FEATURE Image: Alice Millar Chapel, 1962, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 6.78mb
The Alice Millar Chapel (1962) at Northwestern University, designed by architect Edward Grey Halstead, stands as a premier contemporary Gothic landmark on Chicago’s North Shore. Funded by philanthropist Foster G. McGaw, the chapel complex masterfully blends spiritual interfaith utility with striking architectural artistry, defined primarily by its immersive, wall-filling abstract stained-glass windows that symbolize the intersection of human, natural, and spiritual themes.
Text & Photographs John P. Walsh.
The Purpose of the Alice Millar Chapel
Breaking ground on Easter, April 21, 1962, the Alice Millar Chapel is on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The large chapel structure displaced 5 houses for the site’s four buildings on the school`s Evanston campus. It is intended as a space for prayer and reflection based in individual and communal tranquility, solitude, and celebration. At the chapel’s dedication its donor said, “[It is] a place where the soul may find quiet and repose—may be stimulated—or may just meditate. One’s character and personality cannot be fully developed unless his soul finds a purpose.” The chapel can seat over 700 people on the main floor.1
Northwestern University was founded by Methodists in 1851. At the beginning, there was no specific denominational affiliation that the university had. Alice Millar became a formal congregation in May 1971, identifying as “the church in the chapel.”2
The buildings complex (there are 4 buildings total) was designed by Edward Grey Halstead (1909-1992) who was senior partner in the Chicago architectural firm of Jensen, McClurg & Halstead. Mr. Halstead, who lived in Riverside and Wheaton, Illinois, joined the firm in 1952. The builder was Gerhardt F. Meyne Company in Chicago. Mr. Halstead was a third-generation architect born in Minnesota who studied at the University of Minnesota and University of Michigan. Though Halstead thought of himself as a hospital architect – his design projects include Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, Berwyn Community Hospital, Oak Park Hospital and Edward Hospital in Naperville – his largest project was the Alice Millar Chapel.3
Foster G. McGaw, noted philanthropist and founder of a major medical supply company based in Evanston, established the chapel in honor of his mother. Fair Use.
The contemporary Gothic landmark was built as a gift of Mr. & Mrs. Foster McGaw. Foster G. McGaw (1897–1986) was a noted philanthropist who founded the American Hospital Supply Corporation in Chicago in 1922. In 1985 McGaw’s company was acquired by Baxter Travenol Laboratories for $3.8 billion – about $11 billion in today’s dollars. Based in Evanston, at its peak, AHSC was the largest medical supplier in the world and employed thousands of Evanstonians.4 In 1953 Foster G. McGaw donated to the construction of McGaw Memorial Hall (today’s Welsh-Ryan Arena) in tribute to his father, Francis A. McGaw. At the time of construction, it was one of the largest auditoriums in Chicago. At its opening it was used in August 1954 for the Second Assembly of World Council of Churches founded in 1948 which showcased the convocation address by newly-elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower.5
Foster McGaw’s vision for the chapel was to establish a house of prayer whose space inspired the visitor to pursue a spiritual quest. Music concerts regularly appear on the chapel schedule with the chapel choir performing with in-house and guest musical ensembles and symphony orchestras. There are regular organ concerts on the 5,000-pipe organ. The Choir welcomes members from all different religious backgrounds and Sunday services to which all are welcome are given in a Protestant tradition. More interfaith activities at Millar Chapel include various faith traditions, including Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, who pray and study at the chapel. Inspired by the interfaith witness of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), there is a candlelight ceremony each year to honor the slain Civil Rights leader.
Who is Alice Millar?
Alice Millar for whom the chapel is named. Public Domain.
The chapel is dedicated to McGaw’s mother, Mrs. Alice Millar McGaw (1859-1910). Millar was born in Alnwick in the north of England. She studied music and notably performed a piano recital for Queen Victoria. She moved to the U.S. with her father, a medical doctor, and met and married Reverend Francis A. McGaw at McCormick Theological Seminary in September 1888. All four of her children were present at the dedication ceremony for the chapel in 1962. Alice Millar had died over 50 years earlier at Augustana Hospital (Swedish Evangelical) in Chicago’s Old Town.6
CHAPEL’S MOST STRIKING FEATURE ARE THE STAINED-GLASS WINDOWS.
The wall-filling windows of abstract and modern design allow light and color to stream into the sanctuary from every side of the chapel building. The modern-designed windows bestow to the chapel a literally awesome ambiance. These magnificent works of art include the east windows that face the sunrise of Lake Michigan (representing healing, law, discovery, literature and the arts) and the west windows that face the sunset of the prairie (representing commerce, space, communication, the State, and the human race). These side windows are in dialogue with the single chancel window with its theological themes.
Designed by Edward Grey Halstead as his career-defining project, featuring a blend of contemporary Gothic design and magnificent, thematic abstract stained-glass windows facing East (Lake Michigan) and West (the Prairie).
Across the breezeway and part of the chapel complex is the Jeanne Vail Meditation Chapel. Dedicated in 1963 it is a more traditional English style space built in memory of Mrs. Mary Vail McGaw’s daughter, Jeanne, who died in 1949 at 23 years old. The young woman died from complications of polio after having just given birth to a baby girl. Both the Alice Millar and Jeanne Vail Meditation Chapel are open daily and are very popular for weddings especially for Northwestern University alumni. The Vail Chapel seats 125 people. There is another adjacent building, Parkes Hall, that houses classrooms and the chaplain’s office and completes the complex.
Funded by philanthropist Foster G. McGaw in honor of his mother Alice Millar McGaw, and the smaller Jeanne Vail Meditation Chapel dedicated in memory of his daughter.
Alice Millar Chapel on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, broke ground in 1962. Designed by Edward Grey Halstead of the Chicago architectural firm Jensen, McClurg & Halstead, the building is contemporary Gothic Revival or Modern Gothic constructed using light-colored stone walls, pointed arched windows, an intricate belfry spire, and a connecting arched stone cloister walkway. PHOTO: “File:Alice Millar Chapel – panoramio.jpg” by hakkun is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Jeanne Vail Meditation Chapel:
Unlike the abstract, mid-century modernist windows in the main Alice Millar sanctuary designed by Benoît Gilsoul, the Vail Chapel windows were designed and fabricated by Willet Stained Glass Studios explicitly in a traditional English Elizabethan style to create a quiet, contemplative atmosphere.
Vail Meditation Chapel windows (above and below) are in a traditional English Elizabethan style. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 7.73mb 98%
Vail Meditation Chapel windows. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 7.77mb
Jeanne Vail was a brilliant student, an accomplished pianist, and graduated cum laude from Denison University in 1946. Following graduation, she married Lewis Chamberlin Jr., and gave birth to their daughter, Nancy Carol, in 1949.
Tragically, just three months after her daughter was born, Jeanne contracted polio and died from complications of the virus at the young age of 23. It was in memory of her untimely death that her mother, Mary Wettling Vail McGaw, and stepfather, Foster G. McGaw, funded and dedicated the Jeanne Vail Meditation Chapel at Northwestern University in 1963.
Vail Meditation Chapel window (detail). October 2015. Author’s photograph. 3.56mb
Alice Millar Chapel: CHANCEL WINDOW
The Chancel Window behind the altar is a theological window using abstract motifsexploring themes of Creation, Redemption, and Triumph. The colors of these windows are spectacular and with sunlight penetrating through a jewel-like yet airy interior is created. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 7.71mb
Designed in 1962 by Belgian artist Benoît Gilsoul working under lead architect Edward Grey Halstead and fabricated by Willet Stained Glass Studios, this floor-to-ceiling masterpiece serves as the absolute focal point of the entire sanctuary.
The Theme & Why It Was Chosen
The great chancel window was designed to explicitly encompass all of biblical theology through the traditional abstract motifs of Creation, Redemption, and Triumph. This deep, theological anchor was purposefully chosen to provide a spiritual and transcendent foundation to ground the entire space.
Connection to the Rest of the Windows
Rather than standing alone, the chancel window is in an active visual dialogue with the side nave windows. While the side windows present more secular, academic themes relevant to university life such as law, discovery, healing, and space, they are physically and conceptually bridged together. All 12 windows utilize an overlapping, spectacular color scheme and stylized black arcs, seamlessly interweaving biblical symbolism with modern human knowledge to reflect the interfaith, holistic mission of the chapel.
Chancel window and side windows are in conversation with its subjects and themes. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 6.78mb
Altar with Chancel window behind. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 6.60mb
All 12 of the monumental leaded stained-glass windows in the Alice Millar Chapel were designed by Belgian artist Benoît Gilsoul with the full suite of windows being crafted and installed between 1962 and 1964. Gilsoul used the exact same overlapping color palette, stylized fluid lines, and geometric black framing arcs across all 12 panels, binding the secular side windows and the sacred chancel wall into one singular masterpiece.
EAST SIDE WINDOWS: LAW
LAW: Images of a dove. a sword and scales, human figures refer to law and justice. All the windows while presenting various thematic iconography maintain a similar color scheme throughout. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 7.53mb
EAST SIDE WINDOWS: HEALING
HEALING: Honoring the physician among recognizable tools of the profession – microscope, test tubes, the caduceus (staff with intertwined serpents), among others as the viewer looks up at the long window. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 6.07mb
EAST SIDE WINDOWS: DISCOVERY
DISCOVERY: Human discovery of the natural world. A central figure is surrounded by elements of air, earth, fire and water. There is bird, balloon, fish, deep-sea submersible (bathysphere), orbits. Again, the window’s height coupled with its colors and design is impressive. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 99% 7.93mb
EAST SIDE WINDOWS: LITERATURE
LITERATURE: Dove at the top represents the Holy Spirit who guides the hand of the Bible writer. Recognizable images are a cross; skull; human figures carrying grapes. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 6.37mb
EAST SIDE WINDOWS: ARTS
ARTS: Lyre; painter’s palette. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 6.05mb
Evolved from its original Protestant roots into a vibrant interfaith hub, hosting diverse groups, annual MLK commemorations, and public concerts utilizing its 5,000-pipe organ.
