Italian Episcopalians

  As a native Staten Islander born the year after the Verrazano Bridge was opened, I grew up hearing a lot about how the Brooklyn Italians were "flooding" and "ruining" the borough.  Whatever.  I suspect that was mostly said by the people who had no idea of the deep Italian roots already on Staten Island long before the Verrazano was built.  Eh, what can you do about people?  They're going to say what they're going to say.

   I'm glad this site started as the "church project" because the research I've done in that direction has been invaluable.  More than anything else it's given me a better understanding and insight into the development of the Island and the shifts in its population, native born and immigrant, over the past centuries.

   One of the most interesting things I've discovered are two churches formed as Italian protestant congregations.  One, that I don't have much information or pictures of, was the Italian Pentecostal church.  All I know is that it started on Pike Street in Tompkinsville in 1923 and later moved to Richmond Road.  Today it's the Christian Pentecostal Church.

 

Jewett Avenue and New Street  - 1929

   The other, which I have less information about, but some nice pictures of, is the Holy Redeemer Protestant Episcopal Church (Italian).  From it's name I assume it was a sort of mission outreach from Staten Island's old line (and Wasp) Episcopal churches to the Italian born immigrants.  I wonder what the thoughts that went into the decision to to that were.

  Was it thought that converting the Italians to mainline Protestantism would make the immigrants better citizens?  Less Italian and therefore more American?

   According to "A Brief History of the Episcopal Church" by David Lynn Holmes, Episcopalian outeach to Italians was possible because of Italian, particularly male, dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church in America.  They were angry that the Church had opposed Italian unification in 1870 and they were frustrated by Irish domination of the Church in America.  Even many of the Episcopal priests were ex-Catholic priests.

   I can't imagine the Episcopal Church of today, even if it was still vibrant and relevant, doing the same sort of outreach/conversion to the Hispanic immigrant population in the neighborhood.  I think they'd think the whole undertaking reeked of racism and cultural superiority.

   How long were there enough converts to keep a congregation going?  Did they just merge into the existing English language congregations as they assimilated into America?  Holmes' book says that's what happened with earlier German converts to the denomination.  Like a history of Staten Island's Methodist congregations, I'd love one of the Episcopal churches.  While no one ever really answers, I'm asking for any information anyone's got.

   I love the swing set by the side entrance.  Today the church grounds are an auto repair lot.  That stretch of Jewett between Richmond Terrace and Castleton Avenue is one of the more scuzzy looking parts of Port Richmond.

 Same location, a cold December morning - 2011

Port Richmond - some quick and easy shots of back streets

Here are some houses scattered across Port Richmond that I find attractive. They're just regular homes, none of particular historic or architectural significance. They're just here to show off the visually pleasing place that is Port Richmond.

I didn't list addresses because you should take some time and drive along the area's back streets and find the houses on your own.


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Faber Street


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Faber and Harrison


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Sharpe Avenue - peekaboo


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Sharpe Avenue - again


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Clinton Place

Fraternal Port Richmond

NE corner of Bennett and Port Richmond Avenues, 1905 - Masonic Hall - same place, 2011









Once upon a time Americans bonded with each other at all sorts of fraternal organizations. At the organization's height in 1959 there were just over 4 million Masons in American. Notably there were huge numbers of Elks, Moose, Eagles and Odd Fellows as well.

Today the Masons have dropped below the 2 million mark. At the same time the country's population climbed from 179 million to 308 million. I don't know how high the others groups were in the past but I feel safe in assuming their numbers have shrunk as well.











Loyal Order of Moose Club House on the corner of Bennett and Park, 1927 - same corner, 2011



More knowledgeable people than your humble blogger have examined the question of declining American civic and community participation (see Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone") but I have to wonder why Americans have really turned inward to such an astonishing degree. What turned us from a society of inveterate joiners and boosters into isolated little family units? Is it all the tv and internet that's cut us off from our fellows? I'm not even saying it's a bad thing (if you don't know, I was the kid in corner with his nose in a book), it's just such a drastic change in such a little bit of time.

Once upon a time Port Richmond was home to many of these organizations, hosting large facilities they built with the dues of their members. On Bennett Street you had the Masons and the Moose. A few blocks west on Harrison Street was the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. One lot west of Faber Street on Richmond Terrace was the Knights of Columbus' house.





2180 Richmond Terrace, 1932 - Knights of Columbus Assumption Council 1694










According to information from rootsweb, in 1888, the Order of United American Mechanics (a nativist group) had two chapters meeting in a public hall in the neighborhood and the Grand Army of the Republic had its own hall.


