Seen from Ewers Way.
-
Steeple of Third Presbyterian Church, Shadyside
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. -
First Baptist Church of McKees Rocks, West Park
A small and beautiful Arts and Crafts interpretation of Gothic, with most of its original details intact, including the shingled gables, the wooden belfry, and the canopy over the tower entrance. The attached parsonage is later, but at least it nearly matches the brick.
In spite of the name, the church is on the Stowe Township side of the municipal border that runs diagonally through the neighborhood of West Park.
-
Pentecostal Tabernacle, West Park
A simple little Gothic church; it now belongs to Mancini’s bakery across Mancini Way.
Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. -
Sewickley United Methodist Church
The most striking feature (in two senses of the word “striking”) of this church is the great clock tower, which gives time to the whole village. In fact, the borough took over responsibility for maintaining the clock, as the church tells us in its page of Village Clock Tower Facts. The tower was finished in 1884, and in 1996 a thorough rebuilding was finished that included a new electronic clock to replace the replacement clock that had replaced the original clock many decades previously.
-
First Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis
This grand Gothic complex was one of two Presbyterian churches that stood on opposite corners of the same intersection. The other one was the First United Presbyterian (old Pa Pitt will probably never tire of that joke, which the Presbyterians hand to him on a silver platter). Eventually the United Presbyterian congregation united with this one, which is now known as the Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis, though it seems to have used the name Coraopolis Presbyterian relatively recently, when it picked the domain name for its Web site.
The current lavish building was put up in 1929, as we learn from a postcard on the church’s history page, at a cost of $315,000 including furnishings.
Nikon COOLPIX P100. -
Sewickley Presbyterian Church
This is one of the few remaining churches designed by Joseph W. Kerr, who was one of our top architects in the middle 1800s (he also designed the Shields Chapel nearby in Edgeworth). It opened in 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War.
In Father Pitt’s opinion, Mr. Kerr had good taste. Both this church and the Shields Chapel belong to the middle nineteenth century, but they were never embarrassingly out of date; to the last gasp of the Gothic style in America a hundred years later, an architect familiar with the idiom would have found this a pleasing and successful design.
It is fortunate that the congregation has the money to keep the glorious steeple in excellent shape…
…right up to the iron pinnacle at the top.
Nikon COOLPIX P100. -
St. Joseph’s Church, Coraopolis
William P. Hutchins was the architect of this church, built in 1924. It takes its inspiration from ancient Roman basilicas, with a light overlay of Art Nouveau. Most architectural historians would probably just say “Romanesque” and leave it at that, but it is a more interesting building when we recognize its ancient sources.
Nikon COOLPIX P100. 
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. -
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Coraopolis
Here is a fine example of the last gasp of Gothic architecture in America. This church was built as late as 1951 in a style that would have seemed reasonably conservative twenty years earlier. The building has passed into the hands of the Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian congregation, and members were spiffing up the grounds while old Pa Pitt was taking these pictures.
The west-front entrance is very similar to what William P. Hutchins did more than two decades earlier at St. Francis Xavier Church in Brighton Heights; perhaps they were both inspired by the same historical example.
Around the corner, behind the church, is a Sunday-school building that dates from 1928 in a style we might call Educational Gothic.
-
First Methodist Episcopal Church of Coraopolis
Now the Coraopolis United Methodist Church. The father-and-son team of T. B. and Lawrence Wolfe, part of a century-long dynasty of Wolfes in Pittsburgh architecture, designed this church, built in 1924.
Our friend Dr. Boli had opinions about this picture.
The building this one replaced is also still standing—a typical late-1800s Pittsburgh Rundbogenstil church, and one with the sanctuary upstairs if you come in by the front door. It was a short block away, and it is still in use as a church, now Coraopolis Abundant Life Ministries.
Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z981.
-
Southminster Presbyterian Church, Mount Lebanon
Two grand Presbyterian churches stand at the two ends of Uptown Mount Lebanon. But they are different kinds of Presbyterians. The one to the north was the United Presbyterian church, but it has now become Evangelical Presbyterian. This one is now Presbyterian Church (USA).
“In these days of mergers,” James Macqueen (himself one of our notable architects) wrote in the Charette in 1930, “one wonders why theological differences stood in the way of unity, and that these Presbyterians did not build one great building in this community instead of two with their attendant extra overhead involved. However, both of these two churches are worthy of a visit, as they show the great advance that has been made in Church work during the past few years…”
Southminster was designed by Thomas Pringle and built in 1928.
These quatrefoil ornaments at the top of the tower can be properly appreciated with a very long lens.
The office and education wing is done in a complementary Jacobean style. The arcade makes both a visual and a practical link to the main church.
Appropriately for a building dedicated to Christian education, the Reformation slogan VDMA—Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum (“The word of God endureth for ever,” 1 Peter 1:25)—is engraved in an open book.
We have more pictures of Southminster Presbyterian from a couple of years ago.
