History: Blessed Trinity Roman
Catholic Church Complex is located in the northeast quadrant of the
city of Buffalo and is a few miles from the downtown area (map). Long ago referred to as the Valley of Tears
or the Valley of Woe, the Jammer-thal district remains a testament to
the strong will and desires of a hardened group of German and Irish
immigrants.
The original settlers to the area arrived to farm the earth but their
attempts met with only marginal results. As the area is covered by only
a thin layer of soil, the early farmers often found bed rock (Onondaga limestone)
laying one foot below the surface. These conditions proved extremely
detrimental to farming.
The bed rock later turned out to be a blessing in disguise when young
entrepreneurs began to quarry the stone. One such quarry supplied the
stone used for the construction of the outer harbor breakwall.
Attracted there by the availability of work in the stone quarries,
people desired to settle here and the failed farmlands were soon
replaced by residential development.
Role of real estate developers: Like all new neighborhoods in
the city, numerous factors contributed to the development of the area.
Primary to these is the resourcefulness of a real estate developer who
could predict the needs of a group of people. Key to these needs was
that of a church structure. Just as the construction of places of
worship resulted in the development of other sections of the city, this
area was no exception to that rule.
Recognizing the potential for accelerated growth, the Leroy Land
company was the first to donate land to a congregation. In 1888 they
provided the land on which the Kensington Methodist Church originally
stood. The establishment of a house of worship, coupled with the 1895
extension of the Kensington Street car line to the area resulted in an
influx of residents to the area. Quickly, developers such as the
Fillmore Land company, the Kinsey Real Estate Company, and the East
Delavan and Belt Line Land Company began to take notice of the area.
Role of railroads: During the latter half of the nineteenth
century, the railroads became the most important means of
transportation in New York and Buffalo became a major railroad center.
The New York Central, Erie, Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, and
Pennsylvania Railroads, are only a few of the ten railroads which went
in and out of Buffalo. The railroads were the major factor in the
continued growth and manufacturing development of the city.
A large population of workers, including entire communities of Polish,
Italian, German and other immigrant groups, were attracted to this
region. Many of the people worked in manufacturing facilities as well
as in the heavy industrial areas around Buffalo. The Kensington area
was largely made up of working-class families, with a small percentage
of professional, management, and business families. The national origin
in this area was largely German-American, but there was also a sizable
group of Irish families.
Blessed Trinity: As many Irish and German Catholic families
began to reside in the neighborhood, on 6 June, 1906 Bishop Charles
Colton appointed Rev. John F. Pfluger to establish a Catholic presence
in the section defined by Main/Bailey and Delavan/Amherst. At that
time, approximately sixty Catholic families resided in the area.
Rev. Pfluger arranged for the use of a hall above the Kleinderhaus
Grocery Store at 175 Dewey and Sandford Street. Recognizing the
importance of such an endeavor, Mr. Kleinderhaus provided the hall rent
free. On 8 July, the congregation celebrated their first mass at what
they referred to as the "Upper Room Church", due to its location on the
third floor of the building.
Realizing the possibilities for growth, they immediately began to raise
funds for the construction of their own place of worship.
John Gesl, one of the earliest settlers in the area, had arrived in
Buffalo in 1840 at the age of twenty-five. He quickly acquired a large
tract of land along what is today Leroy Avenue. As noted, attempts to
farm the land resulted in marginal success. Consequently, he saved his
income and soon bought a share in a local stone quarry. Upon his death
in 1900, his son developed the remainder of the farm.
In February, 1907 the Blessed Trinity congregation purchased land and a
home on the south side of Leroy, formerly part of the Gesl family farm.
They contracted with the firm of Schmill & Gould for the design of
a combination church/school building, and in March, 1907 broke ground
for it. As they excavated the basement of the building, they used the
stone to construct the foundation. They placed the cornerstone on 5
June and dedicated the building on 17 November. At the time of its
completion, the $25,000 building and the area were not serviced by
electricity.
With the arrival of more residents to the neighborhood, Pastor Rev.
Albert Fulton realized that the building would soon prove to be
inadequate for both spiritual and educational purposes. In 1912, he
acquired additional land adjacent to the original parcel from the
Kinsey Real Estate Company with visions of one day constructing a great
house of worship there.
The idea lay fallow for the following ten years until 1922. With
designs prepared by local architects Oakley and Schallmo, the church
members broke ground on 2 January, 1923. The church was dedicated in
June, 1928.
