HISTORY & NEIGHBORHOOD
A LOOK INTO TIME
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Highland Park was not our original home. The first Saint Andrew’s Church was built of brick in 1839 at the present location of Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Ninth Street, in downtown Pittsburgh. Thirty years later, after extensive flood damage, the church was rebuilt at the same site, this time using stone.
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By the turn of the century, the growing East End seemed a more strategic neighborhood, given recent demographic changes. Parish leaders selected the prominent firm Carpenter & Crocker, who also designed Saint James Episcopal Church (now Church of the Holy Cross) and the Trinity Cathedral Parish House on Oliver Avenue, downtown, along with many mansions along Pittsburgh’s “millionaire’s row” Fifth Avenue. Easter Sunday, 1906, marked the congregation’s first celebration in the present Saint Andrew’s.
Now a Historic Landmark, our church is a fine example of the Gothic Revival movement, featuring a carved stone reredos, the ornate Lady Chapel, and fine stained-glass windows, including Tiffany’s Christ and the Children over the High Altar and the transept windows Nativity and Ascension, attributed to Clara Miller Burd. The majestic 1913 E.M. Skinner pipe organ, restored and expanded in 1992, remains one of the finest instruments in the region.
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
At home in the Highland Park neighborhood of Pittsburgh since the beginning of the 20th century, Saint Andrew's is widely known as a place of hospitality and community life. We host and sponsor civic and educational programs, concerts and theatrical performances, and an ever-increasing number of special interest groups. We also do our best to make our lovely facility available for our neighbors on a less formal basis—as a place for a baby shower, perhaps, when a home or apartment is too small for the number of invited guests—or as a rainy day location for a family reunion picnic.
We are glad to have as neighborhood partners friends like the Highland Park Community Council and the Highland Park Community Development Corporation—and we do our best to make space available for Block Watch meetings, community holiday crafts fairs, and as the headquarters of the biannual neighborhood House Tour. We have hosted many Scout troops over the years, and we are currently hosting three Girl Scout troops. We enjoy a friendly and cooperative relationship with our next-door neighbors at Fulton School—and we are pleased some years to host their 5th grade graduation ceremonies.
Saint Andrew's is the home of the Women of Song, an inter-generational choir for women. We are a regular concert program home for the Pittsburgh Camerata, as well as the Pittsburgh Festival Orchestra as our "Orchestra in Residence."
Through Saint Andrew’s Outreach, we provide support, resources, and engagement to a number of neighborhood ministries (see Serve tab). We are the home of one Alcoholics Anonymous group, two Narcotics Anonymous groups, as well as an Al-Anon meeting. And St. Andrew's Parish House is where many in the neighborhood come to vote on Election Day.
Here are links to some of our community partners.
The Highland Park Community Council
The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh
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