Saving St. John Cantius Church

The neighborhood says NO

Close to downtown Northampton, the St. John Cantius Church on Hawley Street is in danger of being razed, though Ward 3 neighbors have a different idea.

The people of Ward 3 agree. The church must continue to stand.

Since the city held its Central Business Architecture Committee meeting in February, neighbors living around the St. John Cantius Church have been opposing the demolition of the 110-year-old building. They have been doing it loudly and unanimously in public meetings, neighborhood gatherings, and in letters to the editor of the local newspaper.

(See the W3NA Guest Column in The Daily Hampshire Gazette below.)

Ward 3 City Councilor Jim Nash has gathered a group of concerned citizens, architects, and planners to devise an alternate plan for the restoration of St. John Cantius. “Everyone wants to see the church preserved,” said Nash at the Zoom meeting of the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association on March 9. 

O’Connell Development Group of Holyoke bought the Hawley Street property from the Catholic Church, and it has already demolished the old rectory that used to sit next to the church and the community center behind the church, replacing those buildings with new housing. Matthew Welter, vice president of development for O’Connell, said the group wants the church to be the next building to fall. Welter said at the February public meeting that O’Connell has plans to put up five townhouses, containing three units each, to replace the church and its attached tower.

That church is not just another building to the neighbors. In its letter to the editor opposing the demolition, the W3NA Board of Directors said the church “sits at the beating heart of Ward 3, reminding some of us of our ancestors who built it, and the rest of us that while this city grows, it does not forget its past.”

Nash at the Central Business Architecture meeting called the building “iconic and striking.”

Nash has asked the leaders of the Catholic diocese to abolish deed restrictions that it put on the sale of the land ten years ago that make the church more difficult to development for commercial purposes. He has also assembled a working group to brainstorm ideas for the church other than razing it. He pointed to the repurposing of church buildings in Pittsfield, MA as an example of way to proceed without tearing down the building that Polish immigrants built at the turn of the 20th Century.

Tris Metcalfe, a local architect who is working with Nash, said that if O’Connell went ahead with its plan “it would be a serious loss to civilization.” He called churches among the most beautiful buildings that humans have built.

For people like Ward 3 residents Helen Curtin of Grant Avenue and Fred Zimnoch of Pomeroy Terrace, both of whom had connections to St. John Cantius Church, demolishing the church would be more than losing a building. It would be a blow to the Polish community that settled in the neighborhoods of Ward 3. Curtin said that her friends who went to church at St. John Cantius are “heartbroken” at the idea of the building coming down.

Zimnoch, who wrote a short history of St. John Cantius for the W3NA, said losing the church would be another in a line of historic buildings razed in Ward 3. The church, he said, “is like Shaw’s Motel. Once it’s out of sight, it’s gone. It’s like knocking over a gravestone. No one would ever remember.”

Zimnoch said that Shaw’s Motel was added on to one of the oldest buildings in Northampton, one that Shubael Wilder erected before 1800. The house that Wilder built and Shaw’s Motel, once famous as a rooming house for many of the patients who left the Northampton State Hospital, was razed. New housing replaced it.

(For a more complete history of St. John Cantius, see bottom of this post.)

See the W3NA site at: Wardthree.com

W3NA Guest Column in The Daily Hampshire Gazette

Our Board of Directors voted at the last Board Meeting (3-9-21) to reach out to your committee to express our opinion of O’Connell’s recent proposal to demolish this historic, 120-year-old Church located in Ward 3. Our Board overwhelmingly encourages this committee to require O’Connell to conduct due diligence on its promise to our community in October 2019 to attempt to re-purpose this historic monument to the Polish community in Ward 3 and the Pioneer Valley. See History of St. John Cantius Church at end.

Making the right decision costs money and time. The Ward 3 Neighborhood Association knows that. But a decision to allow this iconic building to be demolished would irrevocably change our Ward, a loss that would last forever, and one that will not be repaired with the construction of more townhouses.

That is why the Board of Directors of the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association is calling for the Northampton Central Business Architecture Committee to delay, if not ultimately reject, the request of the O’Connell Development Group to demolish the 120-year-old church building.

