St. Joseph’s Catholic Church

This church stands as a reminder of another era in Boston and ultimately of a sad story. The sad story part is what happened to the West End of Boston where this church is located.
Back in 1862 when this church was built the West End of Boston was not unlike the North End or Beacon Hill, both of which stand virtually unchanged now. Like those two areas, the West End was a dynamic and thriving community filled with 4 and 5-​story brick buildings which were homes to thousands of families. It was a real neighborhood representing a variety of cultures, including a fairly large Italian population.
During the 1950s, 46 acres of the West End were entirely leveled.
3,000 units of housing were destroyed (all those brick buildings), which forced approximately 10,000 people to leave the only homes in America they had known.
This was done under the auspices of «Urban Renewal». Many wealthy Bostonians had considered the West End to be filled with «slums» and lobbied for its demise but it was not a slum. The West End was a working class neighborhood. It’s destruction was wanton and reckless with little care for the people living there who had little to no political clout.
What was erected in place of those low-​rise brick buildings were a series of ugly, uninspired and entirely soul-​less high-​rise apartment buildings. Community, connection and neighbors knowing neighbors, relationships forged over decades, were simply gone by 1960.
Somehow this church managed to stay put. It was one of the central features, along with a local synagogue of spiritual life for that now displaced West End community.
I’m happy that this church is still standing and didn’t get lost in the destruction of the rest of the real neighborhood. It’s a lovely building with an inside design that reminds me of the church I grew up attending with an old-​fashioned homey feel to it.
It’s a peaceful place with beautiful stained glass, lovely art work and gilded touches.
It’s hard not to sit in a pew and feel a sense of calm come over you which to me is a welcome feeling.
I have often reminisced while sitting in there about what these church walls have witnessed over the years.
I can imagine this church as a spiritual home for many of those early immigrants who settled in the area and where baptisms, weddings and funerals were regular occurrences.
While the West End remains a busy area, it’s heart is lost. That this church still stands of course is a good thing but to me it exudes a somewhat sad beauty of another era.
The immigrant story of the West End has been largely erased and it’s not been replaced with anything particularly special. This church is special though and worth a visit if you’re in the neighborhood. Read up on the West End though before you come and so you can imagine what a tragedy this history really is.
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