Hallowed Halls of Greater New Orleans: Historic Churches, Cathedrals and Sanctuaries

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INTRODUCTION

An unyielding force of power, faith and loyalty lives deep inside the walls of historic churches, an impermeable bond and spirit stronger than any brick and mortar. Drawn by the aesthetic beauty, many lean on these pillars of hope for peace and serenity. They are not only foundations for spiritual strength, but architectural wonders as well. The language of art and architecture gives meaning to the spiritual world spoken in pictures and symbols. Inside, faithful followers empty their souls in an army of pews crowned by domed ceilings and embraced by colored shadows from stained-glass windows.

Congregations come together beckoning disciples from all religions and ethnic persuasions to celebrate God’s word. Dedicated to their founding members and generations of baptisms, weddings and funerals, the hallowed halls draw strength from those who built these lordly monuments. Fighting disease, pestilent weather and economic depression, these devoted Christians endured decades of hardship to preserve and protect their heavenly havens.

This book is dedicated to the beauty and spirituality of these monuments but is in no way a religious voyage into any particular faith. More than a chronicle of historic timelines, you will find a snapshot of Louisiana churches—and a sense of place. Meet the people who reverently serve and protect the churches, along with preservationists who pass the spiritual torch from one generation to the next.

Chapter 1

ST. ALPHONSUS CHURCH

Imagine New Orleans in the mid-1800s with boats lined along the riverfront heavy with cotton, coffee and produce. Crowding the riverside boardwalks, men dressed in suits and top hats smoke cigars while ladies in wire-hoop skirts stroll inside Jackson Square admiring the gardens. This was the scene Italian, Irish and German immigrants found after leaving their homelands in search of a new life. A working-class people, they settled in what was considered the suburbs of the French Quarter and sought jobs along riverside wharfs. Many of the new residents were Catholics and dominated a five-block region along Constance Street between Josephine and Jackson Avenue known as the Ecclesiastical Square, where three separate churches served the community, each conducting services in their own language.

Today, set against the New Orleans skyline, the shaded streets of American town homes and Italianate mansions give way to sun-drenched rows of wooden shotgun-style homes in a historic hamlet known as the Irish Channel. Turning down Constance Street, the first thing that comes to mind is the grandeur of European castles. The street is lined with Italianate and Baroque-style buildings, harkening a time when the church was the backbone of daily life. Today, the buildings still serve the community with schools, churches and outreach programs. On one side is St. Mary’s Assumption church, still celebrating Masses, and across the street is St. Alphonsus Church.

In its heyday, St. Alphonsus drew more than two thousand people to four daily Masses. On Sundays, eight Masses were required to accommodate the congregation, and on Christmas Eve, Constance Street had to be shut down due to enormous crowds standing outside the church.

After World War II, immigrant families left the neighborhood and moved to the suburbs, depleting the Catholic population. Hispanics moved in after the Cuban Revolution, prompting the church to offer three Spanish Masses on the weekend. In the mid-1960s, the Hispanics left, replaced by African Americans. The African Americans were mainly Baptists, and in a span of two years, the congregation suffered a dramatic decline.

Steadily rising operating and maintenance costs led to the closing of St. Alphonsus in 1979. A church revered for its tenacity in construction and idolized for its impeccable ornamentation, St. Alphonsus sat quietly waiting for a resurrection, a miracle from the very God it so faithfully served.

In 1989, the church participated in a stained-glass-window tour sponsored by the New Orleans Preservation Resource Center. It was then that the church found a new guardian angel inside the hearts of a group of concerned citizens.

On the tour that day were Blanche Comiskey and the late Susan Levy, who were captivated by the church’s palatial decor but appalled by its deteriorating condition. In 1990, the two ladies became the driving force behind a grassroots organization called the Friends of St. Alphonsus (FOSA). FOSA is dedicated to the preservation and restoration of St. Alphonsus, which now serves as the St. Alphonsus Art and Cultural Center and in 1996 was declared a National Historical Landmark.

A temple of extraordinary beauty and a telling example of nineteenth-century Italianate architecture, the double-tower church is so immense that you need to study the façade from across the street to grasp the intense work. Two stout towers are ornamented with arched windows and brick dentils and crowned with square bell towers. Initially, the towers were designed to be capped with clocks, but the clocks were never built. Stretch your neck upward to the center of the towers, and you will see a curved pediment topped with a cross and a niche containing a statue of St. Patrick.

Perhaps even more intriguing is the story of how this church rose from these common grounds built by hundreds of local men and women. In a rapidly growing parish of Irish immigrants, the digging of the foundation for St. Alphonsus began in the spring of 1855 under the direction of Father John B. Duffy.

Bill Murphy, tour advisor for the church, details the difficulty in building a church on sinking grounds in a city below sea level. Instead of pilings, a step foundation of cypress logs supports the walls. The church floats inside trenches filled with a constant supply of water, which keeps the wood hydrated. Experts claim that the church will stand for one thousand years—as long as the water table stays the same.

The primarily Irish construction workers sank coffer dams made out of flatboat gunnels (sturdy planks of wood from ships) and placed them inside a fifteen-foot trench. Cypress trees were extracted from the swamps, and the workers laid three logs in each trench—one on the bottom, and two on top—followed by crushed clamshells, river sand and bricks. Men manned bilge pumps day and night to keep the trenches dry, as the water table is only six to seven feet in New Orleans. They dug the trenches with shovels—one trench for every wall of the church. It took hundreds of men, and all of the products were locally sourced, transported mainly by horse and wagon.