There are regular organ concerts at the chapel.
WEST SIDE WINDOWS: COMMUNICATIONS; THE STATE;HUMAN RACE
COMMUNICATIONS: Railroad crossing; filmstrip; the 5 senses; a telephone. THE STATE: Eagle with thunderbolts and olive branch; capitol dome; family; owl; cross, etc. RACES OF HUMANITY: lamb carrying cross; 5 hands; olive branch. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 7.78mb
WEST SIDE WINDOWS: COMMERCE
COMMERCE: Among abstracted symbols of commerce, wheat stack. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 4.13mb
WEST SIDE WINDOWS: SPACE
SPACE: Sun at top, planets, stars, constellations, a bull, astronaut. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 4.59mb
FEATURE image: 822 Bryant, Winnetka, 1901. A grand example of the Shingle style working its way through the Arts and Crafts movement and influenced by the recent Prairie School’s horizontality and openness (see below for more details). Author’s photograph. 8/2014 99% 6.92mb.
Winnetka’s architectural identity was shaped during a formative period from the 1880s to the early twentieth century, and its houses, churches, and streetscapes continue to reveal the evolution of America’s most influential architectural styles within one of Chicago’s most distinctive suburban communities.
Text & photographs by John P. Walsh.
844 Prospect, Winnetka, 1885 (with later additions).
The central section with the steeply pitched roof with a prominent flare is the oldest part of the house. It is the American Queen Anne style in vogue in the 1880s and Classical Revival style that emerged following the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The sunporch abuts a two-story porch whose corner columns are the Ionic order. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 7.79mb 95%
The south-facing façade has a tall chimney that rises from the ground to above the roof peak. The main entrance is under a shouldered segmental arch held up by columns of the relatively uncommon Roman Doric order. The beige-colored metal siding is a modern addition. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 6.04mb
824 Prospect Avenue, Winnetka, c. 1900.
There is a prominent cornice with a garland frieze below a tiled hipped roof that has a central dormer with a Palladian window. The porch, supported by Ionic order expanded columns, wraps around the front to embrace a two-story bay facing south. Originally this offered a second -floor open sunporch. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 6.76mb
800 Lloyd Place, Winnetka, 1901.
A traditional cube structure which is half stucco and half shingled is covered by a hipped roof that is slightly flared at the eaves. The main roof’s central dormer as well as the main entrance have their own hipped roofs. There is a slight polygonal bay seen on the east side. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 6.15mb
Winnetka showcases a variety of styles, including Queen Anne, Shingle Style, Arts & Crafts, Classical Revival, and Gothic Revival. Residential architecture demonstrates the transition from Victorian complexity to the broader, more horizontal forms associated with the Prairie School era.
Sheridan Road, Winnetka, Illinois. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 3.01mb
Sacred Heart Church, exterior. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 4.58 mb
The grand Neo-Gothic building that stands as Sacred Heart Church in Winnetka was built in 1928. While the parish itself was originally founded in 1897, the first wood-frame church structure was razed in 1908 to accommodate a larger building. Following a three-year fundraising campaign, construction on the current stone structure began and was finalized in 1928. The church later underwent major interior renovations in 1957 and 1994, updating its sanctuary layout and lighting while retaining its historic architecture.
In July 2018, Sacred Heart Church in Winnetka and St. Philip the Apostle in Northfield officially consolidated to form Divine Mercy Parish. This merger was born of modern necessity. A steep decline in active participation, paired with an ever-increasing reliance on private donor largesse and supplementary funding, had made it mathematically impossible for either church to independently sustain its physical footprint within the local community. When a photograph of the interior was captured in 2014, Sacred Heart still stood as its own distinct parish. At that time, its vestibule wall was proudly lined with the portraits of past pastors—a quiet testament to a long, deeply rooted history.
Yet, the structural reality facing Sacred Heart reflects a broader macro-trend. Across the United States, modern Catholic parish life and its foundational institutions have been locked in a severe downward trajectory since the 1960s. The Archdiocese of Chicago’s own data frames this cultural erosion through stark statistical realities.
Less than 17% of Catholic Millennials attend Mass on a weekly basis, while more than one-third of that same millennial demographic—those born after 1986—now claim no religious affiliation whatsoever. This detachment deepens as young people grow, resulting in an overwhelming 85% of eighth graders, across both public and private schooling, completely walking away from the practice of the Catholic faith by the time they reach early adulthood at age 23.
Over the course of just the last two decades, overall Mass attendance has plummeted by more than 25%, leaving more and more pews empty. This institutional attrition begins early in life, fracturing the traditional pipeline of the faith before adulthood even arrives. Today, a significant portion of “cradle Catholics” never complete their foundational sacraments; approximately 20% of baptized children never receive their First Holy Communion, and 40% never move on to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. What remains on the North Shore is a consolidated, leaner presence—a community adapting to preserve its legacy in an era of rapid secularization. See – https://www.renewmychurch.org/mission – retrieved November 21, 2023.
Sacred Heart Church, interior, looking to the main entrance from altar. Under the overarching “Renew My Church” initiative launched by Cardinal Blase Cupich, the Archdiocese of Chicago targeted approximately 15 to 20 parishes for formal closure or consolidation structures across its multi-phase regional planning waves in 2018.Then-121-year-old Sacred Heart Churchparish could no longer survive on its own and was consolidated with another parish in Northfield that year. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 5.06mb DSC_0227 (1)
822 Bryant, Winnetka, 1901.
A grand example of the Shingle style working its way through the Arts and Crafts movement and influenced by the recent Prairie School’s horizontality and openness. The domicile was built by progressive American architect Augustus Barker Higginson (1866-1915) then associated with architects Myron Hunt & Elmer Grey in Los Angeles. Higginson later located his own firm to Santa Barbara, California. The Winnetka house is an L-shaped plan with broad sloping pitches roofs. The window groupings have plain surrounds that fit elegantly into shingle walls which flare slightly when they reach the ground. See – https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/7142/ – retrieved November 21, 2023.
Thirty-five-year old Augustus Barker Higginson, an architect located in Los Angeles, California, built the impressive Shingle style house at 822 Bryant Avenue Winnetka in 1901. Public Domain.
Christ Church, 784 Sheridan Road, Winnetka, 1905.
Christ Church, exterior and main entrance. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 6.60mb
The church was established in 1869 with its adjacent Garland Cemetery (Christ Church Churchyard) grounds begun in 1876. The stone church was dedicated in 1905.
Religious buildings such as Christ Church contribute significantly to Winnetka’s historic character and cultural memory.
Christ Church (also known as Church on the Hill) was the gift of the William Hoyt family. It was built as a memorial to the Hoyts’ daughter and three grandchildren who were tragically killed in the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago and buried in church’s adjacent cemetery. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 7.77mb
Gothic revival: Charles J. Connick Studio (1912-1945). Harriet Leonard, born Albany, NY, Nov. 17, 1875 – died Winnetka, Feb. 28, 1923. Connick’s work in stained glass is noted for its brilliant colors, rich symbolism and abundant use of scripture passages. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 7.66mb
About the deadly December 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire:
newspaper headline, 1903. Public Domain.
The Iroquois Theatre fire remains the deadliest single-building fire in United States history. It occurred on Wednesday, December 30, 1903, at the theater located at 69-73 Randolph Street (known today as 24-28 W. Randolph Street) in downtown Chicago, Illinois. That afternoon, the venue was packed to the brim with teachers, mothers, and young children enjoying their holiday school break.
During a performance of the musical Mr. Bluebeard, an electric arc light short-circuited and sparked a fire in the stage scenery. As the blaze grew, the theater’s “asbestos” safety curtain snagged and failed to lower. When performers fled out the large rear stage doors, the sudden influx of air created a massive cold draft, generating a ferocious fireball that shot out into the auditorium catching the ceiling on fire and trapping many hundreds of people in fiery darkness and thick, toxic smoke.
Out of an estimated crowd of roughly 2,100 to 2,200 attendees, approximately 1,500 to 1,600 people successfully escaped to survive, while more than 600 lost their lives in a span of just fifteen minutes. The vast majority of the victims were young women and children who died from asphyxiation and suffocation or were trampled by panicked crowds and crushed to death against exit doors that were locked or opened inward.
This profound tragedy fundamentally revolutionized public building safety codes globally. It led directly to the invention of the panic crash bar, which allows doors to open instantly under body pressure. It also established mandatory ordinances requiring functional outward-opening exit doors, automatic fire sprinklers, non-flammable stage curtains, and clearly illuminated, standardized exit signs. Through these permanent changes, their deaths were not in vain.
Following the fire, the heavily damaged interior of the original building was thoroughly rebuilt with strict new fire safety features and reopened in late 1904 as the Colonial Theatre. The Colonial operated for 20 years before it was demolished in 1925 to make way for a grander, completely new structure: the Oriental Theatre opened in 1926 and served as a cinema, a vaudeville house, and a live theater venue. In February 2019, the Oriental was officially renamed the James M. Nederlander Theatre.
