Blue Chapel, Gothic church building at Fordham University, New York, United States
The Blue Chapel, consecrated as the Chapel of Most Holy Mary, Mother of Sorrows, occupies the third floor of Keating Hall on Fordham University's Rose Hill campus. Its walls are faux stone and its ceiling faux brick, and a stained glass window in several shades of blue, showing Jesus, Mary and several saints, sits at the centre of the Keating Hall façade above Edwards Parade. The window is lit from within in the evenings.
The chapel opened in 1937 on the third floor of Keating Hall, completed a year earlier, and was dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Colkin in memory of their daughter Dolores, who died on June 16, 1937, aged thirty-one. The first Christmas Mass was held there on December 25, 1937. A 1980s renovation covered damaged walls with wallpaper and installed a suspended ceiling, and in 2007 the university restored the original faux brick and returned the steel altarpiece from storage.
The chapel is officially consecrated as the Chapel of Most Holy Mary, Mother of Sorrows, and was dedicated by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Colkin in memory of their daughter Dolores, who died on June 16, 1937, at age thirty-one. From the 1940s to at least the late 1960s, Fordham broadcast mass from here each morning at 9:45 on WFUV.
Visitors can reach the chapel through Keating Hall during normal university operating hours and should remember this is an active academic space. The stained glass window offers the best viewing in the evening, and access depends on current campus policies.
The crucifix now on the altarpiece is not the 1937 original, which went missing; Fordham had a new one cast from unused candlestick holders belonging to the original chapel. The steel altarpiece itself sat in storage from the 1980s until the 2007 restoration brought it back.
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