Turning Historic Churches into Housing in Boston

Churches aren't just for worship anymore. Historic preservationists and housing developers are teaming up in many U.S. cities to convert shuttered churches into housing, saving buildings that for years played a critical role in the lives of their neighborhoods.

A good place to look for a home in a former place of prayer is Boston, scene of a recent scandal involving priests accused of sexual abuse. To raise cash to settle lawsuits, the Catholic Archdiocese has sold many of its properties. Some churches may be torn down for redevelopment, but Boston, famous for its tight-knit neighborhoods and sense of history, is loath to lose its church buildings without a fight.

In Jamaica Plain, a historically German and Irish-American working-class neighborhood that now has a mix of white, black and Latino residents, there were three Catholic churches until the largest, Blessed Sacrament, closed in 2003. The closing itself caused an uproar among parishioners, many of whom considered the church integral to their lives in the neighborhood. Blessed Sacrament was built in 1890, in an era when Irish Catholic immigrants had just gained political power in Boston. In the 1940s the most famed of their descendents, Mayor James Michael Curley, split his Sundays between Blessed Sacrament and another Catholic church in Jamaica Plain. Many of the upset residents had gone to the parish school, adjacent to the church, as children or had been confirmed there. But beyond their anger at the church's demise, residents were just as upset about the possibility the historic building itself might go away. The church looms large over narrow Centre Street, the main retail area for the community; without it the street would surely lose a piece of its soul.