Christ Church, Winnetka. August 2014. Author’s photograph. 2.75mb DSC_0388 (1)
The saint in the central medallion is Saint Matthias, the apostle chosen by the remaining eleven disciples to replace Judas Iscariot after the crucifixion of Jesus. He is traditionally depicted holding a book or a halberd (axe). This Gothic Revival stained-glass window was also created by the Charles J. Connick Studio of Boston. Looking past the glass, the gravestones visible outside the window belong to the historic Christ Church Churchyard. Often referred to locally as the Garland Plot, it stands as the oldest cemetery on the North Shore, established in 1836. In 1876, John Garland donated the land to the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago to build Christ Church, with the strict legal condition that the churchyard remain a permanent family and pioneer burial lot. Visible just through the window are some of the historic graveyard’s headstones.
Sources:
A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 565-74.
FEATURE image: FISHER BUILDING, 343 S. Dearborn Street, view from the south. Author’s photograph, December 2017.
The 1895–96 Fisher Building represents a pivotal triumph in early skyscraper design, demonstrating how Charles B. Atwood’s flamboyant Gothic Revival aesthetics combined with Edward Clapp Shankland’s rapid steel-frame engineering to evolve the glass-and-terra-cotta formulas pioneered by the Reliance Building (1895) into Chicago’s oldest surviving 18-story-plus landmark.
Fisher Building (1895-1896), looking east. To the left is Burnham & Root and Holabird & Roche’s Monadnock Building (1891-1893) and to the right is Holabird and Roche’s Old Colony Building (1893-1894). In the background is Graham, Anderson, Probst & White’s bright red international style CNA Center (1972). September 2015. Author’s photograph,
Structural engineer Edward Clapp Shankland managed the deep-pile foundation design and rapid steel-framing work, allowing the building’s first 13 stories to rise in just two weeks.
Daniel Hudson Burnham, c. 1890. In 1873 Burnham and Root entered into partnership in Chicago. In 1894 Burnham reorganized his office to include, among other partners, Charles B. Atwood who designed the Fisher Building.
The success of the 14-story Reliance Building at 32 N. State Street built by Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912) and John Wellborn Root (1850-1891) in 1890-91 and Burnham & Co. in 1894-95 led directly to the construction of the 18-story Fisher Building in 1895. (The final two stories were added over a decade later during its 1907 expansion).
The Fisher Building was also designed for Burnham & Co. by Charles B. Atwood (1849-1895). The Fisher Building was three stories taller than the Reliance Building and possessed even more flamboyant Gothic detailing as it is sheathed in golden terra cotta on its visible façades.
Reliance Building (1890-1895), Chicago. September 2015. Author’s photograph. 87% 7.78mb DSCN1939 (2)
Built directly following the success of the landmark Reliance Building, the Fisher Building was constructed four stories taller (originally standing at 18 stories compared to the Reliance’s 14) and sheathed in a highly decorative golden terra cotta.
Charles B. Atwood c.1880. Public Domain.
The Fisher Building’s façade with its depictions of sea creatures in homage to the building’s namesake, Lucius G. Fisher (1843-1916), an Illinois paper company magnate and architect, was painstakingly restored and adapted for contemporary use in 2001. The rectangular prism with its Gothicized ornamentation sits on 25-foot piles under spread foundations engineered by Edward Clapp Shankland (1854-1924).
Ed Shankland was Daniel Burnham’s structural engineer through 1898 and worked on the Reliance Building and the Fisher Building. Public Domain.
In the mid-1890s, the skyscraper was erected quickly with pride. The steel frame’s first 13 stories were erected in two weeks. The building has oriel windows and engaged colonettes at its corner piers. In 1907, a 2-story vertical addition was built, raising the building to 20 stories, alongside a matching 20-story northern tower expansion by architect Peter J. Weber with Shankland as structural engineer.
Lucius Fisher (1843-1916). Born in Wisconsin, Fisher was an Illinois paper magnate who commissioned Daniel Burnham and Company to build the 18-story, 275-foot-tall Fisher Building in the Chicago Loop in 1895. Completed in 1896, the structure was later expanded in 1907 with a two-story vertical addition and a matching northern tower. Following this expansion, the landmark Fisher Building stands today as the oldest extant 20-story building in Chicago. Public Domain.
In 2002 the main entrances on Dearborn Street and Plymouth Court were recreated. Over 1000 wood-frame windows were replaced or repaired and over 6000 terra-cotta pieces were also replaced. May 2015. Author’s photograph.
Reorganized into Daniel Burnham’s office in 1894, partner Charles B. Atwood designed the Fisher Building with intricate Gothic details and whimsical sea creature motifs as a nod to paper magnate Lucius G. Fisher.
Fisher Building (1895-86) at Plymouth Court and Van Buren Street, looking northwest. October 2017. Author’s photograph,
Completed in 1896, the structure claims the title of the oldest surviving 20-story building in the city of Chicago.
SOURCES:
AIA Guide to Chicago, 2nd Edition, Alice Sinkevitch, Harcourt, Inc., Orlando, 2004, pps. 62-63.
The Sky’s The Limit: A Century of Chicago Skyscrapers, Jane H. Clarke, Pauline A. Saliga, John Zukowsky, New York: Rizzoli, 1990, pps. 33-35.
Chicago’s Famous Buildings, 5th Edition, Franze Schulze and Kevin Harrington, The University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. 82-83.
Frank A. Randall, History of Development of Building Construction in Chicago, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded by John D. Randall, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1999, pps. 37 and 164-65.
FEATURE Image: 124 Scottswood Road, Riverside, Illinois, 1871, by William LeBaron Jenney (1832-1907). A full description of this house is in the post. June 2022. Author’s photograph.
Riverside, Illinois, is not simply an early suburb of Chicago but one of America’s most significant planned communities, where the visionary landscape design of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux created a setting that attracted generations of distinguished architects, producing an extraordinary architectural legacy that spans Gothic Revival, High Victorian Gothic, Queen Anne, Richardsonian Romanesque, Prairie School, and other styles.
John P. Walsh, 2022-23. All rights reserved. All text and photos are the property of the author, except for materials explicitly credited as public domain or licensed content.
INTRODUCTION.
The location of today’s Riverside, Illinois, has been an active and important historical area since before the 17th century. It was part of an active trading route and the center for Native American Indian settlements – The Green Bay, Barry Point, Portage Trails, and numerous smaller Indian trails, all passed through the area. It was only a couple of miles from the so-called Chicago Portage which connected Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River centuries prior to the building of the I&M Canal before 1850. French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet passed by Riverside in 1673 when they were shown the portage by Native Americans. The Chicago Portage is a National Historic Site because it opened the western continent to trade and settlement as well as became the key to the founding and development of Chicago, just 11 miles away.
Riverside was originally inhabited by the Illinois and Miami Indians. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the Potawatomi became the dominant tribe together with the Chippewa and Ottawa and formed an alliance called the “Council of Three Fires.” These tribes lived on wild game and roots, but later adapted to farming, with fields of corn, beans, and squash.
During these many centuries, Indian burial grounds and encampments were located in Riverside on grounds besides the Des Plaines River and towards the east to today’s Fairbank Road.
The state of Illinois was founded in 1818. For the next 24 years, the Illinois volunteer army fought local native American tribes and forced them to sign treaties and migrate west of the Mississippi.
After the Indians were first forced off their land by treaty in the early 1800’s, brothers David and Barney Lawton (or Laughton) came to the area from Michigan and established an outpost in Riverside in 1827 or 1828. Into the 1840s Illinois was the edge of the wilderness. These fur traders chose the area for similar reasons that the Native Americans had – its proximity to the Chicago Portage and the convergence of established trails whose traffic made it conducive to a thriving trading business.
Riverside grew from an important Native American and transportation corridor into one of America’s earliest planned suburban communities.
The Scout Cabin on the Des Plaines River in Riverside, Illinois, is situated in an historic area of Native American and pioneer settlements. February 2023. Author’s photograph.
In July 1832 the U.S. Government sent General Winfield Scott (1786-1866) to help with the Black Hawk War that started in April of that year and ended in August. That short war also involved a young 23-year-old captain from New Salem, Illinois, named Abraham Lincoln. Upon leaving Chicago, Scott and his army camped in Riverside along the Des Plaines River for several days and then marched further west. Scottswood Road, one of Riverside’s primary residential arteries, is named after the general.
In 1831, the first white permanent settlers came to Lawtons’ Tavern in Aux Plaines (the name for Riverside then) and settled in the first houses west of Chicago. Once Gen. Scott’s military campaign was over, he returned to Chicago and dispersed the volunteers. Federal law required the state to have a standing army, so the state legislature passed a law requiring counties to form militia. In 1834, Cook County formed the first militia when Stephen Forbes, Cook County’s first sheriff, called up volunteers to Laughton Tavern. Over 1000 enterprising men assembled in Riverside and elected Jean Baptiste Beaubien (1787-1864) the first colonel of the Cook County Militia.
The first stage of modern transit development was the Southwest Plank Road (later Route 66) completed from Chicago to Riverside in 1849. The road, called Ogden Avenue today, was eventually extended to Naperville, Illinois. It was operated as a toll road whose proceeds went to the private concerns that built it. Toll amounts depended on whether the traveler was a four-horse vehicle or a single horse and rider. Since its installation, the plank road has been a successful endeavor as it was the only road through areas that were often inaccessible.
Commercial enterprises in this period included additional taverns that offered lodging and board for travelers and their horses. There was also a brewery and distillery.
A bend of the Des Plaines River in Riverside, Illinois. February 2023. Author’s photograph.
Riverside was mostly wooded tracts and farmland until the Civil War when the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad built a rail line through the area in 1863. With the rail a group of businessmen in 1869 formed the Riverside Improvement Company and set out to develop “a perfect village in a perfect setting.”
