Seeing Boston’s hidden sacred spaces

Brandeis University News

Since 1952, Our Lady of Good Voyage has offered Mass to the workers of Boston’s seaport who couldn’t make it to their home congregation on Sunday. This Easter Sunday, the small, brick Catholic port chapel on Seaport Boulevard will open its doors for the last time, as it will soon be razed as part of the ongoing redevelopment of the seaport.
Along with the historic churches, temples and mosques that dot the Boston skyline, sacred spaces like Our Lady of Good Voyages exist around the edges of the city. Photographer Randy Armor, Wellesley College Professor Alice Friedman and I have been documenting these spaces for a project we call Boston’s Hidden Sacred Spaces.
It is easy to overlook these spaces, and as one of them becomes history now seems an appropriate time to notice and consider the ones that remain.
As part of the Hidden Sacred Spaces Project, we have identified more than 80 chapels, meditation spaces and prayer rooms in greater Boston that are housed by organizations with non-explicitly religious purposes. We found them in hospitals, nursing homes, colleges and universities, the port, the airport, public parks, malls, state prisons, cemeteries, and even a local museum.
Well-known architects designed some, while others were created informally as areas to offer a small retreat. Some of the places stand-alone while others are a part of larger buildings. Some of the spaces we found look much as they did when constructed, while many have evolved over time to accommodate people from a range of religious traditions.
At Brandeis University, the original chapels were built in the early 1950s for Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Today there are spaces for Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other religions across campus. At Northeastern University, a Sacred Space, a Reflection Room, and an area for ablution, private prayer, and meditation were literally built on the ashes of ...

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