St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church is a church located at the corner of Baldwin Avenue and St. Paul Avenue in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

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. The church address is 1515 Baldwin Street; ancillary buildings are located at 1491 Baldwin Street (Rectory) and 1480 Townsend Street (School Building). The complex was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1989.

History

In the late 1850s,

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

Catholics immigrated to Detroit and settled in the eastside neighborhoods near Gratiot and Baldwin. In 1886, a parish dedicated to

St. Charles Borromeo Charles Borromeo ( it, Carlo Borromeo; la, Carolus Borromeus; 2 October 1538 – 3 November 1584) was the Archdiocese of Milan, Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584 and a Cardinal (Catholicism), cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was a lead ...

was established to minister to this congregation. A wood-frame church was constructed for the parish, and quickly expanded. As Detroit grew, the parish grew along with it, with French,

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, Scotch, and

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immigrant congregants in addition to the original Belgians. By 1920, the congregation numbered over 3000. By the 1930s, the school's population also included many Catholic children of Syrian and

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immigrants. In 1912, the two-story rectory and school was designed and built by Van Leyen & Schilling. In 1918, Peter Dederichs was awarded a contract to build an "edifice of Romanesque style for religious use". Just four years after the church was completed, it was expanded to meet the needs of the growing congregation. The church is still used today, although the congregation has altered. The rectory serves its original function, and the school has been redeveloped as condos.

Description

The St. Charles Borromeo parish complex consisted of four buildings, three of which are historically significant: the church itself, the rectory, and the school. The church is built with red-brown tapestry brick on a white Bedford stone foundation, with trim of the same stone. The church is built in a Latin Cross plan, 92 feet across and 180 feet in depth. The design is Romanesque with Arts and Crafts elements. The front facade is flanked by asymmetric towers with red tiled hip-roofs. The entranceway is within a two-story arched structure with columns on each side, above which is a large rose window. Rosettes are in the spandrels above the entrance arches, and green tile fills the spandrels and pediments of the front and side facades. The decorative brick pilasters around the central arch are derived from Prairie School or Arts and Crafts models. The main altar is Baroque in style. The organ was built in two sections to clear the rose window above the main entrance. The school and rectory were designed in the

Prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

style with some

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

elements.

References

External links

St. Charles Borromeo Parish
from the Archdiocese of Detroit
Church Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church, Detroit, Michigan Roman Catholic churches in Detroit Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit Belgian-American culture in Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Detroit Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Roman Catholic churches completed in 1922 Romanesque Revival church buildings in Michigan Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States