These Riverside businessmen hired landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824-1895), who had previously designed Manhattan’s Central Park, to design one of America’s first planned suburban communities. Their innovative plan set a template for suburban community planning such as curvilinear streets and modern amenities. Their vision was to design a mostly rural community with the conveniences of urban life such as utilities and broad streets. Whereas these curvilinear streets were utilized to fit an expansive community into limited open space it was also inspired by the community’s relationship to its natural environment, particularly the curves of the abutting Des Plaines River.
In addition to its legendary landscape architects (like Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux) and world-renowned residential architects (such as Frank Lloyd Wright), the development of Riverside, Illinois relied heavily on civil engineers, sanitation and drainage planners, and bridge/infrastructure architects.
Portrait of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903). Public Domain.
Calvert Vaux (1824-1895). Public Domain.
The 1869 plan by Olmsted and Vaux established curving streets, parks, and a design philosophy that integrated architecture with the natural landscape of the Des Plaines River.
The design of Riverside included important public spaces including a central square and park system that contained several large parks and scores of small triangular parks scattered through the village.
General Plan of Riverside · Olmsted, Vaux & Co. Landscape Architects 1869. Public Domain.
By 1871, Riverside had several larger homes, the water tower, and one of the country’s first multi-shop arcade buildings. There was a church, train depot, and grand hotel. Following the Chicago Fire in October 1871 there was a time of regional financial panic accompanied by frenzied renewed building. In the wake of Riverside Improvement Company going out of business, local Riverside residents came together to see Olmsted and Vaux’s design plan completed and built upon.
The Wesencraft residence is Riverside’s oldest home. It is located at 78 Pine Avenue on the north side of the railroad tracks. Public Domain.
Riverside grew slowly in its first decades but by the 1920s and 1930s had doubled and tripled its population of mostly middle class and upper middle Chicago commuters. This bedroom community grew steadily until its peak in 1970 (10,357 residents). Since then, Riverside’s population has dropped slightly and leveled off to a lower growth number so that by 2020 there were nearly 9,300 residents. (See – https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census.html – retrieved 3.3.23)
Since its incorporation as a village in 1875, Riverside also attracted increasing numbers of eminent architects to contribute to the diversity of Riverside’s historic architecture. These include Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907), Charles Frederick Whittlesey (1867-1941), Joseph Lyman Silsbee (1848-1913), R. Harold Zook (1889-1949), Frederick Clarke Withers (1828-1901), Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926), and William Eugene Drummond (1876-1948). Much of their work remains today evident in scores of historic landmark structures in Riverside.
Riverside became a showcase for the work of major architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, William Le Baron Jenney, Frederick C. Withers, Howard Van Doren Shaw, R. Harold Zook, Joseph Lyman Silsbee, and William Drummond.
Frank Lloyd Wright in 1903, likely a self-portrait. Public Domain.
William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907). Public Domain.
Charles Frederick Whittlesey (1867-1941). Public Domain.
Frederick Clarke Withers (1828-1901). Public Domain.
William Eugene Drummond (1876-1948). Public Domain.
Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926). Public Domain.
Public buildings such as the Water Tower, Arcade Building, train depot, Town Hall, and churches are as significant as the residential architecture.
OLD WATER TOWER, 1869, 10 Pine Avenue. Designed and built by William Le Baron Jenney of Jenney, Schermerhor & Bogart, Architects and Engineers.
The original Water Tower had a Gothic Revival wooden tank. The tower is accompanied by two round stone well houses built in 1898 and designed by George William Ashby. When the original tank was destroyed by fire in 1913, a steel tank was installed and the tower was raised 20 feet. It was topped by a canopy designed by William Mann.
Riverside Railroad Depot, c. 1901, 90 Bloomingbank Road and 15 Pine Avenue. Designed and built by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
A railroad through Riverside came in 1863, 6 years before the Olmsted/Vaux plan and 12 years before the village’s incorporation. William Le Baron Jenney designed the first depot in 1871. This main depot with open covered extensions on the south side of the tracks was connected by a tunnel to the north platform.
The view above shows the expansive tile roof-covered main entrance. The two large columns with variegated brick gives columns design and texture. There are many windows to allow natural light from its south exposure and a view of the tracks to the north.
Looking east, the orange-brick-colored main depot has open covered extensions for commuters to be protected from the elements during their wait outdoors for a train connection.
Looking west, a view of the train depot with one of its open covered extensions and peaked snow-covered tile roof. The northern platform is visible across the railroad tracks on the right. Author’s photograph taken in February 2023.
The same view as above over 100 years ago. Riverside Train Depot, 1919. Public Domain.
Interior, Riverside Train Depot, c. 1901, includes a waiting room and, at right, ticket agent window. The ceiling has wainscotting and there are period light fixtures to accent the natural light pouring in from the series of encased large rectangular windows.
On the brick-paved platform, another of the train depot’s open covered extensions.
The Lake House, a 2006 fantasy romance film from Warner Brothers, was shot in Riverside, Illinois. A doctor (Sandra Bullock) who occupied a lakeside home exchanges letters with its newest resident, an architect (Keanu Reeves). When they discover that they’re actually living two years apart, they must try to unravel the mystery behind their romance before it’s lost in the midst of time.
While several scenes in the movie were shot in Riverside, Illinois—including at the local train station and the bridge on Riverside Road—the lake house was built from scratch for the movie and its scenes were filmed on the shores of Maple Lake within the Palos Forest Preserve in nearby Willow Springs.
Riverside Town Hall, 27 Riverside Road, Riverside, Illinois, 1895, designed by George Ashby.
In 1891, the Village of Riverside and Riverside Township reached an agreement so that the village donated the land for a town hall and the township paid for its construction.
In 1893 the township authorized $15,000 for construction (about $500,000 today) and this picturesque and stately building, designed by George Ashby, was completed in 1895. The clock was added to the main tower in 1941.
The building is Richardsonian Romanesque at a time when that style, very popular in the 1880’s, had begun to wane among contemporary architects in preference for the Beaux-Arts.
There is a steeply pitched hipped roof with brick for the top floor and rough faced stone for the ground floor. The turret is polygonal and the windows are of various sizes on all three floors. There are many delicate design elements such as copper cornices, colonettes, stringcourses and dressed stone.
Arcade Building, 1 Riverside Road, Designed and built c. 1871, Frederick C. Withers.
The Arcade Building is the first commercial building built in Riverside following Olmsted and Vaux’s plan and is associated with the village’s original developers, the Riverside Improvement Company.
The Arcade Building – a multi-color brick and limestone building with pointed arches and projecting cornices and stringcourses – is High Victorian Gothic. It was designed by architect Fredrick C. Withers, an associate of Olmsted and Vaux. With its mansard windows between tower pavilions, the simple building references the elaborate and decorative Second Empire architecture.
Riverside Presbyterian Church, 116 Barrypoint, 1872, Frederick C. Withers.
The church building was designed by Fredrick C. Withers who designed the Arcade Building at around the same time. Like that early commercial building the church is an amalgam of styles and forms, including Gothic Revival and Italianate.
The stone building has a series of pitched gable roofs that cover and form the transepts and chancel. The corner tower rises to a timber belfry with moldings and pointed arch openings whose original manual pull bell as well as modern chimes still mark the hours. Extensions to the left and right are mid-20th century additions done in harmony with the original design.
100 Fairbank Road, 1869, by Calvert Vaux.
This clapboard Carpenter Gothic style house was designed as a model home for the Riverside Plan by that plan’s designer, Calvert Vaux. It is an example of East Coast architecture transplanted into the heart of the Midwest. The ground floor is higher than the second floor. The low-pitched roof is punctuated by a projecting porch with Gothic Revival carpentry supported by struts and a gabled roof.
Two other second floor porches are on the short sides of the building extending across that width above a ground-floor projecting bay. The clapboard sheathings are meticulously and variedly cut for decorative effects throughout the building’s exterior.
Curved sidewalks follow their own direction and along a mostly wooded landscape.
107 Bloomingbank Road and 111 Bloomingbank Road, both c. 1890.
This neighboring pair of Queen Anne style homes are variations of the same building design. The buildings’ design shares a porch across the entire front, arched enclosed second floor porch, and front-facing attic windows. Both share the same kind of clapboard and shingle sheathing.
Houses on Bloomingbank Road face the Des Plaines River.
The Des Plaines River has flooded Riverside repeatedly, causing major damage at least seven to ten times in modern history. Record-setting floods struck in April 2013, August 1987, September 1986, and September 2008. Additional significant flood crests reached major or moderate flood stages in 2007, 2017, and 2020. As suburban development and impervious surfaces such as concrete have expanded throughout the surrounding region, flood risks and impacts within the village have generally increased over time. February 2023. Author’s photograph.
143 Bloomingbank Road, c. 1869.
This house is set back from the road and built in 1869 which was the year that Olmsted and Vaux were commissioned to design the suburb. The Italianate-style house has tall windows and large brackets with feet and shoulders for their jambs and segmental points. The second-floor windows are met by a first-floor transomed window. A steeped pitched roof and complex massing is Gothic Revival. A subdued color palette blends into the natural surroundings. The porch veranda is original.
201 Bloomingbank Road at Scottswood, c. 1870.
The above 1870 house is a T-shaped Gothic revival with the stem of the “T” facing the street. The stem is surrounded by a veranda whose porch columns are Italianate with Gothic style “carpenter” capitals. The tall windows and lintels are Italianate. The façade’s windows are under a hood molding and the attic has a small window with a pointed lintel. The T-stem’s pitched roof in the Gothic Revival style is slightly lower than the T-cross’s pitched roof behind it.