New Orleans is known for its semi-tropical climate. The summers here can be brutal, with searing heat and high humidity. Century-old oaks, magnolia trees and lush azaleas crave the frequent rains, but without proper drainage below the nineteenth-century streets, the downpours often brought flooding. Oftentimes, the corner of Josephine and Constance Street would be plagued with six inches or more of standing water, which didn’t bode well for construction deliveries. Wagons filled with bricks would get stuck in the muddy goo, sinking up to the axles.

Luckily, Jackson Avenue was paved with flatboat gunnels, and the bricks were delivered there. However, they still needed to move the bricks several blocks to Constant Street. The ladies of the Irish Channel found a way.

At the toll of church bells, women dressed in their aprons would gather every day at noon and scoop two, three or, sometimes, four bricks in their apron skirts. They carried the bricks to the building site and repeated the daily chore for two years until the church was finished. It was their sacrifice—their mission—to build a church that would forever shape their lives and cradle thousands of souls.

ANGELIC DETAIL

Baltimore architect Louis L. Long designed St. Alphonsus based on a church he built in Baltimore—the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius. Brother Thomas Luette supervised the construction and received lauded praise for his keen management skills. In just two years, the building was finished and the $100,000 debt liquidated, allowing the church to be consecrated on July 28, 1859.

The interior beauty of the church is overwhelming and deserves a closer look to fully appreciate the artistry and architecture. The Greco-Roman style is blended with touches of Corinthian, imparting an angelic detail. A broad center aisle and two auxiliary aisles separate the rows of original pews, flanked by columns supporting elaborate balconies once used for additional seating.

On each side of the nave, the stained-glass windows create a religious storyboard depicting the life of Christ and the Blessed Mother. Installed in 1890, F.X. Zettler of the Royal Bavarian Institute in Munich built the artistic masterpieces. The deep tones create a three-dimensional effect as the sun dances across the glass.

In 1865, Domenico Canova, a local Italian-born artist and reputed relative of the celebrated neo-classical sculptor Antonio Canova, was hired to paint the ceiling frescoes. Sitting on top of scaffolding, Canova worked with a tremendous gallery, etching the figures in crayon and filling the entire ceiling. In the rear of the altar, the ceiling holds a fresco of the Holy Family: St. Joseph, the Blessed Mother and the Christ child. Along the curved panels of the Holy Family are the four evangelists—St. John, St. Luke, St. Matthew and St. Mark—and wrapped around the center aisle are portraits of all thirteen apostles. Directly above the center aisle, the ceiling frescoes span a series of three panels: the Ascension, the apotheosis of St. Alphonsus and the Assumption.

In 1866, the New Orleans Times described Canova’s Assumption masterpiece: The Madonna…a beautiful figure—the eyes are raised in the holiness of a pure devotion, the lips are parted in prayer, the gentle tone of each rounded line, each soft lineament of form and of feature is well executed, if not with genius, in a workmanlike manner and artistic grace that does the artist credit.

Moving closer to the front of the church, the transept and sanctuary hold the main altar and four side altars: St. Joseph, Sacred Heart, St. Gerard and Our Mother of Perpetual Help.

The high altar is tucked inside an elliptical dome supported by Corinthian columns cradling a life-size picture of the St. Alphonsus. Below the painting is a gilded, curved pediment flanked by golden angels and set on a stout marble base scribed with the Latin Alpha and Omega. On the bottom is a wider marble base etched with gold-leaf painting, creating a stunning multi-level altar.

On the left of the main altar, the St. Joseph altar holds four statues in arched, illuminated casements. Nearby is the endearing statue of Jesus draped in a soothing innocence, his arms outstretched with the sacred heart prominently displayed on his chest. To the right, the Our Mother of Perpetual Help altar is surrounded by gilded ornamentation and topped with a golden crown. It has carried a devout following, particularly during the Depression, and has served as a novena altar. Derived from the Latin word novem, meaning nine, a novena is a form of devotion in which Catholics pray for nine consecutive days to obtain special graces. The altar held five novenas in the morning and evenings. A special streetcar dedicated to the novenas ran from Canal Street to Jackson Avenue on four different streetcar lines.

A close-up of the gilded communion rail and altar at St. Alphonsus.

The St. Alphonsus novena altar was a very popular place during the Depression.

ARCHITECTURE

The church measures 154 feet long by 72 feet wide. The walls are two and a half feet thick, and Murphy noted that the interior is supported by I-beams built into the wall. St. Alphonsus was one of the first buildings to use this type of iron construction.

Many were in awe of the workmanship and the financial dedication of the parishioners. Protestant architect Thomas K. Wharton, known for his New Orleans architecture, noted in his diary that Long’s workmanship was very superior and the design solid, massive and finely proportioned. Its machinery is a sublime organism, with a unity of purpose—vigor and efficiency in the distribution of all its details.

The hand-carved, black-walnut pews rest on a small platform above the original pine floors. Like many churches, the pews were a source of income, as numbered sections were rented to families. Father Duffy took it one step further and divided the pews with a railing, prompting an increased number of sections and thus more rentals.

Two unique altars sit on either side of the vestibule in the back of the church near the entrance. The two-piece