Historic Boston Incorporated 1999 Preservation Revolving Fund Casebook : Property Entries Online
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Historic Boston should encourage the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston to compile an inventory of its architectural and artistic patrimony, as Harvard University has done, as well as Roman Catholic dioceses in New Mexico and Quebec. This would enrich the planning decisions that result when demographic shifts render some properties redundant. This church building offers the opportunity to do a creative disposition for adaptive re-use purposes.

This prominent Gridley J. Fox Bryant church building, while vacant, remains a prominent visual landmark in South Boston. Before the construction of Saints Peter and Paul Church, Catholics in South Boston worshipped at either Saint Augustine's Mortuary Chapel in South Boston, or at the Holy Cross Cathedral on Franklin Street in Boston. Throughout the 1820s the number of Catholic immigrants to the Boston area increased. Catholics organized a new parish in the late 1830s, and completed Saints Peter and Paul Church in 1845. Approximately 10,000 Catholics were members of this new parish, coming from South Boston, Dorchester, Hyde Park, Canton, Stoughton, and Sharon. In 1848 a fire destroyed the church, and the parishioners made plans to rebuild. By 1853 the church stood as it had only eight years earlier. Until the Civil War South Boston was a Protestant enclave, and tensions between the two religions were high. The opening of free bridges between Boston and South Boston after the Civil War spurred an influx of Irish Catholics, and by the end of the century South Boston became an enclave of the Irish Catholic working class. Many of the Irish moved from the recently razed Fort Hill, from the North End, and from the old South End. Many more Catholic churches were built in South Boston in the 1860s. Other ethnic groups moved into the area at the turn of the century, including French Canadians, Italians, Poles, Lithuanians, Portuguese, and Syrians. The church had a full program of stained glass memorial windows representing saints and sacred figures in the nave and scences of the birth and resurrection of Christ in the transepts. A renovation of the church interior about twenty years ago compromised the architectural integrity of the church.

This church was vacated after the Archdiocese consolidated several South Boston parishes. At the time of the 1991 casebook, Saints Peter and Paul Church, Saint Vincent de Paul Church, and the Chapel of Good Voyage were all managed by the same pastor who indicated that only ten percent of the budget for each church was spent on property maintenance. One Superintendent of Maintenance shouldered responsibility for all three buildings.

The church is a prominent presence on South Boston's main thoroughfare. Across the street is the Cardinal Cushing Central High School for Girls. The rectory next door is the closest historic building. The street has mostly small commercial buildings. The parish has helped to set up South Boston Housing Incorporated and Saint Vincent's Neighborhood Group. Several blocks away is the West Broadway housing project. The area is almost entirely Irish. The Broadway stop on the Red line is only a block away from the church building. Three bus lines also traverse West Broadway past the church.

Religious Properties Preservation: A Boston Casebook (HBI, 1991)

Entry Completed: 05/15/1999

The Archdiocese sold the church and adjacent rectory to Boston Built, a local developer, for $2.4 million in October 2000. Boston built has begun renovating eight existing residential units in the rectory. In the project's second phase, Boston Built will redevelop the church into 34 predominately market-rate condominiums. Plans include inserting four floors into the sanctuary, breaking the roof continuity with 34 skylights and three decks, replacing the stained glass windows with casement windows, and creating 45 surface parking spaces on the remaining property. The steeple, clock, and bell louvers will be repaired and interior woodwork and masonry preserved.

Update Entry Completed: 08/14/2002

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