213 Bloomingbank Road, c. 1905.
A frame clapboard and shingled 4-square cube from 1905. There is a front porch held up by four huge piers with ornamental moldings that cover expansive first-floor polygonal bay windows. Below the hipped roof are two center windows with round heads. The painted dark green and yellow mix is stately and blends into the nature setting.
253 Bloomingbank Road, c.1890.
The Queen Anne house from 1890 has a lot of windows. It is a basic cube with a gambrel roof with a wing that also has a gambrel roof. The front porch is covered on one side with a flared roof and on the other side with a pitched gable roof. The second floor has an open porch that looks over the Des Plaines River. The original clapboard and shingles have been covered on the first floor by later stucco.
Bloomingbank Road, Riverside, Illinois.
Riverside’s architecture remains inseparable from its landscape setting, fulfilling the original vision of a “perfect village in a perfect setting.”
Riverside, Illinois. June 2022. Author’s photograph. 6.21mb.
Avery Coonley Estate, 1909, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Avery Coonley House, 300 Scottswood Road, 281 Bloomingbank Road, Riverside (Cook County, Illinois), 1910. Public Domain.
281 Bloomingbank Road, 1909.
281 Bloomingbank Road, 1909. From the street.
What became the nationally-recognized Avery Coonley School was founded in 1906 to promote the progressive education theories of John Dewey (1859-1952). It was founded as The Cottage School by Queene Ferry Coonley (1874-1958) on her estate in Riverside, Illinois, for her 4-year-old daughter.
The school, which continues to thrive today, has occupied several structures in its history. This included a literal small cottage on the Coonley Estate in Riverside to larger buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1909. The school moved to Downers Grove in 1916 and, on a 11-acre campus there designed by landscape architect Jens Jensen (1860-1951), became the Avery Coonley School in 1929.
This section of Wright’s 1909 design is set back well off the street and mostly hidden by trees. Behind an iron fence, it is difficult for the public to perceive the full extent of the estate. Wright’s design begins at the street with a low stone urn.
On June 11, 1978, the courtyard’s swimming pool heater exploded and started a fire. The fire destroyed the main house’s living room and a bedroom. The exterior was later meticulously restored to its original appearance which included the school’s stucco walls, simple board trim and multi-color tile façade, all beneath a broad, tiled, hipped roof. At the time of the restoration the swimming pool was re-converted to its original function as a lily pond.
The Avery Coonley Estate represents one of the finest Prairie School expressions in suburban America.
336 Coonley Road, 1909, is another major section of the Coonley estate.
290 Scottswood Road, after 1909.
A free-standing L-shaped domestic structure with a broad hipped roof, the house was added sometime after 1909. Within its setting in the highly-designed suburb of Riverside, this Prairie style house sets a template and direction for much of what would be 20th century suburban development across the country.
300 Scottswood Road, 1909.
This is the main block of the Avery Coonley estate. The house is the epitome of the Prairie School style of broad horizontals, here using stucco boards, tile and glass beneath a low hipped roof. Wright’s design starts at the street with the low stone urn.
Avery Coonley Playhouse, 350 Fairbank Road, Riverside, Illinois, 1909, by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Avery Coonley Playhouse, 350 Fairbank Road, 1909, by F. L. Wright.
Basic plan of the playhouse (above) is a T-shaped building with higher T-stem to the street. A simple stucco structure, the playhouse’s flat roof and lower wings provide the Prairie style’s broad horizontality. Flat roof of the T-stem extends over three elongated windows while lower wings have clerestory windows.
William E. Drummond (1876–1948). Public Domain.
308 Fairbank Road, Riverside, Illinois, c. 1910, Guenzel and Drummond.
Drummond began his career working for architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924). Later, working for Frank Lloyd Wright, Drummond became the chief draftsman for many of Wright’s well-known commissions. In 1912 Drummond went into partnership with Louis Guenzel who had been a draftsman for Dankmar Adler (1844-1900) and Louis Sullivan (1856-1924).
The house is a one story hipped roofed cube or block with a broad brow of stucco soffits with eaves. The original casement windows include three in the front for the living room with geometric Prairie patterns. The lower portion of the façade is board siding and the top section is stucco.
314 Scottswood Road, Riverside, Illinois.
322 Scottswood Road, 1897.
The simple stone house in an English country cottage style was built in 1897. It has diamond-patterned casement windows and a single half-timbered gable poking out of a gambrel roof. The timber entrance porch that abuts stone achieves an overall craftsman effect.
144 Scottswood Road, c. 1870, William LeBaron Jenney.
Attributed to William LeBaron Jenney, the house is an early building in Riverside. It is a fusion of two styles – the Stick Style and Gothic Revival. The carpentry is solidly masterful. The roof has a low pitch and is punctuated with a massive chimney, dormers and gables with filets, spars and kingposts. The spurs or brackets supporting the overhanging eaves rest on boards intersecting with the clapboard. There is a broad veranda with turned posts supporting a lintel that supports small pointed arches with struts. The porch railing has tightly aligned balusters extending to a below-porch skirt with complementary cut-out patterns. The veranda roof extends over the angled main entrance to become a porte-cochère for the driveway.
124 Scottswood Road, 1871, William LeBaron Jenney.
In the Gothic Revival style, the design and board-and-batten construction of the house is grand and appealing. With steeply pitched roofs, there are several gabled wings of varying distances and directional faces from the building’s core. Windows include long tabernacle windows and others with more elaborate extending jerkinhead roofs that are supported by boards incised with decorative cuts. There are pointed head windows on the second floor over the main entrance while the veranda stretches across two sides of the house supported by slope cut square posts with milled brackets. These and other rare trim and other details, including two massive chimneys, have survived in this house that is today over 150 years old.
118 Scottswood Road, 1880s.
112 Scottswood Road, 1870s.
SOURCES:
Book (with Page Range)
Bach, Ira J. A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot. Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, 664–679.
FEATURE image: Erected in 1939, St. Francis Xavier Church stands at 524 Ninth Street in Wilmette, Illinois, within a mature residential neighborhood just a few blocks west of Lake Michigan. Rather than dominate its surroundings, the church was deliberately designed to harmonize with the architectural character of Chicago’s North Shore, reflecting the desire of the local Roman Catholic community to create a dignified house of worship that blended naturally into its well-established suburban setting.June 2014. Author’s photograph 3.56mb
Though outwardly modest and deliberately integrated into its residential setting, St. Francis Xavier Church reveals the sophistication of twentieth-century Catholic design, using architecture, sculpture, and stained glass to transform doctrinal teaching into a fully immersive visual experience.
St. Francis Xavier church, Wilmette, Illinois. December 2018. Author’s photograph. 11.6mb
The English Gothic‑style church—typically associated with establishment mainline Protestants—was designed to be both sophisticated and simple. When the parish community formed in 1904, it built a smaller multi‑purpose church‑and‑school on this same corner of 9th Street and Linden Avenue. That first structure supported the parish through its early decades, serving as both classroom and worship space as the community grew into the congregation that would later commission the present building. Built by McCarthy, Smith & Eppig, St. Francis Xavier Church adopts the character of a sturdy country church, marked by low walls, massive external buttresses, and a sloped, elongated roof.
The church was intentionally designed to blend into the surrounding North Shore neighborhood rather than stand as a monumental urban landmark.Massive buttresses, low walls, and an elongated roof create the character of a sturdy English country church.
St. Francis Xavier church, Wilmette, Illinois. June 2014. Author’s photograph. 4.64mb
Erected in 1939, St. Francis Xavier Church sits within an established, well‑maintained residential neighborhood in Wilmette, Illinois, just blocks inland from Lake Michigan. The area’s Roman Catholics intentionally sought a design that would blend unobtrusively into the North Shore streetscape, ensuring the church harmonized with its surroundings rather than dominating them or otherwise stand out. Placing the 1904 parish under the patronage of St. Francis Xavier, the premier Jesuit missionary and intellectual, reflected the cultural and educational aspirations of the region’s affluent English‑speaking Catholic families, whose spiritual identity was shaped by the strong Jesuit presence on Chicago’s North Shore.
WHO IS ST. FRANCIS XAVIER (1506-1552), FIRST JESUIT MISSIONARY TO THE FAR EAST AND CO-PATRON OF FOREIGN MISSIONS?
Parish patron and namesake St. Francis Xavier is depicted in marble at the entrance to the sanctuary in Wilmette, Illinois. namesake. Holding a crucifix, the Basque Jesuit priest is dressed in a black cassock draped by an alb and stole. June 2014. Author’s photograph. 4.05 mb
The unobstructed interior provides clear sightlines to the sanctuary and reflects evolving twentieth-century liturgical priorities.The inverted-barque ceiling symbolically references St. Francis Xavier’s missionary voyages to Asia.
Nave looking to main altar. June 2014. Author’s photograph. 5.99 mb
Unobstructed Sanctuary
There are no columns interrupting the view toward the marble altar and crucifix. After Vatican II, the tabernacle was moved to a niche on the right; originally it stood on the main altar beneath the crucifix. The extra‑wide altar rail—with cross‑shaped legs meant to evoke being at table with Christ for communicants—was also removed.
Modern Streamlining
Although St. Francis Xavier Church is traditional in overall form, its detailing is modern, chic, and streamlined, giving the sanctuary a flexible, adaptable character suited to later liturgical changes.
Symbolic Ceiling
The ceiling is shaped like an inverted barque, a visual metaphor for St. Francis Xavier’s missionary voyages across the seas to the Far East.
