San José de la Escalera station

Neighbouring stations

• 3Line 3Tenayuca ← San José de la Escalera → Progreso Nacional

The story behind the icon

The station icon represents the staircase of Saint Joseph. The station takes its name from being located in the San José de la Escalera neighbourhood. In 1852, answering the invitation of the bishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, seven sisters of the Loretto community left their mother house in Kentucky to found a new convent devoted to educating girls. After several months of travelling the sisters arrived and settled at once in the centre of town; Santa Fe was at that time a small village inhabited mainly by Indians and Mexicans.

They had been teaching at the school for 20 years when, in 1873, the bishop suggested they build a chapel. The work, in the style of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, took almost five years and they called it "Our Lady of Light". When it was nearly finished they realised that, through a design error, there was no access to the choir loft; the architect P. Mouly had planned to connect the choir with the second floor of the convent, but this was never done, and a conventional staircase could not be installed because it would take up too much of the chapel. According to legend, to solve the problem the sisters offered a novena to Saint Joseph. On the last day of the novena a grey-haired man arrived at the convent door riding a donkey, carrying a chest of tools, and offered to build the staircase on condition that the mother superior should never reveal his name. Mother Magdalene accepted and told her sisters not to speak with the gentleman. Once it was finished, and as they were about to honour the courteous carpenter, he disappeared without charging for his work, and word soon spread that Saint Joseph had built the staircase for the sisters. The staircase is an extraordinary masterpiece: it stands 22 feet high, has 33 steps and makes two complete turns. Opinions differ as to how it holds up, since it has no visible central support and no nails were used in its construction; it is also said that no one knows where the wood came from. The Church holds no official position on the mysterious staircase. The Loretto academy closed in 1968 and the property, together with the chapel, was sold in 1971; today it is a private museum where weddings are held and it is not linked to the Catholic Church.