2047 East Grand Avenue (at Emily)
St. Louis, Missouri 63107

TThe 125-foot bell tower rising at the rear of New Jerusalem Cathedral joins St. Louis's two historic water towers as a third landmark on the skyline of North Grand. Dating from 1916, it must have been intended by its architects, Lee and Rush, to rival the white Corinthian column designed by George I. Barnett in 1871 and the red brick spire by William S. Eames from 1885.

The building was built in 1916 as Most Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church. The parish was founded in 1875 by the Jesuits to serve the College Farm neighborhood, which had been intended as a new campus for St. Louis University. The Holy Name dedication is associated with the Jesuits, who use the monogram IHS as part the emblem of their society, but the devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus goes back even farther, to the Council of Lyon in 1274.

The present church replaced an earlier brick Gothic building. The architects, J. Sydney Lee and Henri Rush, were at the same time working on Pius V Catholic Church, which faces Utah Place at the other end of Grand Boulevard. In 1921, they designed St. Roch's Church at Waterman and Rosedale, which, although Gothic in style, is similar to this church in the distinctive way it combines brick, stone and terra cotta. Henri Rush (1874-1959) was born in Cape Town, South Africa and studied in Johannesburg. He came to St. Louis to design the Airdome and Boer War buildings at the 1904 World's Fair. With Lee, he also designed the Egyptian-inspired Mount Moriah Masonic Temple at Garrison and Natural Bridge not far from here. Following the breakup of the firm, Rush worked for 16 years as chief engineer of the St. Louis Building Commissioner's office. He retired in 1953 to Harburg, Germany.

The interior is Renaissance or even Roman, rather than Romanesque, with its large scagliola columns, composite capitals and impressive barrel vault. It also reflects progressive thinking of the era with its auditorium-style sloping floor and interior use of glazed and painted brick. Windows by Emil Frei include much Renaissance ornament in a yellow color that is created through the use of silver metal. Note St. Peter's Basilica in the background of the "Keys to the Kingdom" on the left and scenes associated with Mary on the right, including the Assumption and the Coronation.

The tank in front of the repainted reredos is for immersion baptisms and was added by the congregation that moved here in 1992. The former Jerusalem Church was founded in 1975 by Elder Solomon Willard at 5033 Riverview and later worshipped at 1909 East Grand. It changed its name in response to the grandeur of its new building. Most Holy Name merged with the adjacent Perpetual Help in 1987, and in 1991 moved with other northside parishes to Holy Trinity in Hyde Park.

The Church of God in Christ (abbreviated COGIC), is a Pentecostal denomination that grew out of the Missionary Baptist Church. It traces its origins to a series of revival meetings in Jackson, Mississippi in 1897 led by Elder Charles Harrison Mason. Mason derived the name of the new denomination from I Thessalonians 2:14. He lived to see its national convention hall in Memphis dedicated as Mason Temple in 1945.

May 18, 2003 marks the Chamber Chorus's first performance in the church regardless of its name (Most Holy Name or the New Jerusalem Cathedral).

Notes by Esley Hamilton and Philip Barnes