Patrick Keely

Patrick Charles Keely (1816, Thurles, County Tipperary — Aug. 11, 1896, Brooklyn, New York) was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York and Providence, Rhode Island. He was a prolific designer of nearly six hundred churches and hundreds of other institutional buildings for the Roman Catholic Church or Roman Catholic patrons in the eastern United States of America and Canada, particularly in New York City, Boston, Massachusetts, and Chicago in the later half of the nineteenth century. He designed every nineteenth-century Catholic cathedral in New England.[1] Several other church and institutional architects began their careers in his firm.

Contents

Early life in Ireland

Keely was born in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland (alternatively another source states it was County Kilkenny, Ireland[1]) on August 9, 1816 to a family in comfortable circumstances. His draftsman and builder father introduced him to architecture and training in construction, though nothing is recorded of his architectural design education.

Early life in Brooklyn, New York

He emigrated through Castle Gardens to Brooklyn, New York in 1842. He arrived at a time when Catholicism in the United States was expanding from its initial footholds in Baltimore, Maryland, New York City, and Boston Massachusetts. Initially, he worked as a carpenter and builder since there were few trained architects practicing and most structures were erected with the design assistance of the client and builder alone. Common practice held that the builder, whether trained as mason or carpenter, crafted his own plans, and details were often executed without even the aid of drawings. For a number of years Keely worked at his trade without attracting attention. During this time, he met the Rev. Sylvester Malone, a Roman Catholic priest his own age. Father Malone was sent to form a parish near the waterfront at Williamsburgh in Kings County, New York in 1846. Together with Keely, he worked out a plan for a Gothic church possessing pointed arches, pinnacles, and a few buttresses. Working as a carpenter, Keely produced designs the new Roman Catholic Church of Saints Peter and Paul (Brooklyn, New York) in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn in 1847.

Architectural career

Saints Peter and Paul, Williamsburgh, was considered an epoch in Catholic building in America. The much-praised work established him as a competent architect and builder at a time when a number of new Roman Catholic churches were being planned "but a relative scarcity of competent architects of the Roman Catholic faith, and Keely's reputation for honesty and integrity quickly made him a popular choice among the hierarchy and clergy throughout the eastern United States."[1]

Thereafter, Keely effectively became the in-house architect for the Roman Catholic archdioceses and was approached from all sides with requests for designs of churches and other necessary structures for an expanding religious life. In Brooklyn alone there was a great wave of Catholic settlers for whom churches were urgently needed and Keely was the only one thought of to do the work. He continued as a carpenter / craftsman in conjunction with his designing duties, handcrafting such ecclesiastical features of the reredos of the now closed Saint Brigid's Church (1848) in the Lower East Side. Later, he partnered with his wife’s brother in law, James Murphy in Brooklyn, New York and Providence, Rhode Island, under the name Keely & Murphy from the 1860s to 1867, until Murphy opened his own practice in Providence.[1] Keely worked throughout the eastern United States and Canada, primarily in the industrial mill towns and cities of the state of New York and New England, principally a designer of Roman Catholic churches or institutional buildings. Among his work were several cathedrals in the Northeast and "many of the more substantial parish churches" later "elevated to cathedral status during the twentieth century." He designed a few churches for Protestant congregations…."[1]

Several later noteworthy architects began their careers in his office, including Elliott Lynch, James Farmer (his wife’s brother), James Murphy (his wife’s brother-in-law), his sons Charles Keely (d.1889, Hartford, CT), John J. Keely (d.1879, Brooklyn), and son-in-law Thomas F. Houghton.[1] He died after a long illness, while still directing the completion of several churches with his son-in-law Houghton. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn, under an inauspicious polished granite block embossed "KEELY."[2]

Works

Arkansas
Connecticut
Illinois
Indiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Vermont
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Canada

External links

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Decker, Kevin F. " Patrick Charles Keely (1816-1896)", University of Plattsburgh, New York (2000)
  2. ^ [1] Find a Grave
  3. ^ Susan and Michael Southworth, AIA Guide to Boston, Third Edition, (Guildford, Connecticut: GPP, 2008), p.146.
  4. ^ Susan and Michael Southworth, AIA Guide to Boston, Third Edition, (Guildford, Connecticut: GPP, 2008), p.155.
  5. ^ Susan and Michael Southworth, AIA Guide to Boston, Third Edition, (Guildford, Connecticut: GPP, 2008), p.241.
  6. ^ a b Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins, and David Fishman. New York 1880: Architecture and Urbanism in the Gilded Age. (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1999), p.875
  7. ^ Gray, Christopher. "Streetscapes: West 16th Street; A Side-Street Surprise: A Monumental Church" New York Times (March 27, 2005)
  8. ^ White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0812931076. , p.192
  9. ^ St. Francis Xavier Church at www.nyc-architecture.com
  10. ^ Saint Francis Xavier: Restoration history
  11. ^ Alejandro Bahamón and Àgata Losantos, New York: A Historical Atlas of Architecture (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, Inc., 2007), p.99.
  12. ^ David W. Dunlap, From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan's Houses of Worship. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.) p. 204.
  13. ^ http://www.evri.com/media/article;jsessionid=x1txbt36q0v8?title=Historic+Philadelphia+church+to+be+torn+down&page=http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20100911_Historic_Philadelphia_church_to_be_torn_down.html&referring_uri=/person/patrick-keely-0xea408%3Bjsessionid%3Dx1txbt36q0v8&referring_title=Evri
  14. ^ http://www.saintbridgetchurch.com/history.htm St. Bridget Church, West Rutland VT