As described in the first volume of the History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley (1918), “In the year 1899 the Italian Catholics of Waterbury were organized into Our Lady of Lourdes Parish by the Rev. Father Michael A. Karam, the first pastor, at the request of the Right Rev. Bishop Tierney.” The parish’s first chapel was later replaced with the current Our Lady of Lourdes Church on South Main Street, begun in 1903 and completed in 1909. It was modeled after the Roman church of Santa Francesca Romana. According to the History quoted above:
The church has a frontage of 70 feet on South Main Street and is 127 feet in depth. The height of the nave or body of the church is 55 feet, and the campanile or bell tower is 100 feet in height. The basement was first completed and roofed over, and used for a number of years for church services, and was occupied also while the super-structure was being built. The general plan consists of a high nave, lighted by clerestory windows, with two aisles. Each aisle terminates in a semi-circular apse in which the side altars are placed. The main altar is also placed in a large semi-circular apse, surrounded by an entablature and columns in which are arches and niches for the numerous statues with which the interior is adorned. The exterior of the church is built of gray pressed brick and trimmed with Indiana limestone and terra cotta. The main roofs are of slate. The campanile, which was afterwards destroyed, was built near the rear after the manner of Italian churches.
The architect for this church was Joseph A. Jackson who grew up in Waterbury and designed other buildings here. By the time he built this church he had moved to New Haven and eventually had an office in New York as well.
Dear Father.
I was born in Waterbury,conn.and was christened and received Communion and Confirmation at the Lady of Lourdes Church.My father helped restore the grotto under the Main Alter Before coming to Italy in 1950.Please pray for me.I would like to have the certificates of my sacraments:Can I have them online?Let me know.Sebastiana
Dear Father,
I am the archivist and historian of the congregation of “Notre Dame de la Compassion“ we live always in Marseille (south of France) since 1843. In 1906, Rev. Karam, your founder, is coming in France to get 5 sisters for the first Italian school in your parish.
I write the great and the little story of our congregation.
I search all informations, pictures, extract of book,your parish, Rév. Karam, for the period 1900 / 1910.
When this chapter was finish I send you a copy for correction.
Thank by advance,
Régis Deretz
Talking with my uncle today, he told me that his father, Giuseppe Bosco and two of his brothers, Peter and Michael, worked on the building of the grotto at Our Lady of Lourdes Church from about 1946 to 1948. He recalls that the grotto was designed by Mr. Spagnolo, who was an art teacher at Leavenworth High School. Can anyone confirm this story?
Our Lady of Lourdes Church was the center of an Italian community that occupied the area surrounding South Main Street and Meadow Street before they were all swept away by the 1955 flood and the construction of I-84.