Father Pitt

Tag: Corner Towers

Battle of the Dutchtown Lutherans

On the corner of North Avenue and Middle Street stands this small but imposing German Lutheran church, built in 1877. Father Pitt is fairly sure the Lutherans have gone, though the church site (last updated in 2010) is still on line. The Urban Impact ministry remains.

“St. Matthew’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church, built 1877.”

Connoisseurs of such things will note that this is a church with the sanctuary upstairs.

The hefty tower was added in a burst of prosperity about 25 years after the church was built.

Meanwhile, just across narrow Middle Street was a different kind of Lutheran church. And although old Pa Pitt gave this article a humorous headline, he is fairly sure there was no battle. Pittsburgh learned the virtue of tolerance: those other Lutherans across the street may be completely wrong about everything that is most important in life, but they’re our neighbors, and we wave to them when we see them on the street.

St. Mark’s was built in 1892. After its Lutheran congregation left, it was a Church of God in Christ until a few years ago. It has recently been expensively refurbished and painted black (it used to be painted brick red). Old Pa Pitt has not heard who was responsible for the refurbishing, but all the stained glass was removed, which is often the sign of a Pentecostal congregation moving in.

Except for the loss of the glass, the church is in very good shape externally, and it is a fine example of Pittsburgh Rundbogenstil—the round-arched German style that mixes classical and Romanesque elements.

Nikon COOLPIX P100; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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March 23, 2025
Church of the Annunciation, Perry South

Edward Stotz was the architect of this church, built in 1905. The parish closed twenty years ago, but the church has found other tenants and is kept in good shape.

A later relief of the Annunciation is over the main entrance.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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March 2, 2025
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Mount Oliver

The congregation dissolved in 2020, so here is an excellent opportunity for an investment in a beautiful building in a trendifying neighborhood. It is in very good shape, and it has enough architectural distinctiveness to make its new owner proud. It also commands a prominent corner on Brownsville Road.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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February 23, 2025
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
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
St. Stephen’s Church, Sewickley

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

Gargoyles guard the building from the top of the tower.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

September 15, 2024
Second Presbyterian Church, Coraopolis

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.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

September 15, 2024
McKees Rocks Presbyterian Church

Now Christ Community Church, this is a typical smaller Gothic church with a corner tower. The stone has not been cleaned of its decades of soot, making this one of our dwindling number of remaining black-stone churches.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans f/1.4 35mm lens.

A matching Sunday-school wing includes a round-backed auditorium.

September 5, 2024
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.

Cameras: Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

August 25, 2024
First United Presbyterian Church, Coraopolis

This is a fine building in a good neighborhood, and you could buy it right now and move in. You might have to spend another million or so fixing it up, but the structure is sound and the interior of the sanctuary, from what we can see on that real-estate site, is intact in the most important details. It does need work, but the best parts of the interior are still there. If you are a congregation looking for a sanctuary, you can put your teenage members to work. That’s why you have youth groups, after all.

The church was built in 1915; the architect was Thomas Hannah, a big deal in Pittsburgh architecture. Comparing the church today to an old postcard, we can see that nothing has changed on the outside.

Well, one thing has changed. The church accumulated decades of industrial grime, turning it into one of our splendid black-stone churches, and the blackness, though fading, has not been cleaned off. Father Pitt hopes the church will pass into the hands of someone who appreciates it in its current sooty grandeur.

The other thing that is different is the long-gone building behind the church in the postcard. It was almost certainly the older sanctuary, probably kept standing as a social hall. It has been gone for years now.

The style of the church is what we might call Picksburgh Perpendicular, the common adaptation of Perpendicular Gothic to the more squarish auditorium-like form of Protestant churches that emphasized preaching over liturgy. Old Pa Pitt will admit that he does not like the stubby secondary tower on the left. It is probably very useful in providing space for a stairwell, but the two towers are too widely separated, as if they are not on speaking terms. The emphatic corner tower is the star of the show, and the other tower seems to be making an ineffectual attempt to upstage it. In spite of that quibble, though, this is a beautiful building that deserves appreciative owners.

July 14, 2024