Lombard-Romanesque style: Romanesque architecture
developed in northern Italy from the 9th to the 12th centuries. The
Lombard-Romanesque style employed in this ecclesiastical structure has
several characteristics:
- Exterior: a single
gable spanning the entire front (a descendent of the classical Greek
and Roman temple pediment)
- Exterior: projecting
porch;
- Interior: ribbed
vaulting used throughout the interior, with coffered barrel vaulting
employed especially in the transepts and choir (sanctuary)
- Interior: clustered
piers supporting the vaulting;
- Interior:
octagonal-shaped dome
- Semicircular apse;
- Interior:
roundheaded, paired windows;
- Simplified buttresses; and
- Rich ornamentation
in the Byzantine tradition.
In the main sanctuary
area, a new altar facing the nave was fashioned out of the columns and
table supports from the side altar. This alteration was completed in
1968.
Building
materials:
- Exterior: The
structure is constructed of medieval, handmade, Harvard (unmolded)
brick set in herringbone patterns, which is not found in other churches
in Buffalo.
- Exterior: The church
and cloister rest on a limestone foundation.
- Exterior: It is
covered with a handmade terra-cotta tile roof.
- Interior: The common
building material used on the windows, doorways, floors, columns and
arches of the interior is terra
cotta, which is employed for decorative as well as structural
purposes.
Harvard bricks: During the medieval times, most
bricks were made without molds. The clay was mixed with water in a
shallow pit called a pug, until it reached the right consistency. Then
it was cut into shape for bricks. The mixing was done with the feet. In
later times, a horse was often hitched to a pole and walked in circles
as another pole in the pug mixed the clay.
After the bricks were shaped and sun-dried, they were stacked for
firing. Wood was piled neatly all around the bricks and a fire was kept
burning until the bricks were thoroughly baked. The outer bricks were
often coal black and inner ones rich reds and oranges.
This method was employed by descendants of the French brickmakers at
Exeter, N. H., where the bricks for Blessed Trinity were made. (They
even used antique-type tools for the process.) These "Harvard" bricks
are very hard and impervious. They were laid in a thick, soft mortar
bed as in the medieval fashion. This produced a solid bond between
brick and mortar and explains why there are so few hairline cracks --
so frequent in modern brickwork.
Because of the method of making bricks without molds in medieval times,
the shape of the bricks was varied: some regular and some irregular.
This was further complicated by the possibility of bricks shifting
during the firing process. (This accounted for misshapen bricks.) To
use all the bricks made, medieval bricklayers had quite a challenge on
their hands. As far back as Roman times, bricklayers introduced
patterns into the floors and later into the walls. (It was called "opus
spicatum.") While examples of it can be found in Rome, Ravenna and
Pavia, it was well-accepted in northern Italy from the 8th to the 15th
century. The origin of this method appears to be a simple solution for
using odd-shaped bricks, as well as large pebbles, stones, and
chippings of all kinds in the same construction. In time, some guilds
used designs as trademarks, and individual bricklayers worked their own
patterns here and there into the construction.
The walls of Blessed Trinity are two feet thick. To produce solid,
well-bonded walls, the bricks are often crossed and laid lengthwise
into the wall, with the ends or "headers" exposed. Because of the many
odd shapes and variation in colors, the modern bricklayers were
unfamiliar with a method for laying these bricks, Chester Oakley, the
architect, personally laid the first few courses of brick with the
bricklayers. After they learned the technique, they were allowed to
work in their own designs. The herring- bone design on the exterior of
the apse and the small designs within the exterior arches of the facade
and nave are based on definite historical precedents.
The various shapes and colors and patterns are especially interesting
when the snow filters in between them or when the bright sun creates
contrasts.
Many of the Senior residents of the area proudly point out these
bricks, because some of them bought bricks as children at five cents
apiece. As one of them said: "There are few memorials as enduring as a
church building."
Terra
Cotta: The
windows, door frames, columns, arches, etc., are all made of terra cotta. There is so much
of it used that this may well be the largest use of it in an
ecclesiastical structure in the country. While this material was often
used elsewhere for decorative purposes, here we find it employed even
for structural purposes.
The very fine clays of Lombardy, which inspired widespread use of
bricks, also led to the use of terra cotta in ornamentation. Because of
the widespread historic use of ceramic at Pavia, it was selected as a
material for Blessed Trinity Church. It is relatively inexpensive; it
is very plastic for modeling and offers great freedom to an artist;
and, it is very durable.
The ceramics at Blessed Trinity were made in Crum Lynne, Pennsylvania
-- just a few miles from Chester. Mr. Oakley records that he went by
train every ten days to personally supervise the work. All pieces were
handmade, carefully fitted together, fired for two weeks, individually
marked, and finally shipped to Buffalo. It took two men about two years
to set all the ornamental pieces
The main portico is not red stone with ceramic ornaments, but entirely
of terra cotta.
