Sacred Heart Parish Complex

Sacred Heart Parish Complex occupies about 85,000 square feet in South Lawrence, Massachusetts, on South Broadway. It holds six resources: a granite Gothic Revival church (1916 base, mostly built 1934-1936), a Colonial Revival brick rectory (1924), a stucco convent (1920), two brick schools (1899 and 1925), and a fieldstone grotto. The parish began in 1899 as a mission of St. Anne's, serving the growing French Canadian neighborhood of South Lawrence. The first building doubled as chapel and school, reflecting the importance of parochial education in preserving French language and faith. The Sisters of the Holy Union taught there for nearly a century, and enrollment peaked in 1935. Local architects, including Joseph G. Morissette, designed several of the buildings. A 2010 rehabilitation turned the convent and both schools into apartments while keeping historic trim, doors, tin ceilings and chalkboard sections. The rectory and church remain in religious use.