Saint Benedict Joseph Labre Parish is a historic Roman Catholic parish church complex at 94-40 118th Street in Richmond Hill

Richmond Hill, Queens

Richmond Hill is a neighborhood in central-southern Queens, New York City, USA. It is bordered by Kew Gardens to the north, Woodhaven and Ozone Park to the west, South Ozone Park to the south and South Jamaica to the east...

 neighborhood of Queens, New York. The complex consists of the church, rectory

Rectory

A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...

 / parsonage, school, and cloister

Cloister

A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...

. The church was designed in 1916 by noted architect Thomas Henry Poole

Thomas Henry Poole

Thomas Henry Poole was British-born architect who designed numerous churches and schools in New York City.Poole was born in Shrewsbury, England, in 1860. He was educated at Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford. Poole is listed in a Manhattan city directory as an architect in 1887, when he was 27,...

 (1860–1919) and completed in 1919. It is a large brick Romanesque

Romanesque Revival architecture

Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid 19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture...

-style building in the basilican

Basilica

The Latin word basilica , was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas began to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.The term was also applied to buildings used for religious purposes...

 plan. It features a standing seam copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

-roofed dome

Dome

A dome is a structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere. Dome structures made of various materials have a long architectural lineage extending into prehistory....

 and a bell tower

Bell tower

A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...

. The rectory is a -story brick building built in 1939. The cloister also dates to 1939 and connects the rectory to the sanctuary

Sanctuary

A sanctuary is any place of safety. They may be categorized into human and non-human .- Religious sanctuary :A religious sanctuary can be a sacred place , or a consecrated area of a church or temple around its tabernacle or altar.- Sanctuary as a sacred place :#Sanctuary as a sacred place:#:In...

. It features a 1938 statue of the patron Saint Benedict Joseph Labre

Benedict Joseph Labre

Saint Benedict Joseph Labré was a French mendicant, Franciscan tertiary and Roman Catholic saint.-Life:He was born in Amettes, near Arras in the north of France, the eldest of fifteen children of a prosperous shopkeeper, and was religious from a very early age. He was noted for performing public...

. The brick school building was built in 1912 and substantially enlarged in 1938–1939.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

in 2007.

External links

• The History of Saint Benedict Joseph Labre Parish in Richmond Hill