St. Nicholas North Side

PHLF News
March 7, 2008

St Nicholas Church on East Ohio Street was closed several years ago by the Roman Catholic Diocese and merged with St. Nicholas Millvale.

A group envisioned saving the church and using it as a Croatian Heritage Museum, a goal that we were glad to see set forth. Unfortunately no agreement could be reached and the Follier group from Italy, indicated that it wanted to buy the church property.

However, that group is not going forward with its plan, and PHLF contacted the Diocese at the request of the Croatian Heritage Group to see if it could be for sale again for that purpose.

The Diocese encouraged a proposal to purchase the building for a Museum, but not for church purposes, particularly if the space is also rented for special events where alcohol might be sold.

We hope that the group can consider the Museum and events purposes only so that the buildings and its marvelous interiors can be saved and continue in a public use.

PHLF, the Croatian organization leaders, Preservation Pittsburgh and others participated in the efforts to redesign the proposed Rt. 28 Expressway so that the church could be saved and would have a private entrance road to it.