Lost Small Churches of the North Shore: Italian Methodist Mission Chapel, Harbor Road

 

181 Harbor Road - Italian Mission Church, ca. 1940

This church is not so much lost as it was relocated and transformed. In 1919, Rev. Dr. Sante Buzzalini began preaching in Mariners Harbor, particularly to the Italian immigrants. He served out of Summerfield Methodist Church on Harbor Road. The goal was to found an English-language Italian congregation.

In 1922, after several years of meeting in Summerfield and open-air preaching, Rev. Buzzalini was granted permission to acquire a portable chapel. It was put in place at 181 Harbor Road where it still stands today. It is no longer a Methodist chapel, however.

181 Harbor Road, 2019

In 1939, following tremendous growth, the decision was made to build a more permanent building for the Italian congregation. A second chapel had been established by Rev. Buzzalini in nearby Bullshead that was to be combined with the Harbor Road chapel, so a central location on Forest Avenue was chosen. In 1939, Holy Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church opened. To quote the church's history page:

The church was built directly on the bedrock which gives Graniteville its name, and made of blocks from the quarry which was only a few hundred yards away.

During the great Methodist shakeout of the late sixties and early seventies, Trinity Methodist went through several changes. In 1959, Holy Trinity merged with Graniteville Methodist, and in 1960 the name was changed to Christ Methodist Church. In 1972, Asbury Methodist and Dickenson Methodist merged. This new congregation merged with Christ United Methodist (the United had been added in 1972 to reflect a merger between larger Methodist church bodies) in 1974, retaining the Christ United name. 

The old Harbor Road chapel has been a Pentecostal congregation of one sort or another since at least the forties. According to a commenter several years ago, it was a Pentecostal congregation from the moment the Rev. Buzzalini moved out. Originally, it appears to have served as the Refugee Church of Christ. In 1947, the building and the present sanctuary at 183 Harbor Road, were purchased by the United Pentecostal Church. Today it's called Pentecostal Tabernacle Church, a congregation of the United Pentecostal Church, a oneness denomination. 

Christ United Methodist Church, 1890 Forest Avenue - 2022

Lost Small Churches of the North Shore: Italian Presbyterian, aka Our Saviour

 

194 St. Marys Ave. - Our Saviour, aka Italian Presbyterian Church, ca. 1940

Here's an addendum to the previous post about Olivet Presbyterian Church in West New Brighton. A commenter on Facebook mentioned the founding pastor of Olivet, Joseph DeRogatis, was her uncle and that he'd also had an Italian mission church in Rosebank. It's mentioned on Olivet's website, but neither the site nor the commenter knew where it had been. She did know her uncle lived on Chestnut. That was more than enough to point me to the correct map.

For those not aware, as late as the nineties, Rosebank was an intensely Italian neighborhood going back over a century. Giuseppe Garibaldi lived on Staten Island for a short period around 1850. The cottage he lived in serves as the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum today.

SI Advance May 28, 1955 

I have no idea when Our Saviour closed. By the time of the 1980s tax photos, the location was an empty overgrown lot. Searching back issues of the SI Advance didn't provide an answer, either. So, if you know anything, please let me know.

194 St Marys Avenue - 2018

Lost Small Churches of the North Shore: Calvary Chapel, aka Olivet Presbyterian Church

Calvary Chapel, ca.1940

   There were numerous immigrant Protestant outreach chapels across Staten Island back at the beginning of the 20th century (more on some of them later). The most numerous I've come across were the ministries aimed at Italians. The Methodists had a chapel in Mariner's Harbor, the Espicopalians had one in Port Richmond, and the Presbyterians had two I'm aware of; one in Rosebank and another in West New Brighton.

   It was founded as Calvary Chapel, an outreach of Calvary Church (still there on Bement and Castleton). In 1913, Joseph De Rogatis, aided by his wife Emma, started preaching in West New Brighton. By 1917, there were enough congregants to warrant building a chapel on West Street between Castelton and Cary Avenues.

