Father Pitt

Tag: Larimer Avenue

  • First Italian Presbyterian Church, Larimer

    First Italian Presbyterian Church

    Right now you could buy an interesting piece of Pittsburgh Italian history. This was built as the First Italian Presbyterian Church; later it was known as Trinity Presbyterian, and then the building was taken over by the Agape Christian Fellowship. But now the building is for sale. It seems to be in good shape externally, including a spire that does not look very bedraggled at all.

    The church as built in 1903
    “The Church Building Dedicated in 1903,” from The Miracle of Trinity, 1964. The source of the drawing is not mentioned; it may be the architect’s rendering.

    The architect of the church, built in 1902–1903, was D. E. Sheridan, who was based in East Liberty.1 In addition to the usual run of middle-class houses and small commercial buildings, he had a number of clients in the South and Southwest, according to a short biography of him published in 1907, which is backed up by listings in trade journals. The half-round protrusion probably tells us that the church was built on the Akron Plan.

    First Italian Presbyterian Church

    But Italian Presbyterians? Aren’t Italians all Roman Catholics? Let the retired pastor of the church explain it:

    The opinion held by most Americans is that the Italians are staunch Roman Catholics. The fact that Rome is the seat of the Roman Pontiff and that most of the Popes have been Italian, makes this widely held opinion sound very logical.

    But the historical and religious background of the Italian Immigrants lead us to an entirely different conclusion. To understand their religious attitude, we must remember that the struggle for the unification of Italy alienated from the Roman Church practically all the Italian Patriots. The Italians knew that the Vatican had opposed the noble dreams of Mazzini and Garibaldi, and that it had gone so far as to excommunicate them. They remembered that on September 20, 1870, when the Italian troops entered the Eternal City and proclaimed it to be the capital of the United Kingdom of Italy, the Pope issued a scathing protest against the Italian Government and locked himself in the Vatican. This anti-Italian stand of the Vatican, coupled with the corruption of the clergy, alienated most of the intelligent, patriotic Italians from the Roman Catholic Church. They retained a sentimental attachment to the church, but had no respect for the Clergy. This understandable politico-religious attitude became known as “anticlericalismo.”

    Many of the Italian immigrants who settled in East Liberty were avowed anti-clerical. This attitude did not necessarily lead them to seek the purity of the Gospel of Salvation in Jesus Christ, but it kept them free from the oppressive domination of the priests.2

    Thus, when Presbyterian missionaries came to the neighborhood, they found a number of Italians ready to hear their message of a Christianity with no popes. The majority of Italians in Pittsburgh remained Catholic, however, and this was never a very large congregation.

    First Italian Presbyterian Church
    First Italian Presbyterian Church
    Steeple
    First Italian Presbyterian Church
    First Italian Presbyterian Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.

    It would hardly seem like Pittsburgh if we didn’t include a good batch of utility cables in at least one picture.

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  • The Last Italian Shop in Larimer

    Henry Grasso Co. Inc.

    Larimer, like Bloomfield, was a German neighborhood that turned into an Italian neighborhood. The German residents mostly left as the Italian residents moved in; then, later, the Italian residents mostly left as the Black residents moved in. “White flight” is the usual term for the latter migration; Father Pitt has coined the term “Nordic flight” to describe the earlier evacuation of Northern European residents as “undesirable” Southern and Eastern Europeans moved in. If we look at a 1923 plat map of a block near this building, the names tell the story: Giordano, Romano, Bastone, Labriola, Ross, Boccella, Giaccia, Ferrara, Costa, Neff, Junker, Barni, Dettrich, Terenzio… Mostly Italian, with a few German stragglers; and it would not be surprising to find that those houses were being rented by Italian families.

    Henry Grasso Company, fromt elevation
    Sony Alpha 3000.

    This one Italian business remained in Larimer until just a few years ago. It had a convenient location at the end of the Larimer Avenue bridge, and as a restaurant supplier it did not depend on the walk-in trade, so there was no reason to move. Like many another shop in down-on-their-luck neighborhoods, it simply locked its door one day and pickled the shop as a gradually fading time capsule.

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