St. Basil Catholic Church

St. Basil Catholic Church wears a jagged, concrete exterior that cuts a sharp silhouette against the sky. Its massive, windowless walls slope inward like the sides of a pyramid, housing a cavernous sanctuary inside. In the late nineteen sixties, the architect Albert C. Martin Junior designed the building to evoke a sense of strength. When the church opened in nineteen sixty-nine, the neighborhood reaction split. Some local residents called the stark, brutalist structure an eyesore, while others praised its modern, uncompromising defiance of tradition.