As the sun rises each day the rays will refract through the window to the altar beyond.īut the star of the show is an 8-foot-tall bronze statue of the archangel Gabriel.Ĭrews raised the 1,000-pound angel to the top of the new facade Friday with a crane. And something new: a 6-foot-diameter rose window depicting the Three Holy Women logo. Rita - and before that, the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii the bronze bell that once rang at Pompeii and 10 statues of saints that watched over both churches. The new build will incorporate 17 restored stained glass windows from the original St. You know what they have? In the middle of a world in which things can fall apart. “Plus, they’re too young to have nostalgia. “We realized, yes we could’ve totally torn everything down and made a more of a suburban type of church, but … what I’m discovering with the younger people that are coming back to church - they like (traditional churches),” Kitzke said. Preserving that cathedral-like feeling was crucial, both for the Italians who held Pompeii dear, but also in attracting millennials to the congregation. Rita ultimately unusable - like the steps to the entrance that tripped up pallbearers and excluded wheelchair users, now replaced with at-grade front doors. Rita, while smoothing out the annoyances that made St. The final product will embrace artifacts and design elements from both the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii and the original St. “It’s like a little cathedral,” he said in awe. Rita on Thursday, looking up for the first time at the vaulted roof. Kitzke stood inside the skeleton of the new St. And I thought, for me to be able to do something like this - it’s a way of saying thank you,” he said. “We look for ways to say thank you and honor our family. He knows how much a functional, beautiful sacred space that pays tribute to history would mean to people like them. His parents are from Sicily and attended the little pink church. Once it’s complete he will sell the church to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for $1.įor Tarantino, rebuilding St. Now developer Jim Tarantino of Capri Senior Communities has planned a 118-unit senior apartment complex with a newly rebuilt St. Rita plugged along - part of the three-church east side Three Holy Women Parish since 2000 - Kitzke and others looked at ways to revitalize the area and better use the land. It grew to include a school and a convent, but both have sat vacant for years. Constructed in the middle of the Great Depression, it was meant to be a little sister of Pompeii - a “mission” outpost to Pompeii’s “parish” church. Rita became the new hub for faithful Italians after the demolition. View Gallery: A new Saint Rita Church rises in Milwaukee Church artifacts made their way into family homes and warehouses, but also more established locations: the Italian Community Center and St. Articles from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel archives depict the community’s pain at losing a county battle to save the landmark. Nicknamed the “little pink church” for its rose-colored bricks, Pompeii served as the heart of 20th-century Milwaukee Italians’ social and religious lives. and demolished in 1967 to make way for the construction of Interstate 794. The outer facade will mimic the structure of the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii, a Third Ward church built in 1904 at 419 N. The settled-on design was one that wove the history, traditions and icons of the Italian-American community in Milwaukee into every nook and cranny of the church. “We’ve always realized that a parish is not what surrounds you, it’s the people. Instead she championed it, serving on the committee to direct the rebuild and assuaging other parishioners’ hesitations about change. Rita on the east side, where Margaret married Anthony Balistreri and where she attended school as a girl. So she didn’t despair last year when crews tore down St.
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