city accepted on Aug. 11<\/a>. Onufer said Schaaf could start the demo on Wednesday. <\/p>\nAn official at Schaaf, communicating through text, said the company was still waiting for a final go-ahead from the Allegheny County Health Department following an asbestos survey. The agency\u2019s spokesman could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
Even before the fire, the church had been sitting empty. Pittsburgh Presbytery had determined the 169-year-old church had outlived its useful life, Archer said. With only ten regular parishioners, building maintenance and the basic requirements of any church had become impossible, she added.<\/p>\n
The congregation at Grandview officially dissolved on Dec. 31, 2022, and Pittsburgh Presbytery assumed ownership of the building, Archer said. The Presbytery will pay for the demolition, which Archer said she expects will cost \u201cwell over $150,000.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg Barton and his wife, Merrie Beth, attended the church to the very end, and they dreamed of saving the structure through historic preservation, he said. Merrie Beth served as music director from 1984 to 1997.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe attended and played music and sang together there,\u201d Greg Barton said. \u201cWe wanted to revitalize the church. \u2026 It could have been one of the most visible Presbyterian churches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Church history<\/p>\n
When the last parishioner turned off the lights behind Grandview United Presbyterian\u2019s iconic glass-block cross that shone over Grandview Avenue, they did so with a sense of history that dates to a log cabin schoolhouse in 1851.<\/p>\n
Grandview Presbyterian\u2019s story began when English immigrant and entrepreneur Sturley Cuthbert established a Sunday School on Mount Washington, which was still known as Coal Hill back then, according to a church program from its centennial anniversary celebration in 1957.<\/p>\n
The school grew quickly, and its leadership recognized the need for a church. Cuthbert and 23 others founded Mount Washington Presbyterian Church in 1857, and they installed their first pastor the Rev. John Y. McCartney the following year. They opened their first church building the year after that.<\/p>\n
The church also grew quickly, and its parishioners erected another wooden building in 1891. They paid $1,200 for a pipe organ six years later, and continued to add onto the building over the decades.<\/p>\n
By the church\u2019s 50th anniversary in 1914, the church \u201cwas the largest and most influential congregation in the community,\u201d according to its centennial anniversary document. Its congregation had grown to more than 1,200 members by 1918.<\/p>\n
Parishioners added the brick exterior in 1947, and three years later, they dedicated the glass block cross in the memory of the Rev. Donald McGarrah\u2019s son, David, who was hit and killed by a truck at age 5.<\/p>\n
Period of decline<\/p>\n
Times change, and congregations shift.<\/p>\n
The Rev. James B. Marshall served as pastor from 1957 to 1993. Since the mid-1990s, the congregation had not had a fulltime pastor, Archer said. <\/p>\n
The Rev. Susan Meyer led services from 2001 until her 2016 retirement. The church did not have another pastor until it closed its doors. By then, the brick facade had started pulling away from the wood structure beneath. <\/p>\n
Churches close for many reasons, Archer said, including dwindling participation driven by regional population loss and a national decline in church attendance. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese congregations have been faithful to God, their members, and the community,\u201d Archer said. \u201cSometimes for centuries. Completion of ministry recognizes this as faithfulness rather than failure.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/p>\n
NewsWorks Lab is a public-benefit company owned by Trib Total Media to produce high-impact, accountability journalism as a free, open-source resource. You may find more information at NewsWorksLab.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u2022 \u2022 \u2022 <\/p>\n
Roger P. Healy and Tim Robbibaro are contributors to NewsWorks Lab. Hannah Frances Johansson is a NewsWorks Lab staff writer.<\/p>\n
Copyright NewsWorksLab, LLC 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demolition crews could start removing the fire-gutted former Grandview United Presbyterian Church in Mount Washington on Wednesday, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-272041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}