We’re back! The Project returns from a well-deserved, if still too short, hiatus to pick up the church slack and get back in the saddle. I originally wanted to take an even longer respite, but this week marked a very important occasion:
The Project’s Second Birthday!
That’s right! We couldn’t be absent for that. It’s too momentous of an occasion to sit idly by on the sidelines.
So where did the Project go this year? Well, not the site of last year’s extravaganza, Church Alley, since there’s nothing more to see there. Instead, I decided to celebrate the big “2” by going back to the beginning. No, not the beginning of the Project. Think even older…
Old St. Joseph.
Why not celebrate by visiting the first (and therefore oldest) Catholic church in Philadelphia ? It seemed only fitting, really. Celebrating the beginning of our third year by looking at the Catholic church that started it all.
And start it Old St. Joseph did. It was founded waaay back in 1733, and went through several different churches before this one was built in 1839. Despite being surprisingly younger, architecture-wise, than Old St. Mary’s, it’s still something that’s tailor-made for Old vs. Older Churches. What that means is that the building itself isn’t exactly an architectural marvel. Given its advanced age, we have an extraordinarily low-key Italian-Renaissance design that’s highlighted by the kind of features endemic to all Old churches: dual sets of stained glass, a cleaving balcony, etc.
Old St. Joseph is much plainer than the others, however. There’s very little attempt at molding or paintwork, and the design-oriented windows are some of the plainest around. Oddly, there are a couple of more ornate ones thrown in, including a very nice one to the left of the altar, where the transept would be if it was a cruciform church. But their inclusion is weirdly bittersweet, since it creates some serious synchronization issues. (The kind that usually only affect Protestant churches. See FUMCOG or Holy Trinity.)
So, aside from a rare pumpkin color scheme (shades of Holy Family), a couple of nice windows and an ok altar piece (thankfully not modernized, a la Old St. Mary), that’s really all you get.
Oh, and I should mention this:
How the $#%@ do I get in here? I honestly never thought I’d write this for a Catholic church, but with an Old vs. Older Church, I guess anything is possible. Old St. Joseph is bizarrely connected to two other buildings, meaning that it has neither a front façade nor a, err, rear-end, so to speak. You can only enter through the not-exactly-obvious side doors.
Good for the historical value, but not much else.
Size Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Ornamentation Rating: 6 out of 10
Overall Design Rating: 6.5 out of 10 crosses
