St. Lucy's Church is both highly historic and one of the most beautiful and ornately built churches in the City of Newark. "A little bit of baroque stuck in the midst of the gritty streets" one writer observes. We prefer to say it is one of the crown jewels that makes Newark the marvelously diverse City that it is...
.... Italians first began to gather in Newark, in the 1880s. Working mostly in factories, they dominated the construction trades in Newark and elsewhere. From digging sewers to carving marble, Italians excelled at the art of building. (1)
The old First Ward around 7th Avenue became the most famous of all Newark Italian neighborhood, though Italian families also lived at Silver Lake near Belleville, along South Orange Avenue, and in the Ironbound by the railroad tracks. Notably the first Italian parish was Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in the Ironbound. St. Lucy's soon followed in 1891 at the peak of Italian immigration to Newark. It is reported that from 1910 to 1920, priests at St. Lucy's performed 10,694 baptisms and 1,495 marriages.(2)
The cornerstone for the original, wood-framed church was laid on December 13th of that year, on the feast day of St. Lucy of Syracuse. The brick and stone church structure that we today admire was built between 1925-1926. Like the original wood-frame church before it, the new church opened its doors in 1928 and was dedicated and named for St. Lucy of Syracuse, the patron saint of blindness.
The architect for the project was Neil Convey, who also designed the Sacred Heart Church on South Orange Avenue at Sanford Avenue, the largest parish church in Newark. The real treat in visiting St. Lucy is the opportunity to be transported to another time and place due to the impressive murals that fill the walls and ceilings. Like the work on the Cathedral-Basilica of the Sacred Heart just down the street, St. Lucy's murals were created by Gonippo G. Raggi (1875 - 1959), a leading ecclesiastical muralist of the 20th century. Like renowned artists such as Edwin Blashfield, who most likely influenced his work, and Kenyon Cox, Raggi enjoyed a long prolific career, and became a master in the tradition of Renaissance style murals. According to one source, he painted murals for at least nine churches in New Jersey, including those in St. Catharine's Church of Spring Lake (image and link below). (3)
Make plans to join us as we tour St. Lucy's Church and the Old First Ward Museum housed there, and screen the documentary "The Vanished First Ward," Created and narrated by Emmy Award-winning anchor and syndicated columnist Steve Adubato, Jr.
NEW DATE: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2010, 5 - 7 pm; St. Lucy's RC Church 118 7th Avenue Newark NJ 07104 (973) 482-6663 (directions)
ADMISSION: $20 / NEW Student Admission $5 /or Student Membership $10 (with student ID)
Non-Members $25
ADDITIONAL LINKS:
About Steve Adubato, Jr. and the documentary"The Vanished First Ward": http://www.caucusnj.org/caucusnj/special_series/little_italy.asp
Wikipedia article on Newark's Seventh Avenue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Avenue,_Newark,_New_Jersey
REFERENCES:
(1) Most of the above information and more available at: http://www.newarkhistory.com/stlucyschurch.html
(2) NJ.com: http://blog.nj.com/njv_bob_braun/2009/04/longtime_newark_priest_fights.html
SIDE BAR FROM WINTER ISSUE:
Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848 –1936)
An American artist, born in New York City. He was a pupil of Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat in Paris beginning in 1867, and became (1888) a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. For some years a genre painter, he later turned to decorative work, where his academic background in painting and extensive travels to study fresco painting in Italy melded in work marked by rare delicacy and beauty of coloring.
Considered a leading muralist of the late 19th century, he painted mural decorations or created mosaics in a number of places associated with the American Renaissance period. With his wife he wrote Italian Cities (1900) and edited Vasari's Lives of the Painters (1896), and was well known as a lecturer and writer on art. He became president of the Society of Mural Painters, and of the Society of American Artists. (From Wikipedia article).
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