Father Pitt

Tag: Ukrainian History

  • SS. Peter and Paul Greek Catholic Church, Braddock

    SS. Peter and Paul Church

    This grand Byzantine church, built in 1923, is set on a steep slope on an implausibly tiny street. Its congregation is still going: for cultural and administrative reasons, Eastern churches tend to continue long after their Western neighbors have thrown in the towel. The church itself was modeled after the Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, which also served as the model for St. John the Baptist in Munhall; but the architect of this one, W. Ward Williams,1 took his model more literally than Titus de Bobula did. Curiously enough the church in Ukraine has the same kind of slope to deal with, as we see in this picture by Raimond Spekking:

    Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, by Raimond Spekking
    © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
    Cornerstone with dates of 1896 and 1923
    Pediment

    The pediment is strictly classical, Doric rather than the Corinthian of its model, with the inscription “Russian Greek Catholic Church of SS. Peter and Paul.”

    Tower
    SS. Peter and Paul Church
    1. Source: Proposals, Pittsburg Press, May 26, 1922, p. 38. “Proposals are invited from building contractors for the erection of a fireproof church building to be erected for SS. Peter and Paul Greek Catholic church. George st., Braddock, Pa. Bids are to be made on forms as furnished by the Architect, W. Ward Williams…” In the original version of the article, we did not know the architect, but a lucky item buried in a correspondence from David Schwing sent us on a long chase, and we finally cornered Mr. Williams. ↩︎

  • St. Mary’s Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, McKees Rocks Bottoms

    St. Mary’s Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, McKees Rocks Bottoms

    Now St. Mary Ukrainian Orthodox Parish. The history of Catholic and Orthodox Ukrainian Christians in the United States is complicated, and old Pa Pitt will not attempt to sort it out here. It ends with double Ukrainian churches in many neighborhoods, and that is the case here: there is a more recent Ukrainian Catholic church around the corner from this one.

    This impressive building was designed by Carlton Strong (whose full name was Thomas Willet Carlton Strong, and no wonder he usually shaved off half of it). Strong’s most famous work was the magnificently Gothic Sacred Heart in Shadyside, but he adapts very well to the Byzantine style here and gives the Bottoms a distinctive addition to its skyline.

    Dome
    Cornerstone dated 1922
    Entrance
    Front elevation
    From the rear
    Rectory

    The rectory is in a different style; it is certainly one of the most splendid houses in the Bottoms.

    Rear of the rectory, with fence in Ukrainian-flag colors

    The fence behind the rectory has recently been repainted in a patriotic color scheme.

    Church and rectory

    Carlton Strong, incidentally, came to Pittsburgh as a designer of apartment buildings, giving us the Bellefield Dwellings as his first work here. He later converted to the Catholic faith and became one of our most prominent church architects. You can read a good biography of Carlton Strong by the distinguished local historian Kathleen M. Washy on line:

    Designing in God’s Name: Architect Carlton Strong

  • St. John’s Ukrainian Catholic Church, McKees Rocks Bottoms

    St. John’s Ukrainian Catholic Church

    Built in 1960, this church adopted a radically simplified Byzantine architecture. It is much smaller than its Ukrainian Orthodox (formerly Ukrainian Greek Catholic) neighbor St. Mary’s around the corner, but both congregations continue to inhabit the same neighborhood without throwing bricks at each other.

    Perspective view
    Church and rectory

    The attached rectory is in an equally simple style; the pasted-on false shutters are an attempt to make it feel less institutional.

  • Ukrainian National Home, McKees Rocks Bottoms

    Ukrainian National Home

    Father Pitt would like to introduce you to an architect you’ve never heard of, but one who merits your attention: John H. Phillips, who kept his office in McKees Rocks, and about whose personal life old Pa Pitt knows absolutely nothing.

    When we speak of the early modernists in Pittsburgh—the architects before 1920 or so who adopted the idioms of Art Nouveau and related movements—we generally have a very short list: Frederick Scheibler, Kiehnel & Elliott, and the incomparable Titus de Bobula, the man who gave up his promising career as an architect because he would rather be a millionaire playboy Nazi dictator. Now Father Pitt proposes to add the name of John H. Phillips to that list. Here is the Ukrainian National Home, built in 1913 in a shockingly unconventional style.

    Inscription over the door: Ukrainian National Home

    We have to use our imagination to see the building with the colossal windows the architect designed to flood the building with light, because men’s clubs in Pittsburgh always block in their windows. But the outlines of the building are unaltered, and the ornamental brickwork is remarkable. Note in particular those squares above downward-pointing triangles at the entrance: they will reappear on other Phillips buildings, almost like a signature.

    Perspective view

    Where did this obscure architect get his Art Nouveau style? There could be any number of explanations, but Father Pitt suspects that Phillips took a lot of inspiration from Titus de Bobula. We will see some evidence for that speculation when we come to Phillips’ most prominent work in the McKees Rocks Bottoms, Holy Ghost Church. Meanwhile, this extraordinary building may serve as John H. Phillips’ initiation into the exclusive little club of early modernists in Pittsburgh.