St. Alphonsus Church (

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

: ''Église Saint-Alphonse'') is a historic former church building at 2029 Constance Street in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

. Completed in 1857, it is one of the few surviving national examples of a richly multi-colored church interior predating the 1870s, and a high quality example of ecclesiastical Italianate architecture. It was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1996 for its architectural significance. and It is now home to the St. Alphonsus Art and Cultural Center.

Building

The former St. Alphonsus Church is located in New Orleans'

Lower Garden District Lower Garden District is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. A subdistrict of the Central City/Garden District Area, its boundaries as defined by the New Orleans City Planning Commission are: St. Charles Avenue, Felicity, Prytania, Thalia, ...

neighborhood, on the north side of Constance Street, between St. Andrew and Josephine Streets. It has a complex and richly-decorated symmetrical façade, with a central entrance area flanked by two square towers topped by crosses. The façade is ornamented with pilasters, corbelled brick panels, and niches in which statues are mounted. The interior is also richly ornamented and has a coved plaster ceiling which have been painted with artwork by Dominique Canova. Its stained glass windows are Bavarian in origin, coming from F. X. Zettler. The floors are covered in mosaic tile.

History

Completed in 1857, St. Alphonsus served as a parish for the

Irish Catholic Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the British ...

community of the

section of the city. (Other churches nearby served the Francophone and Germanic Catholic communities, including St. Mary's Assumption Church, the church built across the street for the German Catholic community). As various parishes were merged later in history, St. Alphonsus was closed in 1979. In the 1980s it was taken over by a local community group and now serves a community center.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Alphonsus Church, New Orleans Irish-American culture in Louisiana National Historic Landmarks in Louisiana Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Louisiana Roman Catholic churches in New Orleans Roman Catholic churches completed in 1855 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Redemptorist churches in the United States 1857 establishments in Louisiana Religious organizations established in 1857 National Register of Historic Places in New Orleans Organizations disestablished in 1979

Building

History

See also

References