Later the Masons built a more magnificent hall on Anderson Avenue.





Eventually, though, they closed up shop and sold the facility to the CYO. From numerous North Shore lodges they've been reduced to one in Stapleton (Tompkins No. 471 to be precise).

The Moose sold their property and bought an old Lutheran church on Nicholas Avenue and the Odd Fellows' nearest location appears to be near West Point. The other groups I listed don't even exist anymore.






once the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Hall, now an apartment - Harrison Street

PORT RICHMOND - and I mean it

The first of several planned posts on Port Richmond.





Without a doubt Port Richmond has the potential to be the greatest neighborhood on Staten Island. Much of its old housing stock has survived the despoliation that ravaged so many older neighborhoods on the Rock. Right off Port Richmond Avenue is Veterans' Park, towered over by the great edifice of P.S. 20, and surrounded by several churches and pleasant pre-war apartment buildings. Architecturally, few neighborhoods have held onto such a significant portion of its past as Port Richmond. Even the simple residential back streets hold significant and attractive homes. In its layout and buildings it is still one of the most pleasing looking parts of Staten Island.

Along Port Richmond Avenue are countless commercial buildings, large and small, many with office space and apartments on their upper floors. At present the neighborhood is well served by several bus lines. But, if the North Shore rail was ever actually built or the Borough President's excellent idea for a bus linkage to the NJ light rail in Bayonne were implemented Port Richmond's stock would go through the roof. It could become the starting point of one of the fastest Manhattan commutes going.

Unfortunately, once New York City decided to allow itself to become dependent on cheap, often illegal, immigrant labor, places had to be designated for them to live. On Staten Island, Port Richmond, much of it a troubled neighborhood by the early nineties when this trend began, drew the short straw. Soon men, working tough, physically exhausting jobs in many cases, were living together packed into poorly maintained apartments. Only later did immigrant families take root and businesses to serve them specifically open.

Much of the Port Richmond of today is one of decayed commercial properties, poor or little municipal maintenance (I dare you to drive either way on Port Richmond Avenue in a straight line without ripping out your car's underside on a pothole or sudden depression in the roadbed), several slumlike apartments, and a steady level of distrust between the African-American and Mexican residents. The latter led to the present near occupation of the neighborhood (at least the section between Nicholas, Castleton, Heberton and the Terrace) by units from the 120th Precinct.

Like much of Staten Island, Port Richmond is an oddly dichotomous place. North of Castleton Avenue has a mostly African-American and Mexican population and there is substantial poverty and several abandoned, tattered houses. South of Castleton Avenue is white, black and all shades of brown and the home of such stalwart Port Richmond businesses as Denino's Pizza, Ralph's Ices and Merlino Photo Studios.


The possibility of the northern section becoming attractive is very real in the light of improved transportation. I don't know how this would happen though without many of the poor or minority residents being forced out. But if the travel time to Manhattan is reduced I see it happening and I don't suspect it will be a pretty event.

Lost Streets and Homes

The Bayonne Bridge is one of the beautiful municipal structures that remain from a lost golden age. It drive past it several times a week and I'm never not caught by the bold curve of it arch in the day and the patriotic lighting in the night.

But, like many elements of the City's infrastructure its creation came at the cost of homes and pieces of neighborhoods. Going to the maps I set out to see what had vanished in the wake of the bridge's construction in 1928. While no whole heart of a neighborhood was destroyed like with the housing projects in Stapleton, West Brighton and New Brighton, it did result in a giant structure rising like a wall between Elm Park and Port Richmond.



1917 Map - someone helpfully penciled in the bridge's location. Douglas Street is gone and Newark Street half deleted and John Street cut into parts.







Bridge Stanchions Crossing Richmond Terrace
- l. 1931 (Dean Linseed Oil Works in the background)
r. 2010













Below - demolition on the south side of Innis Street - 1928
Bottom - roughly same location - 2010




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There are times when real public needs require drastic changes in landscape. This would seem to safely be one of those times. It never hurts, though, to remember that bridges and highways come at costs more than dollars.












Above - West side of Newark Avenue south of Richmond Terrace - 1928 and 2010




SPECIAL BONUS SHOT - Dean Linseed Oil Works seen from Bayonne

Easy, Breezy (Port) Richmond Avenue

NE corner of Vreeland and Castelton, summer 1936



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I've been working on some elaborate posts using the 1874 maps of my neighborhood and some picture scans but I'm not getting it done. So...here are some easy to slap together shots of the beautiful Port Richmond commercial and residential strip of the distant past versus its fairly rundown and sad looking present.



