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Saint Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. Image by Leepaxton at en.wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

City of Pittsburgh fights order to raze historic church

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
Saint Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. Image by Leepaxton at en.wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
Saint Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. Image by Leepaxton at en.wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – The city of Pittsburgh plans to fight a court order that would allow a Catholic parish to raze a 110-year-old church that the city considers historic.

City solicitor Dan Regan says he plans Tuesday to appeal a county judge’s order Monday that would let St. Nicholas Parish demolish the building along Route 28.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh and the parish, which now meets in another building, say the old church closed in 2004 and costs too much to maintain. But Regan, representing the city’s Historic Review Commission, wants the building preserved because it’s believed to be the first Croatian Catholic church in the United States.

Church officials claim the building is unstable and unsafe.

But the city wants a local civic group to buy the church for $1 to turn it into a museum on immigration.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-07-24-12 1254GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Saint Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. Image by Leepaxton at en.wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
Saint Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. Image by Leepaxton at en.wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.