Nonprofit gives new life to three closed churches in Johnstown
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Immaculate Conception, a former Catholic church built in Johnstown by German immigrants, is one of three ethnic churches acquired by a nonprofit called 1901 Church Inc., which plans to find new ways to use the buildings located in a 10-block, historic neighborhood called Cambria City. -
SS. Casimir and Emerich, a former Catholic church built by Polish immigrants, has a basement and commercial kitchen. -
The altar and mural of St. Columba, one of the three closed Catholic churches in the Cambria City neighborhood of Johnstown. The ethnically Irish church was built in 1913-14 to replace an older structure, and was designed by Pittsburgh architect John T. Comes. Its altar mural blends religious imagery with contemporary events like World War I (doughboys are visible on the right) and the rise of industrialism (note the factory on the left).
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Leaders of a Western Pennsylvania nonprofit that purchased three former Catholic churches in Johnstown are determined to find new uses for Immaculate Conception, St. Columba and SS. Casimir and Emerich.
Dave Hurst, a project manager with 1901 Church Inc., said all three buildings "are contributing structures to the National Historic Register District" of Cambria City, a 10-block neighborhood in Johnstown that was home to immigrants who worked in steel mills and coal mines in the 19th and 20th centuries. The three church buildings were sold last year for $30,000 after a 2009 parish consolidation that merged five parishes into one.
"We feel like Cambria City has the potential of becoming a mini-South Side," Mr. Hurst said, referencing the Pittsburgh neighborhood, once dominated by a Jones & Laughlin steel mill and home to thousands of immigrant laborers, that became a mecca for bars, restaurants, shops and theaters starting in the 1980s.
Teresa Stoughton Marafino, founder of 1901 Church, is producer at the Mountain Playhouse in Jennerstown. In 2001, she was determined to prevent demolition of the former Trinity United Church of Christ in Jennerstown, a borough 10 miles north of Somerset. Her solution was moving it a few blocks on historic Route 30, where it now serves as a storage facility for Mountain Playhouse props, sets and costumes.
An ardent preservationist, Ms. Marafino hopes the Johnstown initiative will succeed and also reinvigorate efforts to find a new use for Trinity United Church of Christ, where she was baptized and confirmed.
"It's about conserving our architectural integrity and uniqueness, not just tearing it down because you need the space or tearing it down because you have no other solutions. If these buildings were torn down, it would not be Cambria City," Ms. Marafino said.
Partners for Sacred Places, a national group with a Philadelphia office, led a community planning meeting in November 2010 in which more than 100 Johnstown residents suggested ways to use the former churches. Ms. Marafino says her organization has worked closely with Partners for Sacred Places, which is helping 1901 Church raise funds and develop a business plan.
Built by German immigrants in the Gothic Revival style, Immaculate Conception is suitable for use as a banquet and reception hall or musical performances because its soaring arches provide excellent acoustics, Mr. Hurst said. Munich-trained artisans made its stained-glass windows, which will remain. The pipe organ, hand built by Adam Stein, is in good shape and among only a dozen or so remaining examples of his craftsmanship.
Ms. Marafino said Immaculate Conception could become a cultural arts center. This winter, artists from the nearby BOTTLE WORKS Ethnic Arts Center in Cambria City will use Immaculate Conception's interior to lay out and build a new mosaic they plan to install this spring and summer. One exterior wall of the BOTTLE WORKS building is already covered in a tulip-themed mosaic.
A local caterer and florist also may use Immaculate Conception as a banquet hall for weddings, Ms. Marafino added. There are plans to hold a pipe organ concert as a spring fundraiser.
St. Columba, built between 1913 and 1915 by Irish immigrants, was designed by Pittsburgh-based architect John T. Comes, who also designed churches in Wheeling, W.Va., Toledo, Ohio, and Salt Lake City, Utah. Plans call for turning St. Columba into a theater.
"We want to create, with the help of the Mountain Playhouse, a historical pageant about the immigrants' experience on the East Coast of the United States, as it relates to Johnstown," Ms. Marafino said. The production would dovetail with exhibits about immigrant life at the Johnstown Discovery Center, which is right across the street.
St. Columba's altar wall features a large mural showing Christ on the cross. Painted by Felix Lieftuchter in 1919, the mural also has graphic World War I scenes, including burned-out buildings, howitzers and German soldiers. A steel mill is shown in silhouette along with an industrialist wearing a top hat and an immigrant couple holding a baby.
The St. Casimir building is a Romanesque Revival built in 1907 by Polish immigrants. The parish merged with St. Emerich in 1997; St. Emerich was razed in 2003. St. Casimir is the only one of the three structures with a basement and commercial kit-chen. A local caterer may lease the space to people who operate food preparation businesses but don't have the funds to open their own kitchen, Mr. Hurst said.
"There are arts groups and businesses and higher education entities that are looking at the building seriously," Ms. Marafino said.
Tony DeGol, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona and Johnstown, said Cambria City originally had five parishes -- St. Stephen, St. Rochus, Immaculate Conception, St. Columba and SS. Casimir and Emerich -- that merged in 2009 into Resurrection Parish. St. Stephen, built by Slovaks, is the main worship site.
The Johnstown-Altoona Diocese sold the three former churches last year, but the deal was finalized in a signing ceremony at Immaculate Conception on Wednesday.
"The parish is self-financing a balloon-style mortgage," Mr. Hurst said. "We only had to come up with $500 up front. We have three years to pay off the total bill."
A priest shortage, coupled with a decline in the number of Catholics who live in the diocese's eight-county region, prompted the consolidation and sale of the buildings, Mr. DeGol said. In 1985, the diocese had 148,000 Catholics; in 2010, the figure was 94,000.
First Published January 29, 2012 12:00 am
