Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1652
The following is from the Boston Landmarks Commission neighborhood description of Lower Mills.
Gregory’s Roman Catholic Church at 2221 Dorchester Avenue represents an earlier church of 1863-64 that was extensively rebuilt between 1895 and 1902. Originally designed by Brooklyn, New York-based church architect Patrick C. Keeley, its present appearance dates to the turn-of the-century remodeling by Boston architect Patrick W. Ford. This Gothic Revival church is constructed of red pressed and common brick with brownstone and molded brick trimmings. It rests upon a rubble and quarry-faced granite foundation. The floor plan is that of a Latin Cross with two sacristies flanking the sanctuary at the head of the cross. The steeply pitched roofs of the nave and the transept are clad with gray slate tiles. Rising from the point of the nave and transepts’ gable roofs’ intersection is a low octagonal copper belvedere with louvered windows and pyramidal roof cap. The unusual main facade is characterized by a broad central gable flanked by round, conically capped. gold cross-topped towers. These distinctive towers render this church a major landmark on the Lower Mills “skyline” and when viewed from elevated areas such as Codman Hill, serve to locate and contribute to the still-discernable village qualities of this area. The central gable’s first floor is treated as a pointed arch loggia with entrances set within the two center arches. Above the entrances is a great recessed brick and brownstone trimmed pointed arch which contains five lancet windows of graduated height.
Rising from the center of the brownstone-edged central gable is a gold cross. St. Gregory’s side walls are pierced by six tall lancet windows. Noteworthy interior features include oak pews, a ceiling elaborately stenciled with geometric and floral designs in red, blue, green, black and gold leaf. The interior columns were once marbleized and each has a shallow Corinthian capital. The Corinthian acanthus leaf motif is continued in the gilt cornice below the ceiling as well as in the smaller half-columns and pilasters found throughout the church.
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