Several synagogues in Pittsburgh have been adapted from private houses—one of them half a block away from here. This one seems no longer to be a synagogue, so it has gone from residential to institutional to residential again. The inscription is mostly in Hebrew, which old Pa Pitt regrets that he does not read, so perhaps a reader can inform us which congregation was here. The English part of the inscription memorializes Mr. & Mrs. Bennie Fineberg, perhaps the donors.
We could try to imagine what the front of this house looked like before its conversion. But we needn’t put in the effort, because a nearly identical house is right next door:
This one has been converted to apartments, and it has suffered some alterations, but nothing that takes very much imagination to remove in our mind’s eye and restore the original look of the house.
The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle identifies this as “The Oldest Jewish Building in Pittsburgh.” It is not really very old, but all the older synagogues have been destroyed. That article gives a fascinating summary of this building’s complicated history; old Pa Pitt will summarize the summary. It was built for a congregation of Russian Jews who broke away from the Beth Zedek synagogue and called themselves Beth David, House of David. They started building this new synagogue right away, but they ran out of money, merged with Beth Zedeck again, and formed a new congregation called Shaaray Tefillah; so that, even though the date stone says “Beth David,” no Beth David congregation ever used this building.
Shaaray Tefillah moved to Squirrel Hill in 1940, and this building became the Miller Street Baptist Church. That church closed a few years ago, and now we see the building being refurbished for some new use. Father Pitt does not quite approve of the new metal on the mansard roof; but slate would cost more than the building is worth, and that the building has a roof at all puts it ahead of too many historic buildings on the Hill.
The Star of David must have gone with the Jewish congregation, or possibly was removed by the Baptists.
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.
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.
Several old synagogues remain on the Hill, though their numbers are dwindling and none are still synagogues. This building appears not to be in use right now, though it is still marked on Google Maps as Zion Full Gospel Baptist Church (its one review gives it four stars, and the entire text of the review is “Can’t remember this place either sorry”). The Star of David on the side identifies it as a synagogue, even if we did not have our Pittsburgh Historic Maps to look at. In 1922, the Congregation Kaiser Torah changed its name (for some reason) to Congregation Kether Torah. In the early 1950s the congregation moved to Squirrel Hill and sold the building to the “Carter Chapel Colored Methodist Church,” or C. M. E. Church, as we can still see in one of the layers of lettering on the cornerstone.
Some addenda: In later sources, the earlier name of the synagogue (are you confused yet?) is spelled Keser Torah or Kesser Torah. The congregation was still meeting at the Hillel Academy a few years ago. It has been small for decades; even in 1958 there were only 50 members, according to “The Story of Kether Torah Congregation,” a clipping from the Jewish Criterion preserved at the Heinz History Center.
A correction: In an earlier version of this article, Father Pitt mistakenly read the cornerstone as “Carter Chapel A.M.E. Church.” It was a C.M.E. Church, not A.M.E.; it later moved to the former Trinity Methodist Protestant Church on the North Side, but is no longer there.
Addendum: The architect was Daniel A. Crone, who earlier had designed the old Tree of Life synagogue in Oakland that later became the Pittsburgh Playhouse and was demolished a few years ago. This building would have been finished in about 1920.
Henry Hornbostel designed two prominent synagogues in Pittsburgh. The still-prospering Rodef Shalom is familiar to everyone, partly because it sits at the eastern end of the Fifth Avenue monument row in Oakland and Shadyside. This one, built in 1923, is perhaps a more adventurous design. Hornbostel used old and new materials and design elements from different traditions to create a building that immediately looked as if it had been there for a millennium or more. After a few years as a school, it is now in the midst of being repurposed as apartments.
Technically, according to the neighborhood border that goes up the middle of Negley Avenue on the city planning map, this building is in Garfield. Socially, it is more associated with East Liberty.
Probably the most popular style of synagogue architecture in Pittsburgh a century ago was what we might call Jewish Romanesque, with the round arches typical of Romanesque architecture along with some elements taken from traditional European Jewish architecture to make it clear that this is not a Christian church. Here is a good but endangered example of that style.
It was built in 1923 or 1924 on Margaretta Street, now East Liberty Boulevard, and its members knew it familiarly as the Margaretta Street Shul. (Addendum: The architect was Ralph Friedberg.1) The congregation sold the building in 1996 and moved to Monroeville, where it withered away a few years later. For a while after that this was a Baptist church; but it seems to be vacant now. That is the danger. Even in the most prosperous neighborhood, it can be hard to find a use for an old church or synagogue. This part of East Liberty is far from the worst neighborhood, but it has not reached the prosperity of Highland Park to the north or the newly lively core of East Liberty to the south. If the neighborhood stays as it is, this building will probably simply decay and eventually have to be demolished. If the neighborhood prospers, it will probably be demolished to make way for something else.
Structurally, the building seems quite sound. But the details are suffering, notably the crumbling parapet, which is one of the distinctive and remarkable features of the façade.
Assuming the name was reported correctly in the American Contractor for October 13, 1923: “Synagogue: $120,000. 1 sty. & bas. 70×95. Margarotta [sic] & St. Clair sts. Archt. Ralph Friedberg, Farmers Bank bldg. Owner The Congregation of the Adah, Jeshurum Hausman, chrmn. of comm., 720 N. Negley av. Brk. Gen. contr. let to Harry Rubenstein, 601 N. Euclid av. Carp. by gen contr. by day work. Htg. to Reliance Htg. Co., 3610 5th av. Plmg. to Moss & Blakeley, Climax & Beltzhoover st., South Side. On 1st sty. brk. wk.” Considering how garbled the rest of the entry is, we have less than complete confidence in the architect’s name. ↩︎
Some work has been going on at this abandoned synagogue, so perhaps it will find a new purpose. The abstract menorah (it once had electric light bulbs for candles) and irregular horizontal stone date it to the middle twentieth century. But although you wouldn’t know it from the front, this is really a luxurious early-1900s private house with a modernist façade grafted on.
One of Henry Hornbostel’s most impressive works, Rodef Shalom, built in 1906, is notable for its colored terra-cotta decorations, which—according to the interpretive sign on the temple grounds—were among the earliest uses of polychrome terra cotta in the United States.
