2023
Calvary Christian Church, Marshall-Shadeland
Chauncey W. Hodgdon had been practicing architecture for well over four decades when he designed this little church. It was built in about 1924,¹ and this is Hodgdon on a small budget. He minimized expensive indulgences like stone trim and large windows, while still giving the congregation the respectable Gothic church it dreamed of. Now the building belongs to New Hope Church, which is keeping it in very good shape.
1. Source: The American Contractor, August 11, 1923: “Church: Shadland [sic] av. & Dickson st. Archt. Chauncey W. Hodgdon, Martin bldg. Owner The Calvary Christ. Church. Rev. F. Fink, 3426 Cass st. Brk. & Stone. Archt. taking bids on super. to close Aug. 20.” ↩︎
October 29, 2023
Episcopal Church of the Messiah, Sheraden

Very few Shingle-style frame Gothic churches are left in Pittsburgh with their original wood siding: they usually get covered with artificial siding that obscures all the details and character of the building. How long this rare survivor from the 1890s will last is questionable: it belongs to the Pneuma Center for Biblical Guidance now, and it is always a temptation for organizations on a small budget to solve every problem with vinyl. So far the owners have kept the place beautifully.

October 26, 2023
Emanuel Evangelical Church, Elliott
If you were on a budget of only $20,000, which was fairly modest for a church, you could still get yourselves some distinguished architects to make the most of your money. Vrydaugh & Wolfe designed some huge millionaires’ mansions and a number of glorious stone churches, but they put their usual care into this little project as well, using inexpensive materials to the best effect.¹ It was built as Emanuel Evangelical Church; later it became Emanuel United Methodist Church, and now it is New Destiny Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

A small addition filled in one corner at some time when the church was a United Methodist congregation.

The attached parsonage is small but in perfect taste, neither too ostentatious nor unduly plain.
1. The budget may have ended up being less than $20,000. As originally conceived, it would have been a stone-veneer building; perhaps the bricks were a later decision to shave some money off the cost. From the Construction Record, February 3, 1912: “Plans are being prepared by Architect Vrydaugh & Wolf, 347 Fifth avenue, for a one-story stone veneer church building for the Emanuel Evangelical Congregation, Crucible and Lorenza [sic] avenues. The building will be 85×100 feet and will cost $20,000.” ↩︎
October 24, 2023
Trinity German Evangelical Lutheran Church, Franklin Park

This little country church is now surrounded by suburbs, though there are still farms nearby. The date stone on the front of the building tells us it was built in 1868.

October 22, 2023
Presbyterian Church, West End

It seems to old Pa Pitt that the whole history of the West End is epitomized in this building.

There was a Presbyterian church on this spot more than 150 years ago, marked “Un. Presb. Ch.” on an 1872 map. It was just around the corner from another kind of Presbyterian church (which is now a garage); even today Wikipedia lists more than 45 kinds of Presbyterians in the United States, and that is after a number of mergers and consolidations. In 1890 this is marked “A. F. Pres. Ch.,” and again in about 1903; but on a 1905 map it is marked “United Presbyterian Church,” and that is as much as Father Pitt can do to sort out the history of the congregation.

At about the time of the First World War, the church had a little burst of prosperity and added this fashionable Tudor front.

Later, the congregation fizzled out, and the building was heavily altered and taken over by Ceramiche Tile. Now Ceramiche is moving to the western suburbs, and this building is up for sale.

The result is a building that—like much of the rest of the West End—is hard to sort out from both an architectural and a historical point of view. But the stone-and-half-timber front is an attractive ornament to Main Street, and we hope the building will find a sympathetic new owner.

October 17, 2023
Carved Ornaments on Bellefield Presbyterian Church

Originally the First United Presbyterian Church, this congregation merged with the Bellefield Presbyterian Church down the street, which sold its building (of which only the tower remains) and moved here, with the compensation that this church was renamed Bellefield Presbyterian. The building, designed by William Boyd and built in 1896, is festooned with a riot of carved Romanesque ornaments.

Each one of these cherubs has a different face and different ornamental carving surrounding it.

October 15, 2023