Father Pitt

Category: Churches

Watson Memorial Presbyterian Church, Observatory Hill

Designed by Allison & Allison, this stony Romanesque church was renamed Riverview Presbyterian in 1977, when, we suppose, no one remembered Watson anymore. After sitting vacant for a while, it now has a nondenominational congregation called Pittsburgh Higher Ground, and we wish them long life and prosperity in this beautiful building.

Old Pa Pitt thinks writers on architecture tend to throw the name “Richardsonian” in front of the term “Romanesque” far too thoughtlessly, but there is no question about this church. It is very Richardsonian, right down to the little triangular dormers on the roof. Compare them to the ones on Richardson’s famous Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Allegheny West:

This is the architectural equivalent of a direct quotation.

Sony Alpha 3000; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

December 8, 2024
Bethel Baptist Church (Zion Christian Church), Carrick

Now Zion Christian Church. The cornerstone tells us that the congregation was founded in 1908, and its first building was at the corner of Birmingham Avenue and Hays Avenue (now Amanda Street)—a small frame chapel that must have quickly become woefully overcrowded, since this building many times the size was constructed less than twenty years later.

Plat map showing the original location of Bethel Baptist.

“The membership is 381, as compared with a membership of 30 in 1908,” says the Gazette Times of February 18, 1925, when the plans for the new building were announced.

Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, February 18, 1925

The architect was Walter H. Gould, “a member of the church,” and so far this is the only building attributed to him that Father Pitt knows about. However, it is an accomplished if not breathtakingly original design, so there must be other Gould buildings lurking about, probably in the South Hills neighborhoods. Comparing the published rendering above with the church as it stands today shows us that the tower grew about a floor’s worth of height between conception and construction—a rare example, perhaps, of an architect being told that his original design was not ambitious enough.

“By spirit and faith and the help of God.”

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

December 1, 2024
St. Joseph’s Church, Bloomfield

For about a century and a third, this church was one of the main centers of life in Bloomfield. Now that all the Catholic churches in Bloomfield are closed, incredible as it may seem in our most Italian neighborhood, an Italian Catholic who lives in Bloomfield cannot walk to Mass without making a serious expedition of it.

The church was built in 1886; the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks foundation attributes it to Adolf or Adolphus Druiding, who also designed Ss. Peter and Paul in Larimer/East Liberty. However, an expert in the works of E. G. W. Dietrich (see the comment below) was kind enough to correct that attribution. The church was designed by the partnership of Bartberger & Dietrich, as we learn both from an article at the laying of the cornerstone and an illustration of the church in the Builder and Wood-Worker for June, 1889, where it is attributed to Bartberger alone. Charles M. Bartberger and E. G. W. Dietrich were partners for about three years, from 1883 to 1886, before Dietrich moved to New York, which he seems to have done while this church was under construction. Father Pitt has updated his attribution based on this evidence, with many thanks to our correspondent.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

The rectory next to the church has been damaged by the installation of windows in the wrong size and style, but otherwise is in good shape.

Samsung A15 5G.

November 24, 2024
Unity Presbyterian Church, Green Tree

Originally the Wallace Memorial Presbyterian Church. In 2013, Dormont Presbyterian Church closed, and its congregation merged with this one; the two congregations together took the appropriate name Unity.

The current church building was put up in 1952 in the fashionable New England Colonial style; it’s a good example of that type.

The smaller Gothic church replaced by the 1952 church is still standing next to it, now in use as a music school.

Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

November 17, 2024
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Strip

Frederick Sauer designed St. Stanislaus Kostka, which was built in 1891. The church presides dramatically over the broad plaza of Smallman Street. It used to look out on a sea of railroad tracks, but its view improved considerably when the Pennsylvania Railroad built its colossal Produce Terminal.

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

It is probable that the rectory, done in a matching style, was also designed by Sauer. The glass blocks are not an improvement, but they have kept the building standing and in use.

November 10, 2024
Some Details of the Church of the Ascension, Shadyside

Construction of the new addition was still finishing up when old Pa Pitt last visited. Here is a pile of stones.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film.

More pictures of the Church of the Ascension, and some pictures of the church in 2013, when it still wore a coat of black.

November 3, 2024
Ingomar Methodist Episcopal Church

This is an old congregation, founded in 1837, and its adjoining cemetery has some stones dating from shortly after that. It has grown continuously; the building you see here was designed by Chauncey W. Hodgdon and built in 1915, and encrusted with additions fore and aft in later years. But the congregation (still Methodist, but advertising itself these days just as “Ingomar Church”) outgrew this church and built a much bigger one across the street; this is now the Ingomar Church Community Life Center.

The 1915 church was originally built very cheaply; its final cost of about $9,000 was roughly equivalent to the price of two middle-class houses at the time. A good history of the church was written in 1962 by Margaret L. Sweeney, and we take our information from that booklet (but we have corrected the spelling of the architect’s name).

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

The new building across the street is in a grandiose New Classical style that recalls colonial New England churches and refracts them through a Postmodernist lens.

Ingomar is an unincorporated community that straddles two municipalities. Most of the church grounds and the cemetery are in the borough of Franklin Park, but the border with McCandless Township runs diagonally through this building.

October 27, 2024
Montours Church, Robinson Township

The current building is only a century old, but the congregation of Montours Church—also spelled Montour’s or Montour, depending on where you look—was founded in 1778, and the adjoining cemetery is full of Revolutionary War veterans.

A modern chapel built in 1978 is as tall as it is long, with a striking window at the far end.

A bell cast in Cincinnati in 1888 sits beside the church; it probably came from the older building that the 1924 church replaced.

“Van Duzen & Tift Cincinnati.”

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G with Open Camera.

“Buckeye Bell Foundry 1888.”

October 20, 2024
Union Church, Robinson Township

Father Pitt thinks this is the most picturesquely sited church in Allegheny County. On a day of rapidly changing lighting, he captured it in multiple moods.

The cemetery is stuffed with Revolutionary War veterans, and several of them will be appearing over at Pittsburgh Cemeteries.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

October 13, 2024
New Addition to the Church of the Ascension, Shadyside

The Church of the Ascension, an obviously prosperous Anglican congregation in Shadyside, has just finished a new narthex and several other improvements. The architects were Rothschild Doyno Collaborative.

No lights are hid under bushels here.

The new entrance was meant to be “welcoming and transparent.” It does not attempt to imitate the style of William Halsey Wood’s original design for the church, but it does use similar stone, so that it seems to belong to the church.

The cornerstone is the only direct imitation: it is patterned after the original cornerstone of the church.

October 6, 2024