Lawrenceville
Church Brew Works
Former church, Liberty Avenue, Lawrenceville
In 1878 the English-speaking Catholics of Lawrenceville got a parish of their own, St. John the Baptist, placed between St. Patrick’s and St. Mary’s. The first church was at Penn Avenue and 36th Street. In 1901 the parish bought the lot at Liberty Avenue and 36th, and Louis and Michael Beezer, with John Comes, designed a church, a rectory, a school, and a convent. The cornerstone was laid on 1 June 1902, with a copper box inside it. The box is still there.
A fire in January 1915 burned the sanctuary. During the flood of March 1936 the church took people in. The school closed about twenty years before the parish did. On 6 August 1993 the bishop closed the parish, and the building sat empty.
It opened in August 1996 as the Church Brew Works, at 3525 Liberty Avenue. The oak pews had been twenty-four feet long. They were cut down to a little over four feet and set at the tables, and the bar was built from the wood that came off them. The Douglas fir floor, which had lain under plywood for fifty years, was uncovered. The kettles stand in the apse, where the altar was. Pittsburgh History & Landmarks listed the building in 2001.
Staff talk about a woman in white, and about objects that move when nobody is handling them. The parish history names no death that would account for her.
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