A eulogy for St. Laurentius Church in Fishtown

On the corner of Berks and Memphis Streets lay the boarded and cracked remains of St. Laurentius Roman Catholic Church, built with the nickels and dimes of Polish immigrants in 1882. Demolition of the 19th-century house of worship began this month, spire by spire, bit by bit, ending a long and divisive battle to preserve a piece of Fishtown’s skyline and history.

Hearing 40-year neighborhood resident Maggie O’Brien speak of the church is like hearing someone grapple with the loss of a loved one.

“I can’t look at it,” O’Brien said of the demolition. “Not to say I won’t go over, but I haven’t gone over. I don’t want to see that.”

But O’Brien and other mourners of the old church won’t get a funeral. In the case of St. Laurentius, demolition crews signal the next chapter for Fishtown residents who got married and raised children in the church. All onlookers can do is share memories of the church in eulogy, starting with its appearance.

The church’s beauty could be appreciated even by the religious layperson, say parishioners, with its spires that punctuated the residential skyline and could be seen from almost anywhere in Fishtown, towering over the neighborhood.

Though it was a simple enough brownstone on the outside, the inside revealed a church one could expect to see in Europe — it is on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.

» READ MORE: The demolition of St. Laurentius could start this week with the dismantling of its skyline-defining spires

The church’s ribbed vaulting and pointed Gothic arches used to draw the eye to paintings of angels and scenes from the Bible. When daylight couldn’t penetrate the stained-glass windows, lantern-pendant light fixtures would offer a romantic glow to the nave and its sky-blue ceilings. The whole setup would pull one’s focus to the altar and the several religious statues behind the pulpit.

“It was just very, very ornate and very beautiful,” said Garden Logan, a Fishtown resident since 2001. “You really had that feeling like you were in a miniature [Cathedral Basilica of] SS. Peter and Paul.”

» READ MORE: For now, St. Laurentius is safe from destruction (from 2015)

But to AJ Thomson, who grew up around the corner of St. Laurentius, the story of how Polish immigrants scrounged their resources to build such a breathtaking structure transcends religion and touches on a sentiment quintessentially Philadelphian.

“They had a lot of pride in their community,” said Thomson. “They built it because they wanted to. These are people who built things that will be really hard to replicate now, with their own money and their own sacrifice.”

The church served as an information hub, a community center, a place to mourn and celebrate.

The annual Christmas pageant is a core memory for many former parishioners. The children enrolled in the adjacent school would take up the roles of lambs or cherubs, and audience members packed the pews like sardines.

Logan’s family would bring a crew of about 10 people from across the city to witness their children take part in the holiday tradition. For Logan, originally from Frankford — where she knew everyone and everyone knew her — it was difficult to move to Fishtown not being “a lifer.” Even though her neighbors were friendly, she felt like a transplant.

“When I moved to Fishtown, I was a fish out of water,” she said. “I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any roots there. My roots began at St. Laurentius. I really found my home there.”

It was at her son’s first St. Laurentius pageant — five years after moving to Fishtown— that Logan first felt as if she belonged.

Lauren Borrosso didn’t have an association with the church until her oldest son enrolled in St. Laurentius School almost a decade ago and now teaches there. (The school remains open even though the church closed in 2014.) But it wasn’t the stained glass that made the Christmas pageant memorable to her. It was the community, the friends, the welcoming of newcomers who were in the pews because of the school. And all of that lives on at Holy Name of Jesus parish, where former St. Laurentius parishioners now worship.

“Even if there’s like a funeral for a family member, you’re not lost in your sadness,” said Borrosso. “You look to the other family members and say, ‘Oh, I see that person who passed in you,’ and together we can move forward.”