NW corner of Harrison and Richmond Avenue - 1929 - Perhaps the most iconic Port Richmond commercial image. In my youth this corner building was still in god shape. It's what still jumps to mind (alongside the Reformed Church) when I first think of Port Richmond.


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Like some many other long time Islanders I grew up shopping in Port Richmond on a regular basis. since we didn't drive we'd hop onto the #3 bus in front of SI Hospital at Castleton and Cebra and get off on Richmond Avenue. There were five a dime stores, discount stores, hobby stores, clothing stores and the Luggage Shoppe. The last was one of the first stores to move off of the Richmond Avenue strip. They moved to New Dorp Lane and only closed in the past year or so.


The Ritz Theater and neighboring shops - 1930 - The movie playing was "Sunny Side Up", a musical from 1929 starring Janet Gaynor.


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The JC Penney's Plaza on Forest Avenue went a long way to killing Port Richmond but the Mall's advent in 1973 spelled it's final death. It lingered on for the next two decades and some of the old stores actually remain (Merlino's Photo Studio, Brownies Hobby Shop, and the oft referenced Tirone's Shoes only just closed).

But the big discount and five and dimes closed up. There was an effort by the Port Richmond LDC to encourage furniture stores to move in to the vacant stores and that helped a little but the whole neighborhood of churches, apartments and nice homes fell into a slowly, grinding disrepair. Even today, with Mexican shops replacing the old ones, the shine has never been restored to the avenue. Beautiful facades have been covered up, windows are blocked up with cheap looking advertisements and trash flutters along down the sidewalks.


Richmond Avenue, south from Hatfield Place, c. 1910


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Today the beautiful home on the left corner is gone but behind trees the one to its left remains, obscured somewhat by trees.

Port Richmond was in the news a lot this past summer because of supposed racial incidents between the Mexican and black residents of the northern part of the neighborhood. While there's been longstanding tensions between the two communitiesnThe coverage in the news was woefully inadequate and often misleading.

A group called "Make the Road New York" claims the neighborhood is predominantly black and Hispanic and has an income level of around $19,000. This is only true is you restrict Port Richmond to the space between Heberton and Nicholas and Castelton and the Terrace. Most of the "racial" incidents were simple thuggery and thievery. Instead of simply addressing the straightforward law enforcement needs of the neighborhood it was turned into a circus for the likes of the Mexican consul to grandstand.

Another Business Gone the Dodo Way

The intersection of Port Richmond Avenue and Richmond Terrace is a place I've gone to for pictures and postings several times before. I keep finding new (old) vantage points it's been shown from and it keeps fitting into new ideas for posting topics.




July 1, 1929 - In the front, the Port Richmond National Bank, followed by the Staten Island National Bank and Trust Company


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Upon the slightest bit of research I discovered that the two banks are really one. In 1902 the Port Richmond National Bank was founded and in 1926 it renamed itself the Staten Island National Bank and Trust Company. It ceased to exist when it was acquired by Chase in 1957.

April, 1930 - Looking north along Port Richmond Avenue at the two banks from alongside the Dutch Reformed Church's cemetery






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April, 1930 - A close up of the Staten Island National Bank and Trust Company


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If you see the bank from Richmond Terrace you can see where a teller booth for cars was added in what I imagine was an effort to modernize the bank and attempt to keep it going as foot traffic died on Port Richmond Avenue in the late seventies. In the google picture there's a black van parked in the old drivethru and the booth is the low building to the van's right.


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Shults Bread Company and company

On Cary Avenue and Taylor Street in West New Brighton (edging perilously close to Port Richmond), stands an old factory built of red brick. In my time it's housed the Art Network (who remembers that now?) and then, in one form or another, a church for the last decade or so.

Apparently, formed from the consolidation of several bread wholesalers, for a few years the Shults Bread Co. was one of the most prolific bakeries in NYC. They operated a dozen factories in and around the city (six in Brooklyn, their home, alone). In 1923 they were acquired, in a stock deal, by the United Bakeries Corporation and were no more. UBC renamed itself Continental Bakeries, and became one of the biggest bakers in the country.










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I've posted this theater before, but here's it's in a larger neighborhood context. It was the first movie theater on Staten Island and until recently it maintained much of its original facade (see the googlemaps' picture) though its present Pentecostal owners have finally fixed up the building and covered it over.

