Joseph Ingoldsby

The city of Fall River has a vibrant history of native use, colonization, industrialization and technological change. Ethnic settlement within the neighborhoods was and is Fall River’s backbone.

Churches provided a moral compass and communal meeting place. The landscape of granite hills and a falling river to the bay created an important crossroads location with sweeping vistas across the bay. The river fed the textile mills and enriched Spindle City and those who worked within the mills and related industries. There were Portuguese, French Canadian, Italian, Polish and Irish neighborhoods and a real sense of pride in community. Technologies evolve; populations migrate in and out, creating a diverse population and the need to prepare for change.

Today, the churches that were the heart of their ethnic neighborhoods face a questionable future. Yet they are the testament to the faith and optimism of an immigrant population that gave Fall River its cohesive strength and community pride. These are historic landmarks in a city that has been divided by misplaced urban renewal and economic change.

This is not just Fall River’s issue; this is a state and national issue of revitalizing cities neighborhoods against the odds and forging new alliances.

In Fall River the French Canadian Sainte Anne’s cathedral must never be demolished, but restored, and the Irish Catholic church of the Immaculate Conception now on on the market must be repurposed to serve the greater community if it can no longer be used as a religious institution. In New Bedford, Saint John the Baptist Church, which served the Portuguese community since 1871, was closed.

The question is whether the state or federal agencies can consider these consecrated buildings to be historic and vital to the city’s best interest to preserve. If so, then federal, state, non-profit and corporate grants should be solicited to preserve these landmarks for future generations. They must not be demolished or bastardized.

Joseph Ingoldsby

Westport