   By the thirties, the church had grown so much that they built an education wing with a WPA grant. In 1946 they became a completely separate congregation and adopted the name they still bear; Olivet Presbyterian Church. According to a 1950 Advance article, adult services in English weren't started until 1948. In the mid-fifties, they began building the current church on Broadway and Myrtle. The old West Street chapel was replaced by the currently abandoned Whitney Young Day Care Center. 

   The church maintains a detailed history on its website.

1937 Insurance Map showing "Calvary Chapel Italian Presbyterian Church"

Olivet Presbyterian Church in all its modernist 1960's Protestant glory - pic. 2019

Lost Small Churches of the North Shore: the Hoyt Avenue Church

 

Immanuel Congregational Church of Staten Island, aka the Hoyt Avenue Church

   The idea for these posts came while doing a little research with the 1936 insurance maps of the North Shore and I saw that this church once existed, only a few blocks from my house. I had never heard of it. Coupled with a few other small churches long lost to history, I hope to make several of these posts over the next week or two.

   According to an article in the Advance, the church started as two separate groups: a house church composed of 14 Swedes that met in a mission house on Westervelt Avenue and an adult Sunday school that met in the old Masonic hall in Port Richmond. In 1917 the two groups merged as the Swedish Immanuel Church of Staten Island. It was affiliated with the Swedish Covenant Church, an evangelical church. Later it was renamed the Immanuel Congregational Church of Staten Island. Finally, to avoid confusing it with other churches named Immanuel, it became known simply as the Hoyt Avenue Church.

   In 1974, just before a series of renovations were to take place, a fire broke out during a wedding rehearsal. The fire spread and all the windows were destroyed and the roof collapsed. The congregation eventually voted to disband. Later, the property was sold and houses were built in the church's place.

Hoyt Avenue Church 60th Anniversary Bulletin

   Here's the church's 60th-anniversary bulletin. Clicking on the link below will let you read the entire contents. It's a great snapshot of mid-fifties church life; the hymns, the exciting dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, and frozen peas, and the speeches. It's also a nice reminder of a time when packs of wild Scandinavians roamed freely on the North Shore.

Hoyt and Delafield - 2012

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Richmond Terrace at Bank Street (east side)

 

Letting loose the lunatics wasn't the greatest of ideas
Giving them plans and money to squander
Should have been the worst of our fears

                                                    Paul Weller, "The Planner's Dreams Goes Wrong" 

In my cataloguing of the devastation caused by the construction of the various NYC housing projects on the North Shore, I was constantly puzzled by the elimination of several blocks of buildings along Richmond Terrace. Only with recently being told where I can find archives copies of the SI Advance (1945-2018), have I discovered what happened.

In addition to building the Richmond Terrace Houses, the city planners decided they were going to continue the promenade and multi-lane Richmond Terrace divided by a median from Westervelt Avenue all the way down to Lafayette Avenue. To accommodate the plan, several blocks of existing buildings were purchased and demolished. 

Whelp, like so many well-intentioned plans, this one never came to fruition. Oh, sure, they bought and bulldozed the buildings, but they never built the expanded Terrace or extended the promenade. To be fair, I don't love the original idea, but right now, the narrow stretch of the Terrace in front of the projects is one of the worst bottlenecks on the North Shore. So, businesses and lives were uprooted for an expensive plan that was never implemented. Good going, people. 

For these lost apartment posts I wouldn't normally include pictures of so many individual buildings, but the sheer number of them seemed to warrant it. I want to make clear the extent of the destruction wrought for no ultimate yield.

 

Sanborn Map, 1936

 

 

SI Advance, March 23, 1963

 

 

 

Chen Hing Hand Laundry

Thomas V. Barry: Real Estate-Insurance & Libasci Bros. Tonsorial

Furrier

Unknown & Valet Service

Unknown

Unknown

Vacant - Demolished in 1946 after being vacant 20 years

Pan-American Bar & Grill

Vacant

Cigar/Candy Store

Tailor & Bar & Grill & S.I.R.T.R.R. Station

Bakery

Barber Shop

Laundry & other assorted businesses

Today

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Prospect and York

 

238 York Avenue, ca.1940

 

234 York Avenue, ca. 1940

230 York Avenue, ca. 1940

 

I'm not sure I ever noticed this strange building until I bought a house on Prospect Avenue in 2006. After that, I drove by it all the time, curious about its odd look and hoping someone one would fix it up at least a little bit. Around 2010-2011, someone did do a major renovation. The work wasn't fantastic, and the roof over landing isn't attractive, but a building was returned to use. The DOITT map lists 238 York Avenue as being built in 1931, but it appears to be on the 1917 insurance map. Either way, it's a fairly old building that's still standing and occupied today.

