Father Pitt

Tag: Jewish History

  • A Stubborn Survivor from the Lower Hill

    Beth Hamedrash Hagadol–Beth Jacob Congregation
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    The destruction of the Lower Hill and the destruction of central Allegheny were the two great urban-renewal catastrophes in Pittsburgh’s history. A century ago, the Lower Hill was the classic American melting pot, where black and white, Christian and Jewish, and every other kind of people all lived together in a crowded but lively neighborhood. That made it a slum, according to middle-twentieth-century definitions. When “slum clearance” became an urban-planning buzzword, the Lower Hill was the prime target.

    Many of the synagogues had moved to Squirrel Hill and other neighborhoods in the East End by that time. The Beth Hamedrash Hagodol congregation had not. It had stayed in its 1892 building right next to Epiphany School, where downtown workers could easily walk to prayers.

    From a Hopkins plat map at Pittsburgh Historic Maps. At this time the congregation was known as B’nai Israel.

    When the Lower Hill was demolished (except for Epiphany Church and School, which we’ll be seeing shortly), the old synagogue was one of the buildings in the way. But the congregation didn’t give up. It built a new synagogue just around the corner on Colwell Street, taking the elaborate Torah ark from the old building.

    The new synagogue lasted for about forty years, but then it, too, found itself in the way. It was torn down when the new arena was built.

    Still the congregation didn’t give up. Architect Harry Levine remodeled an abandoned building into a new synagogue, and in 2010 the congregation, after meeting in borrowed space at Duquesne University for a couple of years, moved into its current home on Fifth Avenue at Diamond Street. Here it is still convenient for downtown worshipers, and here it stands, a block away from its Lower Hill location, an indomitable survivor.

    Father Pitt’s information in this article comes from the article on Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Congregation at the Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania, along with the story “ ‘A Hidden Gem’: The history of Beth Hamedrash Hagodol-Beth Jacob Congregation” at the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.

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  • Rodef Shalom’s Downtown Temple

    Eighth Street Temple, Rodef Shalom
    From The Builder, January, 1906.

    This was the home of the Rodef Shalom congregation for a very short time. It was downtown on Eighth Street, a narrow one-block alley where its site today is a parking lot. In those days, however, Eighth Street was crowded with buildings and institutions, including the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Christian Home for Working Girls, and the North Public School. Having outgrown their previous building, the Rodef Shalom congregation hired Charles Bickel, probably the most prolific architect Pittsburgh ever had, to design a magnificent temple that told the city its Jewish residents were proud to be part of the social fabric.

    Building the new temple required tearing down the old one, but the people of the Second Presbyterian Church around the corner (not the Reformed Presbyterians next door) opened their doors to their Jewish neighbors, and for a year the two congregations shared the Second Presbyterian building, one worshiping on Saturday and the other on Sunday. A news story at the time tells us that, among the Rodef Shalom congregation, “there were many expressions of good feeling over this neighborly act on the part of the Presbyterian neighbors” when the agreement was announced.

    The new temple opened in 1901. But the congregation was growing so quickly that, by 1904, it was already too small. Rodef Shalom had to find new quarters, with more land to spread out.

    Rodef Shalom today worships in one of the most admired synagogue buildings in America, the magnificent temple on Fifth Avenue designed by Henry Hornbostel.

    Rodef Shalom on Fifth Avenue

    When we look at the two buildings, designed less than a decade apart, it’s striking how different they are in style. Bickel’s design looks old-fashioned; Hornbostel’s looks forward to the future, and it has stood the test of more than a century’s radical changes in taste.

    But a comparison of the two buildings also reveals how much they have in common. Almost all the same design elements are in both buildings (with the prominent exception of the turbaned towers on the Bickel building); it almost looks as though the congregation had told Hornbostel, “We want the same thing we have downtown, but bigger.” (Though it’s not visible in either picture, another feature both buildings share is a large central dome.)

    The Bickel building had several decades of life after Rodef Shalom moved out. The congregation sold it to their good friends at the Second Presbyterian Church, who moved into the relatively new building, and were thus able to sell their valuable corner location at Penn and Seventh, where Katz Plaza is today. For many years, the Second Presbyterians and the Reformed Presbyterians coexisted side by side on Eighth Street. The old Bickel building was still there in 1957, according to aerial photos; by 1967 it was replaced by parking lot, which is what has been there ever since.

  • Completing Plans for Hebrew Institute

    From The Construction Record, September 26, 1914. The building was put up the next year, and still stands almost exactly as Mr. Cohen designed it.

  • Temple B’nai Israel, McKeesport

    Temple B’nai Israel

    This gorgeous synagogue in the style old Pa Pitt calls Jewish Romanesque is fortunately owned by a church that obviously appreciates the building and has not altered its Jewish ornamentation. Father Pitt’s apologies for the lighting; the sun was from the wrong direction, but our cameras did their best.

    Menorah mosaic
    Decalogue
    Corner view of the Temple
    Cornerstone

    The cornerstone gives us a date of 1922 (or 5683) for the building and 1912 for the foundation of the congregation. Temple B’nai Israel was the first Reform congregation in McKeesport, and the congregation still exists, though in 2000 it moved to White Oak. The Temple’s Web site has a timeline of the congregation’s history. (Update: The congregation has decided to wind down operations and close in 2025.)

    The Heinz History Center owns a commemorative plate from 1962 for the “Golden Anniversary” of the congregation; it has a picture of the building, and a misprinted foundation date—“1902” instead of 1912, though the words “GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY” are right above it.

  • Hebrew Institute, Hill

    Front of the Hebrew Institute

    In the early twentieth century, the Hill was Pittsburgh’s most diverse neighborhood, and in particular it was the main center of Jewish culture. A number of buildings survive from the Jewish community there, though they have all been turned to other uses. This one, for example, is now a “community engagement center” run by the University of Pittsburgh. But it was the original home of the Hebrew Institute, which moved to Squirrel Hill in 1944. It was a school that taught Hebrew language, literature, and culture to Jewish children. The style of the building is typical Pittsburgh School Classical, but the broken pediment above the entrance frames a Torah scroll.

    Broken pediment with Torah
    From the west
    Erected 5675–1915
    From the east

    Addendum: The architect, according to a 1914 issue of the Construction Record, was Walter S. Cohen, who had a thriving practice serving mostly Jewish clients. “Architect Walter S. Cohen, Oliver building, has plans nearly completed for a two-story brick and stone institute building for the Hebrew Institute of Pittsburgh, Wylie avenue and Green street, to be built at a cost of $30,000.”