Saint Joseph's Arts Society

The Saint Joseph's Arts Society stands as a remarkable transformation of a historic sanctuary into a contemporary creative hub. Before its current life as an arts venue, the building was St. Joseph's Church, a Romanesque Revival landmark completed in 1913 following the destruction of its predecessor in the 1906 earthquake. For decades, it served as a spiritual home for local communities, notably becoming the largest Filipino parish in the United States by the late 1970s. The site's fortunes changed drastically when the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake left the structure severely damaged, leading to its closure and two and a half decades of abandonment where it sat quiet and deteriorating.