“Under the same umbrella”—the formal introduction to Olivet, its history, and the Reverend
The Olivet Baptist Church on Centre Ave., in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, is one of those buildings whose walls you wish could talk. Opened as the Elmore Theatre in the Jazz Age, when the Hill was nicknamed “the Crossroads of the World”; later re-opened as the Savoy Ballroom; today the grand old building is slowly crumbling around the Baptist church that has occupied it for decades. The church building is a microcosm of the Hill as a whole: a rich history, disrupted by (extremely, ahem, questionable) “urban redevelopment” in the 50’s, not yet recovered.
We met the current Reverend, Tyrone Munson, on a cold but sunny afternoon outside his church. The Rev gave us each a hug and let us in. We were the only ones in the big old building, so the heat was off, and a gas flame space heater glowed on the wall of the Rev’s office. We set up our interview equipment while the Rev dipped out to deal with one of the minor crises of the building: a leaky pipe creating a creeping puddle in the Fellowship Hall.
We’d gotten everything set up and were just about to start interviewing when Reverend Munson noticed another problem. “One minute,” he said, heading outside. He walked to what looked like a door in the sidewalk, and started lifting the three cinderblocks off of it, then several rusted-through pieces of steel, then a piece of plywood almost as tall as he was. We helped him — “Careful! I don’t want nobody to fall through.” The final layer guarding the old cellar was a latticework of steel strips, rusted but still rigid, one carefully laid over the other. For a 53-year-old man who recently had major back surgery done, he was able to unveil the entryway at a surprising speed.
The Reverend went down the old steps into the cellar, Ismael following with a camera. The problem was found — a pipe that had burst in a freeze, slowly leaking gallons of water and turning the cellar floor to mud. Had he stayed home that day, “and that water would’ve just kept running like that, I would’ve gotten a bill saying $5,000 again”; he made the remark with an air of familiarity, as if it was a common itch to scratch. After the Rev shut off a water main and ascended back up to ground level, we sat down once more and started to talk.
Findings from the Interview |
A little bit about the property: It served “four different functions” since the 20s — Elmore Theatre, Savoy Ballroom, a skating rink, and finally the Olivet Baptist Church. “This place, this building, has just as much history as the Granada”; in fact, the Granada was the second Elmore Theatre. “[It] was the place where Afro-Americans could come in…when they were not allowed Downtown…[it was someplace] to come and entertain themselves and to have a socialization.” This remained true when it reopened to become the Savoy Ballroom in 1933. Savoy, with its “lighted crystal dance ball, softly tinted wall lights, a shiny smooth hardwood dance floor, rich tapestries and bright red velvet curtains,” was considered one of the most “Important center[s] for musical and social life in the Hill” (see this site for details).
About the neighborhood: “The Hill was Downtown. Downtown was the Hill.”
About the church, specifically: “Baptist churches are independent…a lot of the church is left up to the [churchgoing] body.” After Calvary Baptist Church bought the building and “[its] history” and turned it into a place of worship, they left it to further neglect to the point where it is severely decayed. A church is a place of comfort, worship, and “reconnecting” to community, self, and God (or whomever you look up to). However, Olivet has been most frequently used as a place of tragedy, to house funerals. These funerals are often for people who didn’t even attend the church, for basically no money, and commonly for young people in the neighborhood who fell to violence. While the Reverend sees this as a need and provides for it — “It’s not about preaching doctrine. It’s about meeting needs” — the church is not doing “as much as bigger churches with bigger budgets…’cause [it doesn’t] have a budget.” To the Reverend, his budget is his faith.
About the Reverend: What grounds the Reverend is his goal to “Meet the needs of people as they need to be [met].” However, being grounded doesn’t keep him from dreaming. When we asked him what he’d like the future of the church to be, he told us, “I’d like to have a lot of functioning programs in here.” A soup kitchen, an outdoor pavilion, a music program — all of these could be in the cards. At the end of the day, though, what matters to him most is that “We don’t have to [agree or] disagree to love,” and that anyone, whether they are prosperous or poor, is capable of caring for one another, for we are all “under the same umbrella.” “It doesn’t cost you a dime, not a damn thing, to be nice to somebody. Doesn’t cost you a thing.”
About his faith and philosophy: “I don’t necessarily do everything…orthodox. I’m a Baptist preacher, but I don’t preach Baptist. I’m more unorthodox.” “I embrace life, and I embrace what life’s about.” “I try to give back genuinely, without ever worrying about what I get in return.”
This project is as much about the reverend as it is about the building itself. Reverend Munson has the passion and kindness big enough to assist, inspire, and fill hearts/grand sanctuaries endlessly without tire — just not the budget or resources to pull it off. Because of the lack of constituency on Sundays, there is no choir to sing gospels, no pianist/musicians to accompany the service, and while there are a handful of regulars that frequent Sunday worships, there aren’t enough people thus not a lot of offerings/revenue coming in for the church. For a space that was once so renowned for its major involvement in the growth of African-American history, jazz and gospel music, it is difficult to see such influence within these now-decayed walls, covered up haphazardly by drop ceilings, dark neglected rooms, and closed doors.
What we need to focus on is not only how we grow the constituency of the church and/or the funding coming in for the church, but also how we can reflect the history of the previous incarnations of Olivet and combine that with a plan that is forward-thinking, fresh/upbeat, and implementable by the Reverend once we hand it off.
The Olivet Baptist Church is stuck in the past — while what it has accomplished in its earlier incarnations is incredible and worth acknowledging, it needs something that can ground them in the present times, in order for them to stay afloat in the coming years.
All quotes from Reverend Tyrone Munson of the Olivet Baptist Church (Pittsburgh, PA), unless otherwise stated
