St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church

St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Church is a church located at the corner of Baldwin Avenue and St. Paul Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. The church address is 1515 Baldwin Street; ancillary buildings are located at 1491 Baldwin Street (Rectory) and 1480 Townsend Street (School Building). The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.HistoryIn the late 1850s, Belgian Catholics immigrated to Detroit and settled in the eastside neighborhoods near Gratiot and Baldwin. In 1886, a parish dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo was established to minister to this congregation. A wood-frame church was constructed for the parish, and quickly expanded. As Detroit grew, the parish grew along with it, with French, German, Irish, Scotch, and English immigrant congregants in addition to the original Belgians. By 1920, the congregation numbered over 3000. By the 1930s, the school's population also included many Catholic children of Syrian and Italian immigrants.In 1912, the two-story rectory and school was designed and built by Van Leyen & Schilling. In 1918, Peter Dederichs was awarded a contract to build an "edifice of Romanesque style for religious use". Just four years after the church was completed, it was expanded to meet the needs of the growing congregation.