The main (west) entrance - May 2004

March 2007

St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church
3114 Lismore St.
Louis Wessbecher, 1896

St. Augustine rose on the city's north side in 1896; it stands west of the Hyde Park neighborhood at Lismore and Hebert. The stout Gothic building was constructed to serve a German congregation. It ceased operation as a Catholic church in 1979 and passed to the Christ Baptist Church in the early 1980s.

Though the building may appear to be closed today, it is in fact marginally occupied by the small congregation of Last Awakening Christian Outreach Center, which uses a small interior room built within the massive sanctuary.

After decades of ownership by small congregations, St. Augustine's suffers from long-deferred maintenance. Several of its massive stained-glass windows have been partially boarded over since the 1980s. Around it, the northereastern JeffVanderLou neighborhood has suffered massive assaults by brick theft, abandonment, and other urban ills. One wonders if urban renewal will reach this beleagured neighborhood in time to save the building from the same levels of neglect that are claiming Bethlehem Luthran and St. Liborius.