Polish Hill is one of the historic ethnic neighborhoods of the city. In fact, a lot of old industrial towns in the region have a neighborhood called Polish Hill--like my hometown of Oil City. But the one in Pittsburgh is the real McCoyski. Unlike some of the nearby communities--Lawrenceville, The Strip, even much of Bloomfield--Polish Hill has not been gentrified with groovy shops and restaurants. It's still very much the Pittsburgh of old. Despite the fact that it's squeezed onto a steep hillside just above The Strip, this part of town retains a lot of its original charm. It's a working class place with crowded but well-kept rowhouses and one very large church, which still has a Polish language mass on Sunday mornings.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary Church makes Polish Hill visible from many parts of the city. It's monstrously huge with a greenish Old World dome that immediately tells onlookers, "Lookie over here. This is Polish Hill." It's the defining landmark of the neighborhood. Some local websites claim that this old immigrant church is one of the most beautiful in the city. And since I devote much of this blog to sacred spaces, I made a pilgrimage to Polish Hill to take a look. It's true that I often find Catholic--and especially Polish Catholic--churches a little bit kitschy: the larger-than-life statues with affected poses and facial expressions, the plastic flowers, the pastel colors. And yet, I'd seen pictures of the interior of this church. It looks pretty amazing. But alas, the Polish church was locked up tight enough to resist a Cossack invasion. Even the rectory didn't look open. Hell, the whole neighborhood has a forlorn look on a January morning--closed down, cut off, uninviting. I may call ahead sometime and see if they allow snoops to visit the church. It's really too bad that a building like this one isn't left open to the public.
