The Fenway Center on Northeastern University’s Boston campus is being seen in a new light, as skilled craftspeople continue to restore the former church’s stained glass windows.
“Every single piece of glass is taken out of the lead, is hand-washed and then it’s all put back together with lead and putty,” said Brian Aguiar, project manager of the stained glass project at the center and a member of the university’s planning, real estate and facilities department. “It’s disassembled and reassembled just like it was 100 years ago.”
Formerly St. Ann’s Church, the Fenway Center at 77 St. Stephen St. in Boston, is a university event space that hosts functions including choral groups, dance teams, lectures, orchestral ensembles and weekly church services.
The university acquired the circa 1892 church in 2006 and adapted the space the following year. This past summer the space was refreshed with refinished floors, fresh paint and new audiovisual equipment.
But the building’s most unique and celebrated feature is its stained glass windows, which are noted for their vivid colors in intricate geometric designs.
For instance, grapes in the stained glass behind the altar — a window which contains Bible passages — are made from three pieces of glass layered on top of each other and held together by an inch-thick piece of lead.
Beginning in 2019, the windows have been cleaned and refurbished.
So far, three of the four major windows have been completed: the window over the church’s front door, the window behind the altar, and a window on the west side of the transept. This summer, the roughly year-long task of taking apart, cleaning, re-leading and reassembling the window on the east side of the transept began.
The goal is to reassemble the east transept window next summer, Aguiar says. Then the 10 stained-glass aisle windows will be ready for their cleaning — although their size allows them to be cleaned in place.
But the project involves more than a refresh of the windows — the stained glass is being protected as well.
Unlike the yellowed plexiglass that has covered the windows for years, new storefront plate glass windows with a special framing system will protect the stained glass — ensuring that it looks as colorful from the outside as well as from the nave of the church. Aguiar says the framing system is unique in that it vents the heat created by the sun shining through the colored glass, but protects the window from air and moisture.
The goal is to keep the light shining through.
“It’s a building that has been in the community for over 100 years,” Aguiar said. “It’s nice to keep something like that, and be able to maintain it, and bring it back to what it was like when it was built.”