Located on the eastern edge of Beauregard Town, the campus of St. Agnes Catholic Church covers the entire 700 block of East Boulevard bordered by Europe, South 10th, and Mayflower Streets; it also includes a third of a block fronted by East, Europe, and South 10th. The original frame church, built in 1913, was located two blocks south of the present location, on the west side of East Blvd., beneath the present-day I-10 overpass. In 1946, thanks to three benefactor parishioners who had left their Beauregard Town properties to the church, St. Agnes was able to buy the land it resides on today.
The gymnasium, designed by St. Agnes parishioner Professor G. F. Matthes with plans prepared by J. Roy Haase, Architect, was built on the one-third-block lot in 1947. Its walls are of brick, the roof of corrugated asbestos supported by a series of Raymond trusses. The school, located on the South 10th side of the full-block property, was dedicated in 1948. Designed by Bodman and Murrell, Architects, of Baton Rouge, who also designed St. Joseph Academy, it is made of reinforced concrete with face brick, hollow-tile walls, and tile shingle roof.
Situated on East Blvd., from left to right as one faces the buildings, are the convent, the church, and the rectory, also designed by Bodman and Murrell and opened for occupancy in January 1952, November 1951, and February 1952, respectively. All three structures have buff color matted dress brick solid exterior walls and tile shingle roofing.
Assisted by talented and generous parishioners, Monsignor Patrick Gillespie, pastor of St. Agnes from 1938 until his death on Pentecost Sunday in 1982, is largely responsible for the existence and appearance of the campus buildings. During the ten years 1946–1956 he oversaw their construction—from financing to cornerstone laying to installing the last stained-glass window. Monsignor left a detailed record of that decade in two memoirs which today read as history, catechism, and travelogue. As he put it, “We were five years abuilding and five years adorning.”
Highlights of the church. The Romanesque-style edifice is 13,600 square feet in the main floor area. Steel columns encased in brick support seven arches on each side of the church from the narthex to the apse. The main part of the church has interior walls of exposed St. Joe brick, manufactured in South Louisiana, and terrazzo flooring. The exterior of the church has limestone trim. St. Agnes was the first church in the Archdiocese of New Orleans to be air conditioned. Decoration of the plaster apse over the altar, as well as manufacture of the imported Italian marble altars and rail, were by Daprato Company of Chicago. Mosaics above the side altars and of the Stations of the Cross were made by the Vatican Mosaic Studio. The three exterior stone carved panels over the church’s front doors depict the martyrdom of St. Agnes and were designed by artist parishioner Mary Ethel Buvens, as was the statue of Christ Triumphant (sculpted by Albert Lachin) on the roof above the front entrance, and the five stone plaques depicting the four Evangelists and the Holy Spirit on the brick wall beneath the balustrade of the choir. The bell tower is 75 feet high. The bell was purchased for $500 from Central Fire Station on Laurel Street in Baton Rouge, where it had been installed in 1857. Verdin Bell Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, installed the electrical works for the bell. With thematic input from Monsignor Gillespie, the twenty-two stained glass windows were designed and executed by Charles J. Connick Associates of Boston and installed between 1952 and 1956.
In 1954 a school addition / new cafeteria building was erected. Staffed by a teaching order of Dominican Sisters since it opened in 1936, St. Agnes School closed in 1972. Its buildings were then used as a diocesan vocational center until 1985. That same year Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta, opened a women’s shelter and a soup kitchen for men in the former school. Their service to those in need continues today.
St. Agnes gym, shown on the day the new school was dedicated, September 5, 1948.
Solemn blessing and laying of the cornerstone of St. Agnes Church, September 24, 1950. The school is visible in the background.
