Father Pitt

Category: Churches

  • Montours Church, Robinson Township

    Montours Presbyterian Church

    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.

    Date stone: “Montours Presb. Church, 1778–1832–1924”
    Montours Presbyterian Church
    Montours Church
    Chapel

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

    Interior of the chapel
    Window from the outside
    Montours Cemetery, chapel, and church
    Cemetery, chapel, church
    A bell cast in 1888

    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

    “Van Duzen & Tift Cincinnati.”

    Buckeye Bell Foundry, 1888
    1888
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G with Open Camera.

    “Buckeye Bell Foundry 1888.”

  • Union Church, Robinson Township

    Union Church and Cemetery

    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.

    Union Church in sunlight with dark clouds
    Union Church
    Tower
    Union Church
    Union Church
    Union Church and Cemetery
    Union Church in an HDR photo
    Side of the church
    Union Church in sun with blue sky
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • New Addition to the Church of the Ascension, Shadyside

    Addition to the Church of the Ascension

    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.

    Church of the Ascension sign

    No lights are hid under bushels here.

    Narthex addition

    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.

    Face-on view of the addition
    Cornerstone: 2024

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

    Old cornerstone: 1897

  • Valley Presbyterian Church, Imperial

    Valley Presbyterian Church

    This charming Arts-and-Crafts Gothic church is the most distinguished building in the little hamlet of Imperial. It was built, according to the date stone, in 1911 for a congregation that had been founded in 1840, and the large cemetery behind the church has tombstones going back to that foundation.

    Date stone: 1840 and 1911
    Valley Presbyterian Church
    Tower

    The outstanding feature of the church is its belfry, with simple and massive woodwork that echoes the Gothic arches below, but also flares out into bell shapes, like a Sunday-school-supplement illustration of the bells within.

    Belfry
    Belfry
    Rear of the church
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

    A postwar Sunday-school wing in the rear is built from nearly matching brick.

  • First Baptist Church, Coraopolis

    First Baptist Church, Coraopolis

    Though the renovations with modern materials—understandable for a congregation on a tight budget—have not always been sympathetic, this is still a valuable relic of the era of Victorian frame Gothic churches. As Pittsburgh and its suburbs prospered in the twentieth century, most of those churches were replaces with bigger and brickier structures, so although these churches were once all over western Pennsylvania, remnants like this are fairly rare. This one no longer serves the Baptist congregation (or the Anglican congregation that inhabited it more recently), but some maintenance work seems to be going on.

    Belfry

    The distinctive wooden belfry is still in good shape, though missing a few pieces of trim and wanting a bit of paint. The trim is simple and could be replicated in somebody’s garage woodshop.

    Belfry
    First Baptist Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • St. Stephen’s Church, Sewickley

    St. Stephen’s Church

    A very stony Anglican church that has kept its rich black coat of soot.

    Tower
    Gargoyle facing right

    Gargoyles guard the building from the top of the tower.

    Gargoyle facing left
    Tower
    West Front
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Second Presbyterian Church, Coraopolis

    Second Presbyterian Church

    Now the Church of God, this is a modest church in an abstract version of Perpendicular Gothic, with castle-like battlemented towers fore and aft. The stained glass has been removed, possibly because it was too decrepit to restore, or possibly to satisfy the iconoclastic tendencies of American Evangelicalism.

    Tower
    Front of the church
    Coraopolis Church of God
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Mother of Sorrows Church, Norwood

    Mother of Sorrows Church

    Mother of Sorrows Church was sold to a nondenominational congregation some time ago, and when Father Pitt took these pictures some maintenance work was being done, so we hope the building will stand for a long time to come. But old Pa Pitt misses the original parish for one very selfish reason: every year it had a festival, and every year it advertised the festival with banners stretched across Island Avenue at the bottom of the hill proclaiming in big, cheery letters, “MOTHER OF SORROWS FESTIVAL!” If Father Pitt had known the parish was closing, he would have bought those banners and donated them to the History Center.

    Cornerstone: Mother of Sorrows Church, 1925 A. D.
    Mother of Sorrows, perspective view
    Mother of Sorrows, side view showing round apse

    Note the round apse in the rear.

    Mother of Sorrows with rectory

    The rectory was built from matching Kittanning brick; a later extension just about doubled the size of it.

    Rectory
    Connection between church and rectory

    The rectory was connected to the church by this little infill decorated with patterned brickwork.

    Tower dome

    The tower terminates in a cross-topped dome teetering on the brink of Art Deco.

    Mother of Sorrows Church
    Volutes
    Rose ornament
    Lantern
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • St. Francis de Sales Church, McKees Rocks

    St. Francis de Sales Church, McKees Rocks

    The dome is the star of this extraordinary building, which was put up in 1904 and is now slowly crumbling. The school behind it, heavily altered, is in use as a personal-care home; the church would be hard to find a use for even in a prosperous neighborhood. It ought to be preserved, but its most likely fate is to continue to crumble until it finally becomes too dangerous to leave standing.

    Dome of St. Francis de Sales
    Dome
    Dome from the back streets
    Side of the church
    Side entrance
    Side entrance
    West front
    Rear of the church
    A different side entrance
    Side entrance
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans f/1.4 35mm lens; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Neville Island Presbyterian Church

    Neville Island Presbyterian Church

    About this church old Pa Pitt knows only what you see in these pictures. The sign has not changed since 2021, but the grounds are still mowed and the building is in good shape. (Addendum: The congregation informed the Presbytery that it would close the church in 2022, according to a Pittsburgh Presbytery newsletter [PDF].) Its most prominent feature is its tower with eye-catchingly prickly battlements.

    Neville Island Presbyterian Church
    Oblique view of the front of the church
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285.