July 6, 2023 at 12:45 a.m.

A PART OF HISTORIC ALBANY

Photo essay captures the glory of former St. Joseph’s Church in the Ten Broeck Triangle

A photo essay by Jack Heller captures the glory of former St. Joseph’s Church in the Ten Broeck Triangle.

Photographer Jack Heller was first introduced to Evangelist readers when his photographs of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany were featured in the May 18 issue.

Heller, who has a love of sacred spaces, now brings you famed St. Joseph’s Church (38 Ten Broeck St.), the former Catholic church in the Ten Broeck Triangle of Albany’s Arbor Hill neighborhood. Heller was allowed to photograph the church through the assistance of Rachel McEneny, Albany City commissioner. He said in a letter to Kathy Barrans, diocesan communications director, that “while the church is in serious disrepair there are many extraordinary features that I have tried to memorialize in my photos. The church retains its spirituality even in disrepair.”

Although the neo-Gothic church has been closed since 1994, these images show the lasting beauty and spirituality of a structure — along with the inevitable decay — that many faithful in the Diocese of Albany long remember.

The church, which was designed by Patrick Keely, the architect of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, was completed in 1860 and cost approximately $250,000 (with inflation over time that would be about $9 million in 2023).

The church has been bought and sold numerous times with grand plans by developers that never materialized. The City of Albany took over control of the structure and turned it over to the Albany Historic Foundation, which poured $700,000 into the church to make sure that it would not collapse in the early 2000s. The property is now for sale and is listed on the NAI Platform website for $100,000.

These photos show the sanctuary, transept, murals, stained glass and statues.