Long views with a long lens remind us of what an absurd place this is to build a city. Above, the Trimont looms over houses and small apartment buildings that it makes look tiny; below, uncommon views of St. Mary of the Mount Church.
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Back Slopes of Mount Washington
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Grace Lutheran Church, Brookline
Since 1959 this has been Pittsburgh Baptist Church, our first Southern Baptist congregation. But it was built in 1908 as a Missouri Synod Lutheran church, Grace Lutheran. It is perhaps Brookline’s most striking church, built in a unique variant of the Arts-and-Crafts Tudor Gothic style that was popular then. The massing of the forms is particularly pleasing.
Addendum: The architect was John A. Long, as we discover in the Construction Record, September 16, 1911: “Martsolf Brothers, House building, have secured contract for the erection of a two-story cement stucco church and parsonage, on Pioneer avenue, Brookline, for the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Congregation. Architect John A. Long, Machesney building, prepared the plans.”
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Interior of First Baptist Church at Night
First Baptist Church, built in 1912, was designed by Bertram Goodhue, one of America’s greatest Gothic architects, and also the designer of the Cheltenham typeface, familiar today as the headline face of the New York Times. The Perpendicular Gothic interior includes one of the most visually beautiful sets of organ pipes in the city. At night everything takes on an added air of ancient mystery.
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Dome of St. Josaphat Church, South Side Slopes
The distinctive dome of St. Josaphat Church, designed by John T. Comès, as seen from the Flats below.
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Regina Coeli Church and School, Manchester
Now the New Zion Baptist Church in what may be Pittsburgh’s only clot of three different Baptist churches in the same spot, this former Italian parish church is a good example of the modernist interpretation of Gothic that was popular briefly after the Second World War. The fine reliefs are in a style that filters medieval religious art through a slightly Art Deco lens.
There seems to have been an inscription over the skull and crossbones (representing conquered Death), but it is no longer legible.
Sinite parvulos, et nolite eos prohibere ad me venire: talium est enim regnum caelorum. (Matt. 19:14.)
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St. Luke’s Church, Carnegie
Now St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church of St. Raphael Parish, because the history of parish consolidation in Carnegie is complicated even by Catholic Pittsburgh standards. Built in 1881, this church was out of commission for a while after the Hurricane Ivan floods in Carnegie, but it is now restored and expanded, and in fact is the only remaining Western Catholic church in Carnegie. (There’s a Byzantine-rite Ukrainian church, too.)
The parish school behind the church closed some years ago, but the building still belongs to the church and has been adapted to other uses, including Sunday school and offices.
Addendum: The architect of the school was Albert F. Link.1
- Source: The Construction Record, January 13, 1912: “Carnegie, Pa. — Architect A. L. Fink [sic], 407 North Craig street, Pittsburgh, is drawing plans for a two-story brick fireproof parochial school, to be constructed on Third avenue and Fourth street, for St. Luke’s Roman Catholic Congregation. Building will contain 12 school rooms and auditorium on first floor. Cost $45,000.” The magazine was sloppily edited, but every once in a while we wonder whether one of the misprints was deliberate. ↩︎
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Beth-Eden Baptist Church, Manchester
On the end of Juniata Street, where it meets Chateau Street, is a cluster of three Baptist churches all huddled together. Two of them originally belonged to other denominations, but this one has been Baptist all its life. Originally the Beth-Eden Baptist Church, it is now called Pilgrim Baptist Church. The building was put up in 1903, when weighty Romanesque was still a popular style in Allegheny and Pittsburgh. The massive tower and the rounded end make a strong impression.
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St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Manchester
Here is another entry in our expanding catalogue of churches with the sanctuary upstairs. Now the Northside Church of God, this church, built in 1890, is a typical rowhouse-neighborhood church, making the most of its small lot. The mansard roof over the tower section looks later; it is possible that a tower or spire was damaged and replaced.
We can just make out the not-quite-obliterated name “St. Paul’s” above the date.
This cornerstone was obviously added later, and the most probable explanation is that it marks the date when the church passed out of the hands of the Lutherans.
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Hill Top United Methodist Church, Allentown
A Romanesque church whose immense chimney dwarfs its stubby little tower, this is probably the only church in the neighborhood still serving its original congregation.
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Knoxville Methodist Episcopal Church
A small church whose weighty Romanesque design makes it seem larger than it is. Of course we have the usual Pittsburgh feast of utility cables in front, which old Pa Pitt is too lazy to take out. The building now belongs to a nondenominational congregation called the Holy Faith Tabernacle Church.
Until 1939, there were two main streams of Methodism in the United States: the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Protestant Church. Both were represented in Knoxville: we saw the First Methodist Protestant Church of Knoxville earlier.
