Troy

St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, tucked away in working-class South Troy, sparkles with light streaming through 42 Tiffany stained-glass windows.

Nicknamed the "Ironworkers' Church," St. Joseph's trove of Tiffany windows is considered an unsurpassed, hidden treasure.

"World class," Michael P. Barrett, executive director of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, said.

"It's said to have more Tiffany windows that any other building in the world," Barrett said.

"Who would expect to find so many Tiffany windows in a Catholic church," marveled the Rev. James Sidoti, administrator of the Carmelite parish.

The Tiffany windows were installed starting in the late 19th century, said Brother Paul-Allan Carey, who is on the parish staff for liturgical music and the resident window expert for the church.

The Tiffany windows came to St. Joseph's, located on Jackson Street between Third and Fourth streets, in South Troy during the late 19th to early 20th centuries, when Louis Comfort Tiffany worked, Carey said.

The church isn't the only place Tiffany windows are found in the city. Downtown, the intricate stained-glass masterpieces can also be seen at St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Third Street, St. John's Episcopal Church on First Street, Russell Sage College's Bush Memorial at First and Congress streets and the Troy Public Library on Second Street along with the Gardner Earl Memorial Chapel at Oakwood Cemetery. Those sites may be more visited because of their more central location, Carey said, but he explained that St. Joseph's is special because the church is lit all day by natural sunlight.

"The east will be lit in the morning. Then later in the day, the other side of the church will have light," Carey said.

According to a parish history written by the Carmelite Friars and posted on the church's website, the windows are made of Tiffany's trademark richly colored iridescent Favrile glass, while the scenes depicted in them are taken from the paintings of Titian, Rubens, Bouguereau, Hoffman, Plockhorst and Landill.

On the east side of the church, the "Assumption of the Blessed Virgin" is shown in the Tiffany glass. On the west side, the Tiffany windows depict the "Glorious Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven."

St. Joseph's windows are not in the shadows of any other buildings as it soars tall above South Troy. Noon can be a bright time for viewing all the windows.

"This is my parish. They're all Tiffany," said Carey, who grew up in St. Joseph's, attended its academy and returned after he went to seminary.

As the Ironworkers' Church, St. Joseph's was the spiritual home to the Irish immigrants who worked in the mills along the Hudson River, Carey said. The church dates back to 1847.

The church had its own traditions with High Mass said at 5:15 a.m. attended by ironworkers in their overalls with the lunch pails sitting alongside men in suits and women in gowns, Carey recalled.

The parishioners supported their church with pennies at first, Carey said. Later, parishioners would be urged to give silver nickels, dimes, quarters and dollars — to strengthen the parish and underwrite its mission in the neighborhood, he said.

While generally considered a working-class parish, City Historian Kathy Sheehan said as the Irish immigrants settled into the city, succeeding generations moved up the economic, social and political ladders. The later generations helped to fund the costs of installing the Tiffany windows, she said.

More Information • www.rcda.org/churches/stjosephschurchtroy/ • St. Joseph's parish telephone number is 518-274-6720; the church's email is stjoes-carm@nycap.rr.com. See More Collapse

While not every window in the church was made by Tiffany, Carey said the Tiffany windows have a special distinction when the sunlight shines through them: "They sparkle."

kcrowe@timesunion.com • 518-454-5084 • @KennethCrowe