Center Stage
The Old Loyola College and High School Campus
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Just a few blocks away from the Peabody, stretching along Calvert Street between Madison and Monument Streets, stands another massive Italian palace, built for another educational institution.
The patron here was the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order. Visitors can see arched windows with elaborate moldings and a heavy Italianate cornice unifying the northern half, containing St. Ignatius Church (designed by Louis L. Long and completed in 1856) with the southern (designed by O’Connor and Delaney of New York and finished in 1899). Besides the parish church, this huge red brick palace housed Loyola College and Loyola High School until they split into two separate institutions and moved away in 1922.
Since the mid-1970s, the long vacant southern section has been imaginatively re-used for two theaters designed by James Grieves and the firm of Ziger, Hoopes, and Snead for the Center Stage repertory theater.
