Our stage: St Alphonsus Church
We are so incredibly honoured to be staging Tobias and the Angel in the spectacular St Aphonsus Church in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans.
St. Alphonsus was originally built in 1855 to serve the religious and social needs of the Irish Catholic immigrants who began settling in an area upriver from the French Quarter known as Lafayette City in the 1840s. The church was built by Irish famine immigrants and the already established local Irish community WITHOUT the financial help of the diocese. This fact is actually one of the impressive aspects of this building. It is a visual manifestation of the human strength of a poor immigrant community who had escaped the worst famine Europe had ever witnessed in modern times.
The post-World War II migration to the suburbs, in addition to the development of low-income housing within the neighborhood, diminished the church's congregation. Steadily rising operating and maintenance costs led the Redemptorists to close St. Alphonsus in the late 1970s.
The Friends of St. Alphonsus (FOSA) was formed in 1990 after a small group of concerned citizens entered the abandoned church to view the splendid F. X. Zettler stained glass windows (c. 1870). Noting the serious deterioration and benign neglect of this magnificent and beautiful historic structure, Blanche Comiskey and Susan Levy successfully petitioned the Archdiocese of New Orleans to lease the building to the newly formed FOSA. Since that time, FOSA has held a number of successful fund raisers that have included concerts, auctions, and tours of the building.
In 1996, the building was declared a National Historic Landmark through efforts of the Friends, helping to ensure its survival.
The church needs your help if it is to be conserved: find out how you can donate and make sure that this wonderful building is standing for future generations to enjoy - click here!
St. Alphonsus was originally built in 1855 to serve the religious and social needs of the Irish Catholic immigrants who began settling in an area upriver from the French Quarter known as Lafayette City in the 1840s. The church was built by Irish famine immigrants and the already established local Irish community WITHOUT the financial help of the diocese. This fact is actually one of the impressive aspects of this building. It is a visual manifestation of the human strength of a poor immigrant community who had escaped the worst famine Europe had ever witnessed in modern times.
The post-World War II migration to the suburbs, in addition to the development of low-income housing within the neighborhood, diminished the church's congregation. Steadily rising operating and maintenance costs led the Redemptorists to close St. Alphonsus in the late 1970s.
The Friends of St. Alphonsus (FOSA) was formed in 1990 after a small group of concerned citizens entered the abandoned church to view the splendid F. X. Zettler stained glass windows (c. 1870). Noting the serious deterioration and benign neglect of this magnificent and beautiful historic structure, Blanche Comiskey and Susan Levy successfully petitioned the Archdiocese of New Orleans to lease the building to the newly formed FOSA. Since that time, FOSA has held a number of successful fund raisers that have included concerts, auctions, and tours of the building.
In 1996, the building was declared a National Historic Landmark through efforts of the Friends, helping to ensure its survival.
The church needs your help if it is to be conserved: find out how you can donate and make sure that this wonderful building is standing for future generations to enjoy - click here!