Its architecture combines English Gothic Revival forms with a notably streamlined and modernized interior treatment.
View of sanctuary. July 2014. Author’s photograph. 5.85mb
Architects & Origins
Among the leading ecclesiastical designers of the 1930s, McCarthy, Smith & Eppig worked closely with Chicago’s Cardinal George Mundelein. Joseph W. McCarthy (1884–1965), once a young architect under Daniel Burnham, shaped much of Chicago’s Catholic built environment from the 1910s through the 1930s.
Wilmette Commissions
In 1939, McCarthy completed two major Wilmette churches—St. Francis Xavier and the more monumental St. Joseph—standing barely a mile apart. The design of St. Francis Xavier was executed primarily by the firm’s younger partners, David Smith and Arthur Eppig.
Design & Cost
The church’s restrained architecture, enriched by fine detailing, cost $200,000 to build in the late Depression years—roughly $4 million in 2022.
Beyond Chicago
While most of McCarthy’s work rose in the Chicago region, his portfolio also includes significant projects such as the cathedral in Springfield (1928) and the parish church built in 1918 for what later became the Diocese of Joliet.
Organ loft. December 2017. Author’s photograph. 7.90 mb 77%
There are 8 major stained-glass windows in St. Francis Xavier Church: four in the west wall and four in the east wall.
Panels of three different windows.October 2015. Author’s photographs
Smaller stained-glass oculi and panels are scattered throughout the interior. These stained-glass windows were designed by parishioner Henry Schmidt. They are quite beautiful, scintillating in their pseudo-English Tudor style, and illumined by the usually soft eastern and tree-obscured western exposures. While their subject matter feels somewhat chaotic—a hodgepodge in its traditional and idiosyncratic admixture of hagiography, scripture, and popular piety—one aspect of their enduring appeal is that the glass can be seen close up and at eye level. This intimate perspective is vividly captured in the side panels: the left detail illustrates the Agony in the Garden, showing Christ kneeling on the Mount of Olives as an angel descends with the chalice of His Passion; the center panel depicts the Finding in the Temple, with the twelve-year-old Jesus teaching the elders while Mary and Joseph look on; and the right panel depicts the Annunciation, capturing the Archangel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary under the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
ST. PETER WINDOW & THE QUEENSHIP OF MARY WINDOW.
The visual program of the St. Peter stained-glass window —particularly its central panel showing St. Peter holding the keys next to the Latin words for Saint Peter, flanked by scenes of Mary’s active intercession by way of her heavenly coronation and Assumption into Heaven—beautifully illustrate this very link between established apostolic authority on earth and the heavenly governance of Christ and His Mother.
The window’s left panel of the Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven refers to the moment the Trinity receives her, body and soul, following the Assumption. In Catholic tradition—as in the Fifth Glorious Mystery of the Rosary—the Coronation marks her crown of heavenly glory. Though rooted in Scripture—especially the ‘woman clothed with the sun’ of Revelation 12:1—the literal act of the Trinity placing a crown on Mary is held as pious tradition rather than defined dogma like the Assumption. Consequently, parish practices such as a May Crowning remain devotional customs rather than formal liturgical acts.
St. Peter window. June 2014. Author’s photograph. 4.98 mb
CENTER PANEL: Saint Peter, leader of the apostles, holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:19). Peter holds a book, a representation of St. Peter’s New Testament letters (1 and 2 Peter) and sermons (Acts). Below is St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City in Rome with its famous dome.
LEFT PANEL: Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven by Triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). From the Council of Ephesus in 431, depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary wearing a regal crown was used in Christendom.
RIGHT PANEL: While biblical texts point directly to the defined dogma (431) of Mary as Theotokos (Mother of God), the literal event of her Assumption is not explicitly recorded in the New Testament. Instead, this latter dogma (1950) dictates that at the end of her earthly life, she was taken—or ‘assumed’—body and soul into heavenly glory. Scriptural imagery of going ‘up’ to heaven is utilized here to express a profound spiritual reality, drawing a deliberate theological parallel to Jesus’ own Ascension (Acts 1:6–17; Luke 24:50–53). This phenomenon of a bodily assumption is mirrored in the Old Testament accounts of Moses and Elijah, both of whom later appeared alongside Christ at His Transfiguration (Matt 17:1–9; Mark 9:2–10; Luke 9:28–36; 2 Peter 1:16–21). Anchoring these soaring heavenly narratives visually, identical angel figures rest directly below the window panels.
Assumption (right panel), St. Peter Window. October 2015. Author’s photograph. 4.81mb DSC_0504 (1)
The Queenship of Mary, while in one continuous arc with the crowning of Mary, is an established doctrine of the Church. In 1954, Pope Pius XII formalized this long-standing tradition by issuing the papal encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam (To the Queen of Heaven), establishing the universal Feast of the Queenship of Mary. The systematically-minded Pope Paul VI later moved the memorial to August 22—exactly seven days after the Solemnity of the Assumption—to underscore their inseparable theological connection. The Queenship refers to Mary’s eternal, structural office and state of reigning over the entire Created Order. Catholic theology teaches that her reign is not passive; rather, Mary actively exercises her exalted role as Intercessor, Advocate, and Mediatrix of graces on behalf of the entirety of creation, both the living and the dead, until the end of time. The maternal character of her office stems from the ancient Davidic kingdom, where the queen was not the king’s wife, but the king’s mother. In ancient Israel, this Queen Mother held a powerful office of advocacy, listening to the needs of the citizens and bringing them directly to the King. Mary reigns in this exact Old Testament typological capacity. As Pope Pius XII noted, Mary’s authority is characterized entirely by maternal solicitude and humility. Her power to rule flows directly from her absolute submission to God’s will, meaning her crown is the ultimate reflection of perfect, Christian discipleship and sacrificial agape.
Queenship of Mary window. December 2018. Author’s photograph.
CENTER PANEL: The Queen of Heaven who reigns from the right hand of her son, is depicted in her role as mother of Jesus Christ. Below, a crown hovers over what may be a heart-shaped letter “M” for Mary’s first initial and/or her sacred heart.
LEFT PANEL: The presentation panel depicts Jesus being offered by Mary and Joseph in the Temple, where they meet Simeon, a ‘just and devout’ man of Jerusalem (Luke 2:25–35). Celebrated as the Fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary, the Presentation occurs forty days after Jesus’s birth. In accordance with Luke’s narrative, Mary and Joseph journeyed to the Temple in Jerusalem to fulfill the requirements of Mosaic Law: completing Mary’s ritual purification after childbirth and offering the prescription for the redemption of the firstborn son (Leviticus 12; Exodus 13:12–15)
RIGHT PANEL: Nativity of Jesus in Bethlehem (Luke 2: 1-7 and Matthew 1: 18-25) is the Third Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. Below each side panel are identical Angel figures.
ST. BONIFACE WINDOW.
St. Boniface Window. June 2014. 3.93 mb
CENTER PANEL: St. Boniface (675–754) is widely regarded as the “St. Patrick of Germany.” A missionary bishop who labored during Europe’s Early Middle Ages, Boniface was primarily responsible for organizing the Church in western Germany. While the ancient sees of Cologne and Mainz already existed, he fundamentally restructured and elevated them to serve as the pillars of his reform movement. Acting under the direct mandate of the Roman pope, Boniface anointed Pepin the Short (714–768)—son of Charles Martel (c. 688–741) and father of Charlemagne (747–814)—as King of the Franks. Pepin’s subsequent 751 coronation established a powerful precedent for future European royal coronations, marking a definitive milestone in the formation of the modern European state
LEFT PANEL: Jesus meets his mother is the fourth station of the cross. The Holy Face, below, is a devotion proclaimed by Pope Leo XIII in 1885.
RIGHT PANEL: Jesus mocked and crowned with thorns (Luke 22:63-65 and John 19:2-3) is the sixth station of the cross.
ST. PATRICK WINDOW.
St. Patrick Window. July 2014. 7.58mb
CENTER PANEL: St. Patrick (418–493) is one of the patron saints of Ireland, alongside St. Brigid (c. 451–525) and St. Columba (540–615). In Wilmette, Illinois, St. Joseph Church was founded in the 1840s to serve German immigrants, while St. Francis Xavier Church was established in 1904 as an English‑speaking territorial parish for the expanding North Shore community.
The depiction of Patrick as the archetypal, bearded Irish bishop—in green vestments, with miter and pastoral staff—rose to prominence in the late 1700s. His iconography includes a book, symbolizing both Holy Scripture and his own Latin works, the Confessio and the Epistola to Coroticus. Patrick also holds the traditional three‑leafed shamrock, the emblem he used to explain the Holy Trinity to the Irish people. Beneath him rests the harp, Ireland’s historic national emblem and one of the world’s oldest musical instruments.
LEFT PANEL:Jesus Christ’s Resurrection from the dead stands as the cornerstone of the Christian faith (1 Cor. 15:17). His empty tomb testifies to Christ’s deity (John 5:26; Rom. 1:4). Through the Resurrection, Christ redeemed humanity from sin (Rom. 4:24–25; Heb. 7:25), granted believers the promise of future resurrection (John 14:19; 1 Cor. 15:20–23), and infused them with spiritual power (Rom. 6:3–4; Eph. 1:19–21).
The window shows the resurrected Jesus holding the banner of victory over death, while a Roman guard collapses before the radiant light of the Risen Christ, accompanied by a ministering angel. Christ’s three‑part cruciform halo traditionally bears the Greek letters ὁ ὤν, meaning “He Who Is” (or “I Am Who Am”), a definitive sign of His divinity.
