The St. Alphonsus Liguori (The Rock) Church in the Grand Center neighborhood is one of the oldest surviving structures in the Midtown area, and dates to 1872. The church was founded by a group of Catholics known as the Redemptorists, who had the church designed in the Gothic Revival style by Thomas Walsh and James Smith. The church also hosted the first African American priest in the Catholic Church, Augustus Tolton, in 1887. The church had its spire completed in 1893, standing 237 feet high. At the time of the church’s construction, this area was one of the wealthiest areas in St. Louis, and it stood only a few blocks north of Vandeventer Place. The neighborhood went downhill in the early 20th century, as industry and urban development encroached on the mansions, although St. Alphonsus managed to stay open through the evolution of the neighborhood into a theater district. The church later became a primarily African American catholic parish after the white flight from the area in the 1950s. This allowed the church to survive while much of the surrounding area was abandoned, and the church eventually rebounded when Midtown saw a revitalization. The church suffered a fire in 2007 after a lightning strike, but it was restored and reopened in 2009. Today, the church retains a healthy population of parishioners, and is the strongest and most stable Catholic Church in all of North St. Louis.