 

Scanning the Advance archives, I wasn't able to determine when the two units to the right of the remaining 238 York Avenue, were destroyed. However, the last article referencing the center unit, 234 York, was in 1974 when for the second time in a year one of its tenants was robbed. The last reference to the rightmost building, 230 York, was in 1975 when one its tenants was sentenced to nine months for burglary. For at least a decade preceding 1975, all three units had tenants who had habitual contact with the police.

238 York Avenue, 1989 

The yellow street signs were gone by the time I moved to the area, but this was essentially how the building looked in 2006.

Sanborn Map, amended 1935

238 York Avenue - 2018

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Richmond Terrace and Nicholas Street

 

224 Richmond Terrace and the foot of Nicholas Street

I came across this lost apartment by happenstance. I wanted to see the houses that used to exist along the beginning stretch of Stuyvesant Place where it meets the Terrace. Lo, and behold, I came across this fine little building. I don't know when it was destroyed, but I don't have a memory of it being there when I started attending Curtis in 1980. When I took of old #5 bus over Jersey Street in the morning, I'd get off right there and walk up Nicholas to school.

I'm not sure when it was built (the Archives photo doesn't have a date), but there was a building with similar looking footprint on both the 1898 and 1917 maps. However, the maps indicate the building was wooden, which, obviously, this isn't. Even the 1937 Sanborn Map shows the building as wooden. However, this picture, if taken at the same time as the rest of the tax photos is from between 1939 and 1940, so that would make it fairly new, which, again, it doesn't seem to be. So, if anybody reading this knows more about it, let me know.

216 Richmond Terrace

 

1898 Sanborn Map

 

1917 Bromley Atlas

1937 Sanborn Map

 1989

2018 - The View; better than an empty lot, I guess

Lost Apartments of the North Shore: Castleton Park

   From the maps and photographs, Castleton Park, once home to the gargantuan Hotel Castleton, and now home to the magnificently dull Castleton Park apartment towers, was a pleasant block of houses surrounding a park and watched over by two attractive apartment buildings. Only by checking the maps and dates right now, did I realize that when I first went to Curtis High School in 1980, that old Castleton Park might have only been recently destroyed. The DOITT NYCMap lists the current buildings, 165 St. Marks, as only having been built in 1976. In the past, I've gone on about how working class communities were destroyed for the ostensible benefit of housing projects, but this is the first time I've come across the obliteration of a middle-class section for affordable housing. 

   What strikes me immediately about Castleton Park's demolition is the absolute lack of any sort of concern for architectural attractiveness. Instead of the nicely detailed apartments and houses that were knocked down, the new apartments are looming, completely unadorned towers. Now, even the greenery that once covered the underground garage in imitation of the old park, seems to have been let go and replaced with concrete. Whatever reasons there are to remove something old and replace it, there's no reason to replace it with ugliness, but time and time again, that's what New York City (and, truth be told, most cities) have done over the past seventy-five years.

1934 Map - The Castleton in orange and The St. Marks in pink

ca. 1940 - my favorite picture of the Castleton as it seems to lurch around the corner of Nicholas and St. Marks

postcard of the Castleton with Castleton Park in the foreground

postcard of the Castleton

 

ca. 1940 - the St. Marks 

 

ca. 1940 - the St. Marks

postcard of the Castleton and the St. Marks

1928 -  skyline showing Curtis H.S., the St. Marks and the Castleton - I feel obligated to track down pictures of all the houses in this photograph

1924 vs ca. 2021 aerial maps

 

2021 - 165 St. Marks Place