Although all four Gospels recount the aftermath of the Resurrection, none describe the moment or essence of the event itself — a mystery at the heart of Christian belief.
RIGHT PANEL: The Crucifixion of Jesus shows Him on the cross, flanked by Mary and John the Apostle at its base. Above Christ’s head appear the letters INRI, the Latin initials for Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judaeorum, the official charge written by Pontius Pilate, meaning “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.” This title is recorded in John 19:19. Resting symmetrically below each side panel are identical anchoring angel figures, grounding the composition and framing the scene’s solemn balance.
Altar design includes tall candlesticks and a detailed, compact baldacchino. June 2014. 4.61 mb
The rood-beam crucifixion group by Fritz Muhlhauser revives a medieval English church tradition within a modern American Catholic setting.
Crucifixion scene in basswood. December 2018. Author’s photograph. 8.47mb
A striking depiction of the Crucifixion carved in basswood stands atop the sanctuary’s rood beam, positioned at the ceiling line directly above the main altar. Hand‑carved by German sculptor Fritz Muhlhauser, the work revives a medieval English Gothic tradition: the rood beam marking the threshold between nave and chancel, symbolizing the bridge between earth and heaven through Christ’s sacrifice.
Muhlhauser executed the composition in basswood (Lindenwood), a fine‑grained European carving wood prized for holding intricate facial expressions and sharp drapery folds without splitting. The sculptural grouping presents Christ on the cross, His head crowned with thorns beneath the INRI inscription, flanked by Mary on the left and John the Apostle on the right. At the base of the cross, Mary Magdalene, bowed in profound grief, embodies the faithful women who witnessed the Passion (John 19:25; Luke 23:27, 49).
Stylistically, the figures are elongated and vertically dramatic, allowing their features to read clearly from the pews far below while harmonizing with the soaring vertical lines of the church’s late Gothic Revival architecture.
STS. ANN AND MARY WINDOW.
Sts. Ann and Mary Window. December 2018. 16.24mb. Author’s photograph.
Overview & Architecture
The late Gothic Revival stained-glass window illustrates the sacred maternal lineage that prepared the world for Christ. These nave windows are positioned so that they are sitting almost entirely at eye level. This intimate placement allows parishioners to stand directly beside the glass so that it functions much like an illuminated manuscript page, inviting them to appreciate its rich colors, expressive faces, and intricate details. Compositionally, the window’s narrative layout reads from right to left in terms of scriptural chronology (the Annunciation on the right moving to the Visitation on the left), flanking and bowing inward toward the central, towering figures of Saint Ann and Mary.
Center Panel: St. Ann and the Child Mary
This panel features the child Mary alongside her mother, Saint Ann, celebrating the vital generational link of Mary’s own birth. Because nothing is explicitly recorded in the New Testament about Mary’s parents or her nativity, early apocryphal Christian texts—such as the Protoevangelium of James—provide the vital historical framework. see – CHURCH FATHERS: Protoevangelium of James – retrieved September 8, 2026. These texts detail the miraculous nature of Mary’s birth to her long-barren parents, cementing an enduring legendary tradition of her immaculate beginnings. This familial focus is reinforced by the distinct vertical typography stitched directly into the blue glass background borders, with clean, capital letters clearly marking “SAINT ANN” and “SAINT MARY”—a design that rewards close-up reading from the aisle. Anchoring the base of this central structure is a miniature depiction of an angel.
Left Panel: The Visitation
The left detail depicts the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:39–45). Following the Annunciation, Mary journeyed into the hill country to remain at the home of Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah for three months. Both women were experiencing miraculous pregnancies—Mary carrying Jesus by virgin birth, and Elizabeth conceiving John the Baptist in her advanced age. The window captures the precise moment John the Baptist leaped with joy in Elizabeth’s womb upon hearing Mary’s greeting (Luke 1:41). The Visitation is celebrated as the Second Joyful Mystery of the Rosary.
Anchoring the base of this left panel scene is a miniature architectural tabernacle or ark; Luke heavily structured his Visitation narrative around Old Testament accounts in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings regarding the physical journey of the Ark of the Covenant. Accordingly, paragraph 2676 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church formally identifies Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant: “Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is ‘the dwelling of God . . . with men.’”
Right Panel: The Annunciation
The right panel illustrates the Annunciation, wherein the Archangel Gabriel proclaims that Mary will bear the Son of God, Jesus Christ, greeting her with the words: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” It is through Mary’s faithful acceptance of the divine will—“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:26–38)—that the Incarnation takes place. A traditional vase of white lilies sits positioned between Gabriel and Mary, serving as a classic art-historical symbol of her perpetual virginity and spiritual purity. The Annunciation constitutes the First Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. Anchored at the base of this right-panel scene is the fruit of Mary’s womb, the infant Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes (Luke 2:7, 2:12). He appears as he did when Mary laid him in a manger in Bethlehem, because there was no room for them at the inn.
ST. JOSEPH WINDOW.
St. Joseph Window. December 2018.12.34 mb
CENTER PANEL: St. Joseph was the foster father of Jesus and served as His guardian protector. Joseph’s symbology includes his holding a carpenter’s square (Matt. 13:55) along with a white lily to symbolize his faithfulness and chastity toward Mary (Matt. 1:25), as well as his absolute holiness and obedience to God (Matt. 1:24; 2:14, 21, 22). This devotional aspect is made explicit by the vertical text framing his figure, reading “SAINT JOSEPH” on the left and “PRAY FOR US” on the right in stark, clean capital letters. An angel figure is positioned directly below St. Joseph.
LEFT PANEL: The left detail depicts the Holy Family in Nazareth, illustrating the hidden years where Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph and “progressed steadily in wisdom, age, and grace before God and men” (Luke 2:52). Jesus is shown being instructed by St. Joseph in the carpenter’s trade, holding a prophetic wooden cross upon His knees. The flowering grass below is highly decorative and signifies the flowering staff of St. Joseph, which symbolized that he was specially chosen by God to be Mary’s husband. This imagery was heavily drawn from the Old Testament type where Aaron’s staff, placed before the Ark of the Testimony, miraculously sprouted with almond blossoms as a divine sign of his election (Num. 17:8; Vulgate 17:23).
RIGHT PANEL: The right panel captures Mary and St. Joseph finding the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple sitting among the doctors of the Law (Luke 2:41–52), which constitutes the Fifth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. This scriptural event marks the only time in the Gospels where Jesus makes a public appearance between His infancy narrative and His later baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist at the start of His public ministry (Matt. 3:3–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–23; John 1:29–33). Compositionally, the twelve-year-old Jesus is visually elevated above the scroll-holding doctors, sitting upon a small stone cathedra or teaching chair, which subtly emphasizes His divine authority over the earthly teachers of the Law.
Compositional Harmony Across the Base
The window’s lowest register displays a deliberate symbolic balance between the two side panels. Directly beneath the Nazareth home scene on the left, an ornate vase holds three stylized lilies representing the domestic purity of the Holy Family. This perfectly counterbalances the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments on the right, which are inscribed with Roman numerals (I through X) beneath the Eye of Providence—a symbol of the Holy Trinity hovering within an equilateral triangle. Together, the window visually tracks Jesus’s growth from the quiet, private household raised by his parents (the left) into the public, formal structures of divine law where He takes up His true spiritual mission as the Son of God (the right).
ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE WINDOW.
St. Paul Window. June 2022. Author’s photograph. 4.28 mb
CENTER PANEL: This panel features St. Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles. He is depicted in a traditional pose of apostolic authority, with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding a large volume representing the Holy Scriptures and his foundational New Testament epistles. The figure is framed by vertical typography in clean capital letters reading “SAINT” on the left and “PAUL” on the right. While Christian iconography and the traditional symbology of martyrs frequently depict Paul holding a sword—both as the historical instrument of his execution by beheading (c. 64–68 CE) and as a metaphor for the ‘sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ (Ephesians 6:17)—this specific window replaces that martial emblem with the written word, highlighting his role as the preeminent teacher, theologian, and writer of the early Church. An angel figure is positioned directly below St. Paul.
LEFT PANEL: The left panel portrays Pentecost (Acts 2:1–13), which immediately followed the timeline of the Ascension. The scene depicts the Apostles gathered in prayer alongside Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as they receive the promised outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The divine presence is symbolized by a radiant dove descending from Heaven, casting tongues of fire upon the faithful below. Affixed to the bottom register of this panel is a prominent inscription block that reads: “TEACH YE ALL NATIONS – MATTHEW 28.”
RIGHT PANEL: The right panel illustrates the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven, an event heavily witnessed and detailed throughout the New Testament (Luke 24:50–53; Acts 1:6–12; John 3:13; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:19–20). The composition captures the exact moment the Resurrected Christ physically departed from Earth, rising into the heavens before the gaze of His Eleven remaining apostles (Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus and tragically hung himself). Visually reinforcing this mystery, a cloud of glory reaches down from the upper tracery to receive Christ as His divine humanity enters into the eternal intimacy of the Father, sealing His identity as the perfect God-Man. Symmetrically anchoring the overall window design, a stylized descending dove—the symbol of the Holy Spirit—rests within the lower register directly below this scene.
St. Paul Window: Ascension. October 2015. Author’s photograph DSC_0505 (1).
Thematic and Compositional Harmony
The window’s design displays a brilliant theological and visual unity across its panels. Liturgically and historically, the inscription at the bottom left—“Teach ye all nations” (Matthew 28:19)—functions as the structural catalyst for the entire visual program. The Pentecost panel directly above it provides the Apostles with the supernatural grace and tongues of fire required to execute this Great Commission, while the central panel of St. Paul showcases the ultimate historical fulfillment of that missionary command to the wider world.
