The pointy spires of Sts. Peter and Paul Church are a familiar and comforting symbol of East Liberty, yet the impressive and famed church (shout-out to its starring role in the film Dogma) has deteriorated steadily for years, becoming a site for squatters, vandals, and curious neighbors.
After many years of working to acquire the church, ELDI was granted conservatorship by the City in 2018. Once we had site control, we embarked on a community-driven process to find a viable new use for the building, and at the end of last year, were awarded $2.5 million through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program for the renovation of the historic site. Though we will likely need at least another $10 million more to realize the community’s vision for the church, we are on our way.
When we are ready to begin renovations, one important aspect that we will look to restore is the church’s impressive stained-glass windows. Peter Boucher of Boucher Glass in Garfield has been working in stained glass for more than 20 years, conserving and creating windows across the city and beyond. After expressing his interest to help us with the church, we spoke to him to learn more about what that process will entail and to hear about his life’s passion working in what many consider to be a “lost” art.
Read on to discover more about Sts. Peter and Paul’s stained glass windows, the restoration process, and what preserving them would mean to Boucher and the community.
To start, can you tell us about your background and how you got into stained glass restoration?
I first came to Pittsburgh in the early 90s to study drawing and painting at Carnegie Mellon University, and I became interested in stained glass. I went around the city with my sketchbook, drawing facades of buildings and a lot of the historic stuff that I’d walked by when I was a student and found interesting. During my explorations, I went into the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, and the thing that struck me was the stained glass. I was amazed by how the light would change over the three- or four-hour’s time I sat there. When I graduated, I was offered a job at the Carnegie Museum assisting artists with installation work, which was my specialty at the time. One day, I was at a park talking to one of my friends and he asked about the job. I explained it to him, and he said, “That’s great, but it doesn’t sound like you’re that excited about it.” I thought to myself, “You know, he’s right.” And then I thought, “What is it that I really want to do? What is it that really captures my attention?” And it was the glass, but I didn’t know how to get into that business, so I tried to find a place where I could start. I opened up the phone book and started calling every single stained glass company in the city. Eventually, Pittsburgh Stained Glass gave me a chance.
“What I became aware of quickly is that there’s the history of stained glass and the church building, and then there’s the history of the industry.”
The industry had a certain moment in time, very similar to the steel industry, in which it rose to prominence and power economically. So, there’s a knowledge base that was established in the US and elsewhere. When you walk into a church like Sts. Peter and Paul, you see the building, and that’s a layer. And then there’s why they put the stained glass up, who put it up, and what happened to all those people and companies.
When an organization like ELDI tries to figure out what to do with a building like this, they’re very quickly going to see that it’s not only the building itself that they’re dealing with but also how to do a restoration. Who do you contact? What do they know? And how do they know it? What kind of qualifications do they have? These are incredibly important and difficult things to find out. And there is a story behind why it’s like that.
Who made the stained glass windows in Sts. Peter and Paul Church?
From the research that I’ve done, Meyer and Company made the aisle windows. It’s a German company based in Munich that started in the middle of the 19th century, and they’re still operational now. They did a lot of work for Catholic churches in the US. Having information about where they came from is a good thing, but because of the amount of time that has passed, those companies themselves are actually quite different than they used to be. So if you went back to those companies to remake a particular piece of glass, it probably wouldn’t look exactly the same. The colors and textures would be different.
What kind of stories are depicted in the stained-glass windows, and what condition are they in now?
The stories are a combination. You have biblical scenes, very characteristic of Catholic churches, with depictions of the Bible. There’s an enunciation window, which is a depiction of when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her that she’s with child. It’s a very dramatic image. That one is actually quite broken, and there’s a board over it now. There are windows with saints, which is also very typical of a Catholic church. And then there’s a whole set of other symbols. There’s a rose window that sits over the entrance. It’s rather large, and that is accompanied by clerestory windows, which are the windows very high above the image windows.
What would the process of restoration entail?
Even for people that have been doing this for a long time, we can only give a very educated idea of time and what’s involved in doing a restoration. There’ll be some unexpected things that come up. Ideally, first, we’d figure out the condition of all the windows—the framing itself, the openings, the stonework, where the steel goes into the openings, the condition of the metal, the protective glass on the outside—all of those things should be examined, and a checklist should be made. The structure of the actual glass itself is difficult to assess unless you get right up to it, because they’re so large and high off the ground.
At Sts. Peter and Paul, a lot of the windows are quite damaged, and there’s been a lot of vandalism on the structure. So, I would say that the best way to handle this—and this is true for the whole building itself—is to go through each thing and make a list of what needs to be done. It’s tedious work, like a programmer making sure there are no errors in any lines of code. Also, we’d need to check the prices and availability of materials. Unfortunately, the truth of it is that when you add up all those things that need to be done, the cost is going to be a big number, and that number becomes very scary. Fortunately, when I walked through the church, it looked like the parts of the windows that are really broken can be used to fix the other parts that are not that broken. Windows that are really bad can just be removed, packaged up, or set aside, and new windows can go there.
As far as the actual site work, there’s a lot. First of all, we will need articulated boom lifts to get on both sides of the window, because you have protective glass that’s set from the outside. They’re very heavy and fragile, so you need a crew of at least three or four people. The next phase of the site work becomes about the management of very fragile items. It’s like working in a museum, because when the windows sit in the opening, they are well protected. Unfortunately, once they are out of the opening, especially in the condition that these windows are in, they are very fragile. Then comes the actual working of the windows themselves. Stained glass windows are made up of smaller panels that can all be taken apart. In between all the glass is lead. The lead itself can be discarded because it’s at the end of its life and usability. The windows are then re-leaded with the old glass. Once they’re put back in, they have the same life as when they were new. In the shop, when the work is being done, it’s very careful work, standing and working on tabletops, and that requires a lot of patience.
Can you talk to us about the potential of making new stained glass designs for the church, perhaps incorporating the history of East Liberty into the stained glass?
I’ve heard various people kick that idea around. Some of the things that I’ve heard people talk about is incorporating the history of jazz in East Liberty, which has a long tradition, for example, with the Kelly Strayhorn Theater (previously the Regent Theater). Tom [Rooney of the Rooney Sports and Entertainment Group who is a partner in the church redevelopment] also mentioned incorporating the history of filmmaking in the city, which is another interesting idea to look at. I find those kinds of things really exciting because then everybody can get involved in different parts of what the building is.
“It doesn’t have to just be the tradition of it as a church, but it can be about its place in the community.”
What’s your personal connection to Sts. Peter and Paul Church?
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in and out of churches, because my parents write about and teach religion. I always felt really torn, because it felt to me like it was an experience that didn’t connect with the world that I saw outside the churches. I thought working in stained glass was a way I could connect different parts of myself with a real need. I think that also draws me into the Sts. Peter and Paul Church. Its history is such a sorted tale, and I think that’s true everywhere you look. The spires, even though they’re not in great shape, have become part of the fabric of the neighborhood, so to lose them would be difficult for the community to imagine. They’re historic markers for the city. The community itself has voiced their desire to keep that structure there, and so an organization like ELDI takes on this very difficult, at times, thankless, task. And there will always be a struggle to keep the thing going. Fortunately, there are some of us, like myself, who are involved in the nuts and bolts of that dream.
ELDI is currently seeking name-in-title and founding partners to help bring our Sts. Peter and Paul Church restoration to life. We are looking for partners that will match public, private, and foundation support efforts. Please reach out to skip.schwab@eastliberty.org and tomrooney@trseg.com for more information.