The authoritative source on
  early churches of New Jersey

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We've created a database and photographic inventory on more than half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it each month. We welcome and solicit all contributions and suggestions from our visitors.

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   Photographic Inventory

St Lucy's Roman Catholic Church
Jersey City, Hudson County

Jersey City and Hoboken have more than their fair share of interesting old churches; Saint Lucy's very tall tower and the several fine Romanesque Revival elements of its design are two of the major contributors to that impression. St Lucy's was built in 1895, but its survival appears in doubt, as the building is currently unused. It sits about on the boundary between Jersey City and Hoboken, just a block or two from the road leading to the Holland Tunnel.

It was designed by Jeremiah O'Rourke, a Newark architect who was responsible for at least a dozen other Catholic churches in the state. The tower is quite similar to that of the Church of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield, which O'Rourke also designed. It is also characteristic of a number of midwestern post offices of the 1880s and 1890s; not surprisingly, O'Rourke served for a time as the Supervising Architect of the U.S., in which position he was responsible for the construction of several post offices which bear an affinity with St. Lucy's and the Bloomfield church.

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Copyright (c) 2001 Frank L. Greenagel