Built 1883, 1896 Opened 1883 Added to NRHP 3 August 1982 | NRHP Reference # 82002908 Phone +1 313-875-6011 | |
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Location 5930 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, Michigan Address 5930 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48202, USA Architectural style Romanesque Revival architecture Architecture firm Malcomson and Higginbotham MPS Religious Structures of Woodward Avenue Thematic Resource Similar St Charles Borromeo Roman C, Chapel of St Theresa, Sacred Heart Roman C, St Catherine of Siena, St Theresa of Avila Roman C | ||
The Our Lady of the Rosary Roman Catholic Church is located at 5930 Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. It was originally built as St. Joseph's Episcopal Church - from 1893 to 1896 - and is a historic Romanesque Revival church complex. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 3, 1982.
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History
The original building in this complex, St. Joseph's Memorial Chapel, was a gift of Mrs. L.R. Medbury, and was built on the corner or Woodward and Medbury (now the Edsel Ford service drive). The chapel, consecrated in 1884, soon proved too small, and a larger church, completed in 1896, was erected facing Woodward.
In 1906, St. Joseph's congregation merged with that of the congregation of the nearby St. Paul's Cathedral. The St. Joseph's building was sold to Father Francis J. VanAntwerp in 1907, and Our Lady of the Rosary Roman Catholic Church was established. The new congregation altered some of the church's structure, extending the nave and adding an oversized, gilded statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary atop the south tower's hipped roof.
Architecture
The church, built from 1893 to 1896, is a massive rock-faced, cross-gable-roofed, sandstone Romanesque Revival structure. The gabled façade is flanked by two towers: a tall, square, pyramid-roofed tower to the south and a round, conical-roofed tower on the north. The entrance between the towers is into a one-story vestibule; it is surmounted by a large rose window.