Tuesday, November 13, 2012

St. Theresa of Avila, West Roxbury, Massachusetts

On a grey day some months back in early Fall, I happened to stumble upon the parish plant of St. Theresa of Avila in West Roxbury, on the outskirts of Boston. It is a splendid work by Charles Maginnis of Maginnis and Walsh, an unjustifiably forgotten protagonist of the early twentieth century flowering of American Gothic revival, and a good taxonomic specimen of the better sort of suburban Catholic parish church of the era. The property also includes a somewhat curious hyrbid Gothic-Deco school building with finely realized details contrasting with a largely stripped exterior. The church interior, while rather plain, probably due to costs, nonetheless features some good marble-work around the altar and side-chapels, one of the better font covers I have seen, and a splendid day chapel with a large stained-glass window above the altar looking, somewhat curiously, into one side of the main church's chancel. In any case, a pleasant chance discovery. Some photos follow below; sadly, I was unable to get any close-up images of the sanctuary as an auxiliary bishop was saying evening mass when I popped in.

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