Artistically, this narrative is bound together by the striking use of deep cobalt blue glass backgrounds behind all three central figure groupings. This deliberate choice creates a dense, uniform baseline that forces the fiery reds and golden ambers of Christ’s robes and the descending Holy Spirit to pop with staggering visual contrast when sunlight hits the glass.
ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE WINDOW in situ on the east wall. June 2014. Author’s photograh
THE GOOD SHEPHERD WINDOW.
The Good Shepherd Window. December 2018. 12.6mb
CENTER PANEL: This panel features Jesus Christ declaring Himself the ‘Good Shepherd’ (John 10). This title fulfills the Old Testament prophecies of Ezekiel, who foretold a singular Messiah-Shepherd sent to oversee the people of God (Ezek. 34:23–24; 37:24–25). Christ is depicted holding a pastoral staff with a lamb slung securely over His shoulders, symbolizing His protective care for the faithful. This messianic claim is rendered instantly legible by the stark vertical English typography stitched directly into the blue background glass, reading “I AM THE” on the left and “GOOD SHEPHERD” on the right. Positioned within the lower register directly below His feet is a triumphant Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) panel, portraying a haloed lamb holding the banner of victory over death. This iconography honors John the Baptist’s proclamation (John 1:29) and functions as an Old Testament typological echo of the ram provided by God to replace Isaac on Mount Moriah (Gen. 22:13), foretelling the ultimate sacrifice of the Son of God at Calvary.
LEFT PANEL: The left panel portrays the Scourging at the Pillar, which constitutes the Second Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary and part of the severe bodily brutalities Jesus endured during His Passion (John 19:1–3). Bound to a marble column, Christ is flanked by two Roman torturers. Resting directly beneath His feet are the instruments of His flagellation: the leather-thonged whip (flagrum) and crossed wooden rods. Symmetrically anchoring the base of this narrative register, a standing angel figure rests directly below.
RIGHT PANEL: The right panel depicts Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane during His Agony, positioned at the foot of the Mount of Olives the night before His Crucifixion (Luke 22:39–46). Knowing the immediacy of Judas’s impending betrayal, Jesus kneels in intense prayer, pleading: ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done’ (Luke 22:42). The window captures the exact fulfillment of the subsequent verse, where a ministering angel descends from heaven to strengthen Him (Luke 22:43). This angel holds out a golden Eucharistic chalice directly toward Christ’s face, visually transforming the abstract concept of the spiritual ‘cup of suffering’ into a tangible, liturgical reality. Mirroring the layout of the left side, an identical standing angel figure occupies the register directly below.
Compositional and Structural Balance
Architecturally, the entire triptych is bound together by identical, pointed trefoil-lobed arch borders (or ogival mandorlas) rendered in deep cobalt blue glass. This recurring geometric framing establishes a strict visual symmetry across the three windows, naturally drawing the viewer’s eye away from the chaotic flanking scenes of the Passion and focusing it onto the serene, central icon of the Good Shepherd.
This formal balance extends to the lower register of the window. The identical, standing angel figures flanking the base on the left and right face inward toward the central register. This deliberate layout creates a sacred, heavenly court at eye level, physically framing and guarding the triumphant Agnus Dei panel at the center of the visual program.
Organ loft. St. Francis Xavier Church, Wilmette, IL. December 2018. Author’s photograph. 446 kb 25%
WINDOW DETAIL An angel figure graces one of the stained-glass windows in St. Francis Xavier Church. There are several different angel figures throughout the church’s stained glass panels.
SOURCES:
Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Coulson, John, ed. The Saints: A Concise Biographical Dictionary. New York: Guild Press, 1957.
Lane, George, S.J., and Algimantas Kezys. Chicago Churches and Synagogues: An Architectural Pilgrimage. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1981.
McNamara, Denis Robert, and James Morris. Heavenly City: The Architectural Tradition of Catholic Chicago. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2005.
The New American Bible. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Corp., 1993.
Pise, Chas. Constantine. Saint Ignatius and His First Companions. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1892.
St. Francis Xavier Statue
Travel Triangle. “How to Reach Japan – Get Air/Flights, Trains, Road/Bus Details.” Updated 2025. traveltriangle.com.
St. Peter Window
Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. “What Are the Symbols of St. Peter, the Apostle?” Accessed November 4, 2026. archspm.org.
Christianity.com Editorial Staff. “What Are the ‘Keys of the Kingdom’?” Christianity.com, August 31, 2022. christianity.com.
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Crowning an Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Washington, DC: USCCB. PDF.
St. Patrick Window
Ireland Calling. “The Harp – National Emblem of Ireland.” Accessed November 4, 2026. ireland-calling.com.
Kelly, David. “St Patrick’s Writings: Confessio and Epistola.” St. Patrick’s Confessio, Royal Irish Academy, 2011. confessio.ie.
Basswood Crucifix
Moody Bible Institute. “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Accessed November 4, 2026. moodybible.org.
Morgan, G. Campbell, Matthew Henry, and A.W. Pink. “Who Was Present at the Cross?” Christianity.com, updated February 8, 2024. christianity.com.
New World Encyclopedia. “INRI.” Accessed November 4, 2026. newworldencyclopedia.org.
Queen of Heaven Window
Newman Connection. “Solemnities & Holy Days: Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.” Catholic Blesseds, Saints, Solemnities & Holy Days, accessed November 4, 2026. newmanministry.com.
Reconstructed Windows (Sts. Anne, Mary, Joseph, Paul, Shepherd)
Aleteia. “Why Is St. Paul Depicted Carrying a Sword?” Aleteia, October 3, 2018. aleteia.org.
Christianity.com. “Why Is Jesus Called the Good Shepherd?” Christianity.com, accessed November 4, 2026. christianity.com.
Grasping God. “The Scourging of Jesus.” Accessed November 4, 2026. graspinggod.com.
Ray, Steve. “Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant.” Catholic Answers Magazine, May 20, 2019. catholic.com.
Virtual St. Joseph Altar. “The Symbols of St. Joseph.” Accessed November 4, 2026. virtualstjosephaltar.com.
Author & wife. St. Francis Xavier, Wilmette, Illinois.
The Brooklyn Bridge stands as the greatest achievement of John Augustus Roebling’s engineering career, uniting innovative design, industrial ambition, and architectural beauty to create an enduring symbol of New York City and America’s rise as a modern nation.
FEATURE image: The Brooklyn Bridge. Centered perfectly is one of the bridge’s massive, Gothic-arched granite suspension towers, while flanking the right side behind the suspension cables are the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, including the recognizable Verizon communications building. August 2005. Author’s photograph. All rights reserved.
The Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is the oldest extant bridge in New York City—a city of bridges—and is also the city’s most architecturally famous. The opening of the hybrid cable-stayed and suspension bridge in May 1883 has been called “the Dawn of Modern New York” as it is the world’s first steel-wire suspension bridge.
The Brooklyn Bridge was conceived to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn across the East River, overcoming unprecedented engineering challenges.
Recent photo of the Brooklyn Bridge taken from the Manhattan side of the East River looking across the water toward the DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights neighborhoods. PHOTO: “Brooklyn Bridge New York City” by ugod is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, it was designed and built by a father-son team. Construction began in January 1870 after being approved by Congress in 1869 whose concern was that the bridge project would in no way impede free and open navigation. Over the next over 13 years, an estimated 27 men died during the bridge’s construction. The New York terminus rests on bedrock while the Brooklyn terminus rests on clay. Following its opening in 1883 by the end of that year more than one million passengers crossed the bridge.
Roebling’s innovative use of steel-wire cable technology made longer and stronger suspension spans possible. The bridge’s Gothic-inspired stone towers combine structural necessity with architectural grandeur.
Daily transit on the elevated pedestrian promenade of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1903, looking west toward the lower Manhattan skyline. In the foreground, a New York City policeman in a turn-of-the-century uniform and custodian helmet stands watch as pedestrians in Edwardian dress, men in long overcoats and bowler hats, make their way along the wide wooden boardwalk. The photograph captures the bridge’s intricate lattice of vertical suspenders and radiating steel stay cables. Flanking the promenade on either side are the lower iron trusses that separated pedestrians from the bridge’s busy trolley and cable car lines. Anchoring the composition at the vanishing point is one of the bridge’s immense granite towers, its signature neo-Gothic double arches perfectly framing the horizon and underscoring the monumentality of one of America’s great engineering achievements. Public Domain.
The total length of the bridge is 6,537 feet—nearly one-and-one-quarter miles. From the middle of the span, it is about 135 feet above the river with the span’s weight around 7,000 tons. The railroad on the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1888. The cables on the bridge are over one foot wide (16 inches) and took almost a year and a half (15 months) to string. Their calibration had to include calculations for variables such as wind and expansion and contraction due to temperature. The height of the Gothic-inspired towers are 159 feet above the roadway.
The Brooklyn Bridge symbolizes the industrial age, urban growth, and American ingenuity. Today it remains one of the world’s most recognizable and photographed structures.
While a classic yellow New York City taxicab and a white sedan drive ahead, the bridge’s intricate, industrial steel trusses, overhead support beams, and complex web of suspension cables that line both sides of the roadway fill out the view heading from Brooklyn into Manhattan. An average of 103,051 vehicles cross the Brooklyn Bridge every single day. August 2005. Author’s photograph. All rights reserved.
SOURCES: The Sun, New York, New York, June 11, 1891. NYC DOT – Brooklyn Bridge – retrieved August 2, 2026.