The St. John Cantius Church sits at the beating heart of Ward 3, reminding some of us of our ancestors who built it, and the rest of us that while this city grows, it does not forget its past. The church structure, while built by Catholic immigrants, has a reach beyond faith. We are all attracted to its beauty, its history, its inherent message that this community – our Ward 3 – will remain standing. We implore the Northampton citizens sitting on the Central Business Architecture Committee, and the O’Connell

Development Group, to delay demolition, so others in the community can find a solution that our neighborhood can embrace – not grieve.

We believe that the O’Connell Development Group should not be allowed to raze the church, because its plans do not satisfy the simple stipulations put forward at last month’s CBA Committee meeting by Carolyn Misch, the City’s Assistant Director of Planning and Sustainability. O’Connell made a poor showing at the recent CBA meeting on February 22, 2021 of such research into other options besides demolition; many individuals in attendance asked if O’Connell had investigated such options as historic tax credits, etc. and the answer was “We have not looked into that. The Holyoke developers did not adequately establish that it pursued all avenues for repurposing the church, rendering it unusable, nor did it prove with its anecdotal evidence that the structure was functionally obsolete and too costly to repair. Again, we realize making the right decision costs money, but O’Connell Development Group will, in effect, make our community pay for ages if it razes a building that many of us used for worship, and all of us continue to cherish.

Several of the W3NA Board of Directors were present at the February 22nd meeting and believe that the case for demolition made by the O’Connell Group fell far short of convincing us that we should accept losing an iconic building. The presentation was inadequate in both its lack of data and the underwhelming alternative of five townhouses to replace an historic church.

We are calling on the citizens of the CBA Committee to insist upon a thorough examination of alternatives to demolishing the St. John Cantius Church.

Sincerely,

Deb

Deb Henson, on behalf of the
Board of the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association

History of St. John Cantius

By Fred Zimnoch

St. John Cantius Church was built in 1912 but its history extends back into the late 19th century.

Immigrants from Poland and other Slavic countries began arriving here around 1890. Five years later in 1895, 24 men gathered together to form a Society called Zagoda (Peace), later renamed the Society of St. George, to bring a Polish priest to the area to celebrate Mass and eventually to build a church. Their efforts partially succeeded when a year later a visiting Polish priest held a Mass in St. Mary’s Church. Later, visiting priests held services at Lyman Hall and the Elks Club. Eventually the Bower’s Mansion (aka Blodgett House) at 73 Prospect Street was purchased and a permanent church was established in 1904.

This Society played a key role in the Valley by establishing subchapters in Holyoke, Springfield, Chicopee, Turners Falls and other towns with the same purpose to bringing a Polish priest to the area to celebrate Mass. Eventually these subchapters created many local Polish churches.

As the Northampton congregation grew larger, a new church was required. Architect for the Springfield Diocese John W. Donohue (1869–1941), who was responsible for building two dozen churches in western Massachusetts, completed the construction of their church in a unique Romanesque Revival style.

The parish continued to grow and provide to our community with businesspersons, stalwart citizens, and numerous political leaders such as Mayor Wallace Puchalski (4 terms) and more recently State Legislator (2002-18) Peter V. Kocot. (Peter was always proud to point out that his grandfather Bolesław was the first organist at the church.)

Most important to the parish was the Parish Community Center that could seat over 300 people. From 1969 until the closing of the church it was the site for the popular weekly Bingo. With a kitchen facility it was also the site for many happy diners with Polish specialties created by the local Women’s organization and almost always featured the joyful polka music. This was also the site for dozens of FREE meals that refreshed the marchers (and others) at the annual Pulaski Day Parade in October. In the early 1990s the church joined other local churches in providing shelter and meals for the homeless.

The loss of this vibrant community with the closing of the church in 2010 was a tragedy. The loss of this architecturally significant building, supported over a century by thousands of loving parishioners, would be a significant loss not only to Ward 3 and the City, but to the entire Valley.

Mr. Zimnoch is a long-time member of the W3NA Board of Directors with many interests, including local history.