The intersection of Castleton and Broadway and several blocks around seem to have been an entertainment nexus a century ago. There was an opera house (!) on Henderson and Broadway and a movie theater on the corner of Broadway and Noble. Now there's projects, dollar stores and scary delis.

Tell me again how were things improved when the projects replaced older working class apartments? Am I wrong in thinking that people aren't meant to live piled together in giant apartments like ants? How many people and neighborhoods suffered because Corbusier offered a cheap way out for packing in the poor like rats?







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Forest Avenue in Ole Tymes and Now

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Running parallel to Castleton Avenue for much of its generally east-west run, Forest Avenue is tied with Victory Blvd as the North Shore's most important commercial avenue. Starting at the crest of Victory Blvd.'s first great hill, Forest Ave. starts alongside Silver Lake Park and Golf Course. It then cuts its way through the southern portion of West New Brighton. The stretch between Oakwood and Bement used to be called Peter Pan Alley because it was lined with Irish bars; the denizens were green and never grew up.
West New Brighton runs roughly from Hart Blvd to Jewett Avenue. From Jewett to Richmond Avenue Forest cuts Port Richmond off from Westerleigh and Willowbrook. At Richmond Avenue it separates Elm Park and Mariner's Harbor to its north from Graniteville before coming to an end in the marshlands of Bloomfield.

The first lovely house was located on the north east corner of Oxford Place and Forest. Today it's a series of relatively unpleasant townhouses thrown up in the 90s. The second house is still standing on a beautiful block between Oxford and Duer Lane opposite Silver Lake Park.

Silver Lake - Oxford and Forest



Silver Lake - Forest and Duer - This house was owned by Louis A. Dreyfus, a noted chewing gum magnate and Staten Island civic activist. He and his wife donated the land for Hero Park and supported numerous churches, schools and charities. IS 49 in Stapleton is named for his wife, Bertha.




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Today the intersection of Forest and Bard is a major commercial area with a Keyfood, drycleaners, a Starbucks and a CVS. Once upon a time it was a fairly sleepy (and dusty apparently) crossroads.

West N. Brighton - north side of intersection looking east along Forest Avenue




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I had to blow up the bus just because I thinks its pretty nifty looking.



On the south side of the intersection is Our Savior Lutheran Church. I've mentioned in an earlier post how it was once the church in the basement. Well, here's proof.





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West N. Brighton - Forest and Clove Road - This beautiful estate was owned by the Brooks family (who I have no idea who they were) and was called, imaginatively, Brooklawn) Today it's all gone and been replaced with the northern stretch of Clove Lake Park.




Graniteville - Richmond Avenue between Forest Avenue and Monsey Place - Today Monsey doesn't even intersect with Richmond and there's a filthy gas station and convenience store on the spot. Good going, people.



Graniteville - PS 22 - Forest and Columbus Street (well, today, Columbus doesn't even exist and a new extension to the school's been built across its roadbed) - This picture from the early 30's shows the "new" extension built to the original school on the picture's left. Today another extension has been attached to this extension.




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Methodism, wherefore art thou?

I've written before about something I call 'the Great Methodist Collapse". I still don't know anything about what happened to the Methodist churches on Staten Island in the late sixties but of the six churches (and one chapel) I know of on the North Shore, three of them closed and were sold off to other parties. Presumably it was a combination of the demographic changes (though the late sixties seems too early for that) and the general decline in urban mainline Protestant church attendance (and, again, there's a problem in that the Methodist church stayed strong through today). Someday I'll actually talk to a Methodist church historian and understand what happened. Just not today.

Faith United Methodist Church - 221 Heberton Avenue - Port Richmond


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The link leads to a detailed history of the birth of United Methodist Church from a combining of Grace Methodist Church (the present United church) with Kingsley Methodist in Stapleton and Trinity Methodist in West New Brighton.

The Reformed Churches

Once upon a time Staten Island was a Dutch settlement. Today that's mainly recalled by the existence of Dutch or Netherlands related street names (Stuyvesant Pl., Brabant, Walloon, Van Pelt, Van Name, etc.). Another bit of remaining history though are the few remaining Reformed congregations. Until the mid-80's the Reformed Church in America (RCA) was known as the Dutch Reformed Church. Demographics and history I imagine caused them to ditch the Dutch.
At present the VP of the RCA is the Rev. James Seawood, pastor of Brighton Heights Reformed Church in St. George. Next year he becomes the president. Good man, good pastor and nice guy.

