The Blue Chapel in Union City: Legend and Landmark
THE JERSEY JOURNAL
March 7, 2011
NEW JERSEY--Vacant since 2009, the Blue Chapel, after 118 years, has been decommissioned, vacated, orphaned and in 2010 became a West Hoboken Historic Landmark. By early fall 2009, the last few sisters of the Union City mother house were gone and in 2010 Preservationists in Union City secured 2010 Most Endangered Historic Site registration through the non-profit, Trenton-based Preservation New Jersey. "The Blue Chapel is the revived architecture of the French medieval monastery - drenched in darkness, floor-planned with cavernous chambers, cellars, closets, corridors. Windows and transom lights are screened off. Surrounding doors, labeled with directional placards, are shut tight. Hallways and stairways fade into a lingering pitched shadow-fog. All is shadows and silence. 'A lattice divides the room,' a reporter observes at the 1915 dedication ceremony and public inspection. 'On one side the visitor may be seated on a chair and through the small opening of the lattice work, about four inches square, may converse with the sister seated on the other side. This is the only means of communication with those who have taken the veil...All conversations are held in an undertone.'" - John Gomez, M.S. Historic Preservation, Columbia University. [link]
March 7, 2011
NEW JERSEY--Vacant since 2009, the Blue Chapel, after 118 years, has been decommissioned, vacated, orphaned and in 2010 became a West Hoboken Historic Landmark. By early fall 2009, the last few sisters of the Union City mother house were gone and in 2010 Preservationists in Union City secured 2010 Most Endangered Historic Site registration through the non-profit, Trenton-based Preservation New Jersey. "The Blue Chapel is the revived architecture of the French medieval monastery - drenched in darkness, floor-planned with cavernous chambers, cellars, closets, corridors. Windows and transom lights are screened off. Surrounding doors, labeled with directional placards, are shut tight. Hallways and stairways fade into a lingering pitched shadow-fog. All is shadows and silence. 'A lattice divides the room,' a reporter observes at the 1915 dedication ceremony and public inspection. 'On one side the visitor may be seated on a chair and through the small opening of the lattice work, about four inches square, may converse with the sister seated on the other side. This is the only means of communication with those who have taken the veil...All conversations are held in an undertone.'" - John Gomez, M.S. Historic Preservation, Columbia University. [link]
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