For more than a century, St. Ambrose has anchored The Hill. Its story mirrors the story of the Italian families who built it.
A parish for Lombard immigrants
St. Ambrose parish was founded in 1903 by members of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parish, mainly to serve immigrants recently arrived from Lombardy in northern Italy. It began as an ethnic parish; in 1955 the archdiocese made it a territorial parish.
According to the parish and the city’s neighborhood history, a frame church was dedicated on August 3, 1903, at Cooper Street (today’s Marconi Avenue) and Wilson Avenue. The parish school opened in 1906 in a two-room frame building, and on June 1, 1907, the mission became a full parish under Rev. Luciano Carotti.
A second Hill parish, Our Lady Help of Christians, was founded in 1900 mainly for Sicilian immigrants. La Gazzetta Italiana reports that it closed in 1975, after which St. Ambrose became the center of Catholic life for many Italian Americans in the region.
Fire and rebuilding
The first church was a wooden building. It burned in the early 1920s. Wikipedia gives the year as 1921, while TheSTL reports 1922.
Parishioners paid for the replacement themselves. According to TheSTL, members each pledged a dollar a month for five years, and their names are engraved on marble panels at the back of the church. The cornerstone of the new church was laid on May 30, 1925, and it was dedicated on June 27, 1926.
The City of St. Louis preservation plan credits the design to the firm of Corrubia & Henderson. According to Wikipedia, architect Angelo Corrubia modeled the church on the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, in the Lombard Romanesque Revival style, using brick and terra cotta. The city’s plan calls it a Late Romanesque Revival design, with flat wall surfaces, arched openings and corbelling.
More than a church
St. Ambrose has often been where the neighborhood organizes. In the early 1970s, Father Salvatore Polizzi, then an associate pastor, led residents in their fight for an overpass to reconnect The Hill when Interstate 44 cut through it, TIME and TheSTL reported.
The parish also runs St. Ambrose School, which serves pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The neighborhood’s tribute to its founders, The Italian Immigrants, is a 1972 bronze, by sculptor Rudolph Torrini. The Regional Arts Commission describes it as a young family in turn-of-the-century clothing, the father carrying a single suitcase. Hill 2000 is listed as its owner.
If you visit the church, please be mindful of Masses and other services.
For more on the neighborhood’s past, see our History of The Hill timeline.
Sources: St. Ambrose Parish, City of St. Louis neighborhood history, Wikipedia, TheSTL, City of St. Louis, La Gazzetta Italiana, TIME (1974), Regional Arts Commission, Living St. Louis MO.
