Three and a half years ago, old Pa Pitt visited this church to take pictures of the exterior. It was not in use then, although the grounds were maintained. Neighbors reported hearing a smoke detector’s low-battery signal for quite a while. Two days ago, a commenter alerted Father Pitt that a fire had seriously damaged the building.
We’ll put the rest of the large number of pictures we took today behind a link, so that the sad evidence of the conflagration will not be the dominant impression in visitors’ minds for the next week and a half. Furthermore, we promise to balance this article soon with some very cheerful news from the Hilltop neighborhoods.
A few details of the Union Trust Building, designed by Pierre A. Liesch when he was working for Frederick Osterling—at least according to Liesch; the building is usually just credited to Osterling.
Now Spencer United Methodist. Charles W. Bier was the architect of this church,1 which opened in 1925. It sits on a steeply sloping lot at the southern end of Carrick, so that—like many Pittsburgh churches—it has ground-level entrances on two ground levels.
An open belfry becomes a nuisance to maintain, and when the bells are silenced—as they have been in most of our churches—the belfry is often filled in.
The American Contractor, April 14, 1923: “Carrick, Pa.—Church:$100,000. 1 sty. 100×72. Church st. & Spencer av., Carrick. Archt. Chas. W. Bier, Pittsburgh Life bldg., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner The Spencer M. E. Congr., Spv. Gilbert G. Gallagher, 117 Spencer av., Carrick. Solid brk. Drawing prelim. plans.” The church as built does not seem like a $100,000 church. But the dimensions and estimate went up: November 3, 1923: “Church: $140,000. 1 sty. & bas. 75×143. Church st. & Spencer av., Garrick [sic]. Archt. Chas. W. Bier, Pittsburgh Life bldg., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner The Spencer M. E. Congr., Rev. Gilbert G. Gallagher, 117 Spencer av., Garrick. Revising plans.” The current church looks like Bier’s work; we can only guess that the ambitious plans were scaled back a bit before construction began. ↩︎
Hazelwood was a famously Hungarian neighborhood, and several kinds of Hungarian churches sprouted there. The cornerstone of this church was laid one hundred years ago today on December 20, 1925, but it’s not much different in front from the vernacular Gothic churches of half a century earlier.
If we walk around the side of this church, though, we see what is really unusual about it: it grows out of a big old Italianate house built in the 1870s.
The new building was dedicated on May 16, 1926.
The congregation is long gone, but the church now belongs to an organization called “Center of Life.”
The old house has some very fine woodwork, which we hope can be preserved.
Some of the stained glass has fallen to pieces. It is expensive to restore stained glass, but the Union Project in Highland Park made restoring stained glass a community-education project, with spectacular results.
A small church that still belongs to Lutherans, now as Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Chapel (a Missouri Synod congregation). It is an exception to the general rule that Lutherans did not build corner-tower auditorium churches; the shape of the tiny lot dictated the shape of the church. The slope dictated that the sanctuary would be on the second floor if you enter from the front, but the ground floor if you enter from the back.
John L. Beatty, who designed a number of good Gothic churches in our area, was the architect of this grand church for the First United Presbyterian congregation of Crafton.1
The dates of the foundation of the congregation (1908) and the building of the current church (1927).
The congregation had money for two huge windows in the 1960s or 1970s.
“Crafton Church to Build,” Gazette Times, February 15, 1927. “The First United Presbyterian Church of Crafton is having plans prepared for a new church building to seat 500 persons at the corner of Bradford and Haldane streets, Crafton. The Rev. A. W. Caldwell is pastor. John L. Beatty is architect.” ↩︎
H. Childs Hodgens was the architect of this church, which was built in 1911.1 It has not been M. P. for a good while; currently it is shared by the House of Prayer for All Slavic Christian Church and the Congregation Yeshua Ben David.
Source: The Construction Record, September 30, 1911: “Foundations are in for the $15,000 brick and stone church, to be erected on William Pitt Boulevard and Lilac street, Squirrel Hill, for the Squirrel Hill Methodist Protestant Congregation, from plans drawn by Architect H. C. Hodgens, Vandergrift building.” William Pitt Boulevard is now Beechwood Boulevard. ↩︎
A good example of the kind of arts-and-crafts Gothic that was popular for churches in the first quarter of the twentieth century, usually defined by broad Perpendicular Gothic windows, corner towers, and simple but elegantly crafted woodwork. The architect was S. A. Hamel, about whom old Pa Pitt knows little so far other than that he designed some churches south of the rivers and lived on Giffin Avenue, just two blocks away from this church. Mr. Hamel was associated with a real-estate broker named James A. Griffith, who sold this lot to the church and probably recommended the architect. It seems the congregation was not disappointed: the same congregation still owns the building, and a picture published when the church was dedicated in early 1919, though the scan is poor, is clear enough to show us that almost nothing has been altered.
The congregation was originally German Baptist. The earlier home of the congregation, when it was known as the First German Baptist Church, is also still standing on the South Side; it now belongs to the Holy Assumption of St. Mary Orthodox congregation.
When ground was broken for this building, an article in the Press related the history of the congregation.
Ground Broken for New Temple Baptist Church
Ground has been broken for the new Temple Baptist church, to be erected at Brownsville rd. and Onyx st., Mt. Oliver, at a cost of $50,000. The plans, drawn by Architect S. A. Hamel, call for a handsome structure of rough brick of odd coloring, creating a beautiful effect, and the congregation, which now is holding services at Birmingham and Hays aves., Carrick, anticipates being in its new home before the end of the year.
The Temple Baptist congregation is the oldest German Baptist congregation in Pittsburg and vicinity, and formerly was known as the First German Baptist, the word German now having been dropped from its title.
Formerly services were held in the old church at South Nineteenth st. and Carey ay., where, for 60 years the congregation worshiped, but recently the property was sold to the Greek Orthodox congregation. A chapel that had been maintained by the Baptist congregation at Hays and Phillips aves., Carrick, also has been disposed of and now is being used by the Carrick Red Cross. Since Rev. A. P. Mihm, the pastor, assumed charge three years ago, the membership has enjoyed a steady and substantial growth.
In honor of Reformation Day, here is a Lutheran church. O. M. Topp, for a generation the favorite choice of Lutherans, designed this neat Gothic church, which was built in 1929, as we see from the cornerstone.1 But, oddly, the cornerstone says that the church is the Sunday school.
That’s because things didn’t go exactly as planned. This was meant to become the Sunday-school wing, temporarily serving as the sanctuary until the much larger church was built. But then the Depression came, and then the war, and the big church was never built. Instead, when the congregation was finally ready to expand in 1960, it was decided to keep this building as the sanctuary, and a large modern Sunday-school wing was built beside it.
The architect’s drawing shows us that nothing on the outside has changed except for the encrustation of newer building to the left.
Wilkinsburg’s own Milligan & Miller designed this rambling Gothic church, which is still in use by its original congregation, now South Avenue United Methodist. “One of the most important additions to the structural beauty of the place,” said a 1907 Pittsburg Press feature on Wilkinsburg,1 “will be the new South Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, which is to replace the old burned down last February. It is to cost $125,000 and will be one of the finest church buildings in the community. The construction is under the charge of Architects Milligan & Miller, who designed the plans.”