Brighton Heights Reformed Church - 320 St. Mark's Place - St. George


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This congregation was founded around 1827 as a offshoot of the ministry established at the Quarantine Station in St. George by the minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Port Richmond. The old building constructed in the late 19th century was destroyed by fire during renovations in the mid-1990's. The new building was dedicated in the last decade.





Reformed Church on Staten Island - 54 Port Richmond Avenue - Port Richmond


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This is one of the oldest churches on Staten Island and one of the oldest congregations (beat only, I think, by St. Andrew's Episcopal in Richmondtown). It was founded by Belgian Huguenots and later became part of the Dutch Reformed Church. The original church was burned down during the Revolution by the British and the new one erected in the late 18th century. There's an attached graveyard with 17th century headstones (and bodies presumably). Apparently it's a small and dwindling congregation but the Staten Island Preservation League's housed there so they've got that going for them.


There used to be at least one other Dutch Reformed church on the North Shore. Appropriately enough it was located in Mariners' Harbor which has the largest concentration of Dutch names (Holland, Netherland, Brabant, Mesereau, etc.). Near as I can determine it closed in the late sixties. At present the old church is home to Fellowship Baptist Church.

Mariners' Harbor Dutch Reformed Chapel - 3036 Richmond Terrace - Mariners' Harbor





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More Lutherans

St. Paul's - St. Luke's Lutheran Church (formerly Wasa Lutheran) - 186 Decker Ave - Port Richmond


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Originally founded as Vasa Lutheran by Swedes in 1908, this was the church of my mother's family. One of her sisters is still very active in the congregation.
In 1971, the renamed St. Luke's Church merged with the dwindling St. Paul's Church (originally a German congregation) from over on Cary Avenue in West New Brighton creating the new and improved St. Paul's - St. Luke's Lutheran Church.

The old, sold, and condemned St. Paul's Lutheran Church - Cary Ave. and Caroline St. - West New Brighton

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Our Savior Lutheran Church - 557 Bard Avenue - West New Brighton


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My mother always told me how Our Savior existed only as a basement through the early sixties. It had relocated from that old Scandinavian stronghold, Port Richmond, to Forest and Bard Avenues and could only afford to excavate the present basement of the church and throw a flat roof over that. Eventually the congregation raised enough money and built the present modern and, inside at least, surprisingly beautiful sanctuary and chapel. Not surprisingly, the Norwegian heritage of the congregation is reflected in the clean Scandinavian modern wood work throughout the church.
The church parsonage (not pictured) is one of the several remaining stone houses in the area built by the opthamologist Samuel MacKenzie Elliot in the mid 19th century.




The original Our Savior Lutheran was located on Nicholas and Hatfield Avenues. Now it's a Moose Lodge.

The Church Project Lite

So I'm too lazy/too overwhelmed/too tired, or just too something indefinable to carry out the Church Project the way I originally intended to. So...
So, what I'll do is just get googlemap shots and the occasional old timey picture of the North Shore churches and some information about them.
I'll do it by denomination, starting with my home court, the Lutheran churches.

DAY ONE

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran - 309 Saint Pauls Ave - Stapleton


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My old church and elementary school. Founded by Germans back in the nineteenth century, Trinity really took off in the early twentieth century under the stewardship of Pastor Fredrick Sutter. In the google picture you can see the damage to the steeple caused by the tornado that ravaged the North Shore 2 years ago.


Zion Lutheran - 505 Watchogue Road, Westerleigh


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The group that founded Zion Lutheran started as an adult Norwegian Sunday school class in a no longer standing building in Port Richmond. At some point they collected enough money and built a beautiful neo-Gothic church on Bennett Street alongside Port Richmond Park. In the sixties they relocated to Westerleigh and built the kind of ugly modern church they still occupy on Watchogue and Willowbrook Roads.










I started with Trinity and Zion because they represent the two most active and vibrant Lutheran congregations remaining on Staten Island. They also still have a strong sense of their initial ethnic origins. Trinity was still holding German services in the early eighties.

They also represent two distinct wings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Trinity came from money (particularly the Stapleton beer barons of the nineteenth century) and Zion from working class poverty. Today Trinity maintains a much more ritual filled worship service and Zion's is more stripped down.

The great wave of Lutheranism that once represented Germans, Norwegians and Swedes in numerous churches has receded with the demographic changes across the Island as well as the general collapse of the mainline denominations.