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Saturday, November 10, 2001

By Patricia Lowry, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Located at the nexus of three neighborhoods -- East Liberty, Highland Park and Morningside -- the former Union Baptist Church is a highly visible neighborhood landmark.

And for years, its soot-blackened sandstone has been highly visibly weathering away.

Now a group of East End activists and artists has come to the rescue with plans to turn the vacant, Gothic-style building at the corner of Stanton and Negley avenues into a nonprofit community and arts center and coffee shop.

"We have seen this building deteriorate over the last five or 10 years and really want to do something about it," said Jessica King, director of the Mennonite Urban Corps. "This is a huge community asset. Thousands of people pass by it every day."

King is one of six members of The Union Project, which bought the church in late summer for $125,000. Most of the six participated in the Mennonite Urban Corps' one-year voluntary service program, which places recent college graduates with community building, peacemaking and arts groups.

So far, with the aid of more than 200 volunteers, they've repaired the roof of the church and removed trash from the interior. Now they're ready to open the doors and talk about their plans.

Today, they'll host an open house with tours from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. At 1 p.m., they will present a short program explaining the goals of The Union Project. The Community Day also will feature a flea market of household items (8 a.m. to 1 p.m.), silent art auction and music performances by Coal Train, J.G. Boccella, the Keith Hershberger Trio and Heather Kropf.

Kropf, an artist and singer-songwriter, is one of the six Union Project founders; the others are ceramic artists Justin Shank and Chad Martin (King's husband), John Stahl-Wert, president of the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, and his wife, artist Milonica Stahl-Wert.

They're proceeding under the auspices of the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, an ecumenical, faith-based resource foundation that helps about 1,000 congregations with community building and human service projects. The foundation is sheltering The Union Project until it can become an independent, non-profit organization.

Over the winter, the group will work on a business plan, consult with architects and determine project costs. It could open the church for community use in a year.

The church's original congregation and date of construction are not yet known. But behind a cabinet the group found blueprints dated 1915, drawn up by architect John Lewis Beatty for "repairs" to the Second Presbyterian Church.