Fight to Preserve Ocean Hill Church
A big preservation struggle is coming to a head out in Ocean Hill, reports The Brooklyn Eagle, where a group of Italian Americans is fighting to prevent the Catholic Diocese from tearing down the beautiful Our Lady of Loreto Church; the neighborhood, which was predominantly Italian from the 1880s to 1970s, is now one of…
A big preservation struggle is coming to a head out in Ocean Hill, reports The Brooklyn Eagle, where a group of Italian Americans is fighting to prevent the Catholic Diocese from tearing down the beautiful Our Lady of Loreto Church; the neighborhood, which was predominantly Italian from the 1880s to 1970s, is now one of the poorest in the borough. The preservationist group Save Our Lady of Loreto has rallied the support of Sen. Diane Savino (D-Bay Ridge/Staten Island), Borough President Marty Markowitz, and Assemblyman William Boyland. The church was determined to be eligible in 2009 to be listed on the National Register of Historic Sites by the New York State Office of Historic Preservation and The New York Landmarks Conservancy has called the church historically significant: It’s one of the first examples of a Catholic church built in a igh Italian baroque style as well as one of the first instances of concrete construction being used in an artistic way. The Diocese argues that restoring the church would be prohibitively expensive. It’s a question of where we’re going to put our resources,” said Msgr. Kieran Harrington. Plus, the preservation effort is being led by people who do not live in the community and did not support the church when it was open, he says. Instead, the Diocese said it wants to tear the church down and build affordable housing, despite the fact that the preservationists along with the Conservancy has come up with an alternate plan for affordable housing nearby. Very sad.
Preservationists Seek To Save Historically Italian-American Church [Brooklyn Eagle]
Photo from the Bridge and Tunnel Club
Hi everybody
Let me put some light on the subject and some important facts.
The group that is trying to save the church has made a very good proposal.
The Diocese of Brooklyn wants to tear down the church and built 88 new affordable apartments.
Sounds like a good idea right?
Well, the group wants to buy the property and built 102 new apartments and still keep the church standing.
Their plan is to also restore the church and turn it into a Cultural Center for the people of Brownsville and all of Brooklyn at NO COST to the Diocese.
Sounds even better doesn’t it?
So what’s the problem?
That’s the ultimate question.
It seems that the Diocese has a “questionable reason” for rejecting their proposal.
This is a win-win situation, but the group is mystified as to why their proposal has been rejected by the Diocese.
It’s not a matter of money on the part of the group. They have the funds to support the project.
So the question remains. Why has the Diocese rejected their proposal?
If you would like to know the answer to this question, then please contact Bishop DiMarzio at the address below.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio
310 Prospect Park West
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Tel: (718) 965-7300
I’m sure he will give you his reason. Then you can post it for everyone to see.
Thanks
John
benson you may be right, the diocese of Brooklyn and Queens are now separate than the Rockville diocese in LI. The Episcopal archdiocese in Brooklyn is headquartered in LI, Garden City I think, so many hierarchies, so little time.
My point is that the RC church is very blessed, no pun intended, that so many new immigrants happen to come from countries that are catholic. They are dirt poor just like the Irish and Italian where in the 19th century, but they can fill up churches.
I doubt very much that when the numbers are crunched that the diocese will tear this massive building down. They would do it if the land was valuable, but it’s not.
Whatever the reason, the building is underutilized and the diocese doesn’t want or need it as a church anymore. Repurposing/conversion is viable if someone comes up with a proposal and the money to do it. But if not, what are we to expect or require the diocese to do?
Minard;
-The Diocese of Brooklyn is not part of the Archdiocese of Long Island, nor part of the Archdiocese of NY. It is a Diocese in its own right, and includes Brooklyn and Queens.
-The upper hierarchy of the Diocese of Brooklyn today has more Italians than Irish. The Bishop of Brooklyn is Nicholas DeMarzio (who is a strong voice for immigration reform, btw). The second in command is Bishop Caggiano (whom I know personally, as he and I went to the same parochial school and high school).
benson, this areas is solidly Latino, it isn’t that there are too few churchgoers but rather that those churchgoers do not have a lot of extra money to give to the church. and I also think it is because the hierarchy of the church in NYC is solidly Irish and woefully out of touch with the Hispanic grass roots.
The rc church has always gone out of its way to shoot itself in the foot.
This looks like a solid, old, but not that old, edifice. It should be adapted to some other use in a cost-efficient manner. A portion of the building, perhaps a chapel or undercroft can be reserved for worship. It takes a little imagination. the archdiocese is being run too often like a big unimaginative American corporation circa 1982. The archdiocese of Long Island (of which Brooklyn is part) is actually way better than the Manhattan diocese, so I don’t think all is lost here.
Minard;
There are several faults with your argument:
-we are talking about Brooklyn here, not NYC. The growth in the Hispanic population in NYC has been primarily in the Bronx and Queens,not Brooklyn. The RC population in Brooklyn is down substantially, even considering Hispanics. I can easily think of 5 areas that used to have substantial majority RC populations that no longer do (Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Eastern Sunset Park, parts of Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst). Park Slope around 5th Ave and Union Street had many Italians, replaced now by primarily non-Catholics. Ditto for South Park Slope.
-80 years ago, there were many RC churches built because certain ethnicities wanted to avoid each other. Our Lady of Peace on Carroll Street is two blocks away away from St. Francis Xavier. The former is where immigrant Italians went, as the rich Irishmen of the latter wanted nothing to do with them.
Today the need for “ethnic parishes” is long gone, the result being that the Church has far more church buildings than the demographics warrant.
I would guess that it would be costly to demolish and cart away a solidly built concrete church. Those costs would probably exceed the value of the land. Once the archdiocese gets those figures they may reconsider.
What makes this so galling is that unlike Lutherans or Presbyterians, whose numbers really have taken a nose dive in the city, there are as many catholics now as ever. They are not irish or italian but rather Mexican, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Peruvian, Philipino, on and on. The fact that the catholic churchgoers are poor is no reason to tear down their church, that is so…misguided of the old Irish guys and the old Irish lawyers who run the church.
No wonder more and more latinos are converting to protestant charismatic faiths.
ncarty97- It’s also expensive to have a demolition and then rebuild. especially in today’s economy? So what happens? they put up a real POS, call it affordable, and in a few years the place is a wreck? It’s happened. I disagree its a non-starter. Conversion is a viable alternative.
“why is the congregation gone? You seem to be taking this a little personally, but my point is why did this happen, and more importantly, why not sell the building and then take the money to build elsewhere? Don’t make a big fight out of this over semantics.”
I’m not taking it personally. I’m not Catholic. Why is the congregation gone? Changing demographics. It’s happenning and been happenning all over the city.
Maybe they’ve tried to sell the building. It needs a lot of work though and likely other congregations in that area are in no better shape to take on the challenge.
As for converting it into housing, that’s a nice though, but not realistic. That is a very exepensive project. In addition to the general resdtoration work, you have to go though all the work to make into living space. To make it work, you need to be able to charge a premium price for the units, and that simply isn’t going to happen in what is described as one of the poorest partest of the borough. So it’s a complete non-starter.