Pilgrim Collegiate, main entrance, Wick Avenue, Dec. 6, 2012. Electronic image by Mark Peyko for Metro Monthly.
Pilgrim Collegiate, main entrance, Wick Avenue, Dec. 6, 2012. Electronic image by Mark Peyko for Metro Monthly.
This Metro Monthly video feature focuses on the final days of Pilgrim Collegiate Church, which Youngstown State University plans to raze later this month. The segment is narrated by Mark Peyko, editor of the Metro Monthly, and was filmed on Dec. 6, 2012.
Metro Monthly 
How sad that the church is gone. My father, Rev. Richard Belsan, was minister at the church from 1958 until the early 1990’s. He also taught at YSU. It was such a beautiful building. Feels like home to me, and no longer there.
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A lot of people here are sad to see it gone. It was beautiful.
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I just found this on the internet I was looking for pictures of the church. My family which was the woodard family were members of the church. Rev. Belsan baptised me, and confirmed me. I was actually in the same confirmation class with Tod Belsan. My name is Traci Woodard. My father Dave Woodard work for Youngstown Sheet & Tube, when the mill closed we moved to Indiana in 1978. So many fond Memories. Was a beautiful Church so sad to hear they tore it down.
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Any idea if the stained-glass windows were spared?
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I heard they were salvaged. Someone on Facebook said Michael Kozak got them, but that wasn’t confirmed. The demolition company took the steel beams, stone and all the metal.
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My family also attended the church there. My mother, now 86, grew up in the church there. The windows were beautiful, real works of art. Claudia, good to see your comments above. Rev. Belsan confirmed me and married me. We brought my daughter up from Texas to be baptized there. It was a special building, fun for kids to run and hide in, many sacred areas within the sanctuary. So sad to see it razed.
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I began attending the church at age 14 to play on the men’s softball and basketball teams, and it was my church for 17 years prior to my move to Dublin, Ohio. I have so many fond memories of the church itself and so many wonderful people whom I knew during my time there. As a YSU student, it was a great benefit to be able to park in the church parking lot. One winter day, I completed my last class and started my car to drive home, but I was hopelessly stuck in the snow. I recall that Reverend Belsan came out of the church and helped me to “rock” my car multiple times to get me on my way. It was my privilege to be a long-time usher, and a “junior” deacon. The final time that I was in the church was for Todd Belsan’s wedding. The building was very traditional with an aura of holiness , and I loved the organ, and the choir loft behind the pulpit. PCC (that’s what was on our softball shirts and basketball jerseys) had a tremendous impact on me, and I still recall and tell others about some of the excellent sermons delivered by Dr. Belsan; his recurrent “attitude of gratitude” teaching is something that has stuck with me throughout life.
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Nice comments. Thanks for sharing.
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I was involved with the Collegiate demolition. I was hired by the person who had bought the salvage rights to the building to cut up the steel piping for scrap. I am a steel industry preservationist and when I discovered that most of the piping was made by Youngstown Sheet & Tube and Republic Steel in Youngstown I started salvaging more pipe that I was scrapping. That old pipe has either “Youngstown” or “Republic” rolled into it about every three feet, so I cut out those sections of pipe. The new section of the building also had conduit made by YS&T, so I salvaged as much of that as I could.
All of the stained glass was salvaged, as were the ends of the pews. I even cut out a piece of the hardwood wall paneling to give to a YSU professor who stopped by one day when I was there. Mark you filmed this video about the same time I was doing work there.
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Do you know what happened to the pipe organ? Was it still in the church at the time of demolition?
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I purchased two of the pew ends from EBay in late 2013 from the salvage owner. He shared with me that this is the church from which the pew ends came. My husband made a home entry hall pew bench for us, using these beautiful pew end pieces. I am so thankful to know the history of the pew, and have attached a note to the back of the pew about the history. Also interesting that I just happened to view this video again today, for only the second time, and see that the video was recorded exactly 9 years ago today. Thank you for memorializing this piece of history.
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