More Lost Churches of the North Shore

The original St. Adalbert on Morningstar Road. I know several people who feel the new church is cold and normally I think I'd agree but for some unfathomable reason I don't. I only went to one Mass there and it was a funeral but for some reason the church worked.



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Original Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Castleton and Clove - Today the church site is a parking lot and the new church (a boxy, sixties thing) sits on the north side of Castleton Avenue a block or so away.


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Lost Churches of Staten Island

I've alluded to, and even posted about, several of the North Shore's lost churches. These are the ones that time and tide have overcome and been replaced or simply forgotten as their congregations move away. I hope to find more pictures next week in the archives but for now these should prove interesting.



The original St. Paul's Catholic Church in New Brighton on Clinton Avenue - this beautiful Italiante church was replaced with a modern and boxy one, presumably in the sixties. Recently it has been essentially merged with the Assumption on the other side of New Brighton and switches Sundays back and forth for the celebration of the Mass.


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Original Episcopal Church of St. Simon on Clove Road
This little wooden Episcopal church was demolished to make way for either the highway or the lead on for the Verrazano (I can't remember which). It too was replaced with a (at least externally) soulless little piece of sixties architecture.





Original Episcopal Church of the Ascension - Richmond Terrace near Alaska Street
I've written about this gorgeous old church before and I was very happy to come across this new (to me) picture of it from a different perspective. The page I glommed the pictured from said that the church burned down in 1946 and the building to the right(most likely the rectory) is still in use by Rogers Surveying.
The replacement is actually a pretty building tucked away alongside the far reaches of Clove Lakes Park on Kingsley Avenue




Randall Memorial Church in Snug Harbor - I don't know the exact dates of this church's destruction but I think it was mid-twentieth century. It fell into disrepair and was crumbling. Instead of renovating and saving it the trustees demolished it.



Original Episcopal St. Paul's Church on St. Paul's Avenue and Paxton - This small wooden church was replaced by the beautiful stone church on the other side of St. Paul's Avenue

Notes

So I haven't posted all that much lately. Partly it's been because of various home and other commitments but it's mostly because I've tapped much of the easy stuff available on the web. I need to spend quality time at the SI Historical Society and the SI Museum and start going through their photo archives. I'll probably start that next week and get some of the up pretty soon thereafter.

Yesterday on my way home from Queens (with the luminous Mrs. V. driving) I found my eyes drawn to every cross topped spire and church belltower. I knew the ecclesiastical architecture of the city was tremendous and pervasive but I don't think I ever really understood how so. Sure we think of St. Patrick's Cathedral and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine but there are so many amazing and beautiful churches all over the city. They may not have the size or history of those two building but they serve as beautiful reminders of Christian endeavor. They also serve as road maps back along New York's changing demographics. In Manhattan, numerous neighborhood synagogues are now Spanish language Pentecostal churches and the same in Brooklyn holds true for many old mainline Wasp and Scandinavian churches.

Some Architectural Finds

Clinton Avenue near Prospect Avenue







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Van Duzer Street - just north of Beach Street


This house, once owned by someone known as R.M. Hazard, date to at least 1874 and probably before that. The surviving house is the one on the right. The left has been replace with stores. There's a plaque on the exterior of the remaining home but I don't have the information at hand. Maybe later (don't I always write that?).


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