Father Pitt

Category: Churches

  • Carnegie United Methodist Church

    Carnegie is full of impressive churches in a wide variety of styles. This one is in a heavy Romanesque style, and the bell tower (now festooned with loudspeakers) is appropriately impressive and weighty.

    Addendum: The architect was James N. Campbell; the building was probably put up in about 1893. Source: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, September 7, 1892: “J. N. Campbell has prepared the plans for a new Methodist Church to be erected at Mansfield, Pa., at a cost of about $30,000. The pastor is Rev. G. T. Reynolds.” (Carnegie was formed from the two boroughs of Mansfield and Chartiers.)

  • Attawheed Islamic Center, Carnegie

    This old Romanesque church is beautifully kept up as the Attawheed Islamic Center, occupying one of the most prominent corners in the borough of Carnegie. Though the architecture is Romanesque, the tower and steeple seem uncharacteristically light for the style; old Pa Pitt always comes away with the impression that this is a Gothic building, and only seeing the rounded arches in the photograph corrects his faulty memory.

  • Spire of First Baptist Church, Oakland

  • Korean Central Church of Pittsburgh, Shadyside

    This building began its life as the First Methodist Protestant Church; it later passed into the hands of the Seventh Day Adventists, and now belongs to a nondenominational Korean congregation. It is a work of Frederick Osterling in his typically florid Romanesque style. Obviously the spire has had a bit of bad luck, but the rest of the exterior is in pretty good shape.

    This modest but tasteful house seems to be the parsonage for the church, and Father Pitt can easily imagine that it was designed by Osterling as well. He would be happy to have his speculation corrected or confirmed. Update: Father Pitt’s speculation was wrong. The architect of the parish house, built in 1914 or so, was H. E. Kennedy.1

    1. Source: The Construction Record, May 2, 1914: “Plans are being prepared by Architect H. E. Kennedy, Home Trust building, tor the erection of a stone parish house on Howe and Aiken streets, for the First Methodist Protestant Congregation. Cost $15,000.” ↩︎

  • St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church, South Side

    It is impossible to get a picture of the front of this church without ugly and intrusive utility cables, and old Pa Pitt is not quite obsessive enough to edit out the cables.

    This is a Ruthenian church. Back in 1900, the congregation split from the other St. John the Baptist Byzantine congregation a few blocks away at 7th and Carson Streets so as not to have to put up with those Ukrainians. You will search a map of Europe in vain for the nation of Ruthenia, but the Ruthenians or Rusyns in America have an ethnic pride perhaps all the stronger for never having had a nation of their own. The present building was dedicated in 1958, and the modernist-influenced Byzantine style bears a strong family resemblance to the style of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Oakland.

    Map

  • Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral

    There are at least three cathedrals in Oakland, in addition to the Cathedral of Learning, which is a cathedral metaphorically but not the seat of a bishop. Most Pittsburghers would be able to identify St. Paul’s, the Roman Catholic cathedral. Many would remember that there’s a Greek Orthodox cathedral, because its famous food festival attracts enough of a crowd to have an impact on Oakland traffic. This is the third. It was built as a Syrian Orthodox church in 1955, and it interprets traditional Eastern Christian forms with a sort of modernist severity.

    Map

  • Tabernacle of the Union Baptist Church, South Side

    Tabernacle of the Union Baptist Church, South Side, Pittsburgh

    This is a kind of machine-age Gothic, all sharp angles instead of the tapered points of more traditional Gothic forms. Built in 1881, this is no longer used as a church, but the exterior has been lovingly preserved.

  • Holy Assumption of St. Mary Orthodox Church, South Side

    Holy Assumption of St. Mary Church, South Side, Pittsburgh

    Clearly this was built as a Protestant church, but the Orthodox congregation has been here for quite some time now. Here we see the west front in the warm rays of the evening sun.

  • Defying the Storm

    Spires of the Tabernacle of the Union Baptist Church, South Side

    Spires of the Tabernacle of the Union Baptist Church, South Side, Pittsburgh, highlighted in evening sun against a stormy sky.

  • Tower of St. Bernard’s, Mount Lebanon

    Tower of St. Bernard’s Church