Father Pitt

Category: Swissvale

  • St. Anselm Church, Swissvale

    Tower of St. Anselm

    St. Joseph the Worker is an eight-church Catholic parish in the near eastern suburbs. Seven of those churches are scheduled to close this month. A Wikimedia Commons user got in touch with Father Pitt and asked if he could document some of those churches before they close, and it seemed nothing less than a duty to respond.

    We begin with the exterior of the church that, of the seven, Father Pitt would most like to see preserved: St. Anselm in Swissvale. We have pictures of the interior as well.

    St. Anselm from the rear

    Albert F. Link was the architect of this magnificent Romanesque church, which opened in 1925. It shows Link’s usual adroit combination of historically informed detail with modern Art Nouveau veering toward Art Deco feeling.

    More pictures and more text…

  • Dickson Public School, Swissvale

    Dickson Public School

    Now the Dickson Preparatory STEAM Academy, which sounds like a prep school for future boilermakers, this handsome modernistic school was designed by Rober McCartney and built in 1929. Updates have been done with a real appreciation of what makes the building work.

    Dickson Public School
    Sony Alpha 3000.
    Comments

  • Swissvale Presbyterian Church

    Swissvale Presbyterian Church

    Kiehnel & Elliott were the architects of this church, whose cornerstone was laid in 1909. It certainly isn’t typical of the modernistic Art Nouveau designs we associate with Kiehnel & Elliott; but their few churches tended to be more conservative, and here they were probably commissioned by a congregation with conservative tastes. They came through with a typical Pittsburgh corner-tower auditorium church, and the fact that almost nothing has changed since the church was built tells us that the congregation had no reason to regret its choice of architects.

    Cornerstone
    Postcard of First Presbyterian, Swissvale

    A postcard of unknown date from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Father Pitt is grateful for the volunteer work that made nearly a thousand old postcards of churches freely available, so that we can compare them to the standing buildings, and remember the buildings that have vanished. In this case, the comparison shows us that almost nothing has changed.

    Swissvale Presbyterian Church

    You think we have utility cables now, but imagine what it was like when the streetcars ran on Monongahela Avenue.

    Entrance
    Tower
    Side porch

    This side porch feels mysterious and ancient, which is probably a good thing for a church. Wouldn’t you like to come in and discover the ancient mysteries?

    Side porch
    Cupola
    Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR; Sony Alpha 3000.

    It’s easy to miss this small cupola or big finial at the peak of the roof, so old Pa Pitt went after it with a long lens so you can admire it up close.

    Comments