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

West Brighton Projects Project Part 6: West side of Broadway, between West Union and Henderson

I remembered that I hadn't finished recreating the neighborhood wiped out to build the West Brighton Houses. Some of it's because I've had a little trouble pulling all the pictures together. In others, like with today's post, it's because I've forgotten to do it. So, without further ado, Broadway between the no-longer-extant West Union Street and Henderson Avenue.

As usual, I'm somewhat fascinated by the closeness of significant commercial buildings to actual houses. Modern building doesn't seem to do this in any way. I guess the goal of suburban development is to keep the two at more of an arm's length, save for the deli or drycleaner you can walk to. It's also, obviously, a result of carcentric planning. Cars allow you to build the something like the old Penney's Plaza on Forest and Barrett and assume the people from West New Brighton will go there. They don't need a major shopping and dining area outside their door. I'm surprised no one seems to be suggesting this sort of old fashioned building as an antidote to heavy traffic. I would much rather walk to a store than have to take the bus or ride a bike any day of the week. Is this sort of pedestrian friendly development even allowed anymore? Seriously, does anyone know?

1917 Map

NYC 1924 Aerial Map

2012 Google Maps

The West Brighton Projects Project: Part Three - Castleton Avenue between State and Broadway and Broadway between Castleton and Market

I'm a startled at my recent burst of energy regarding the various reconstructions I've started of several lost Staten Island neighborhoods. With each new post I've been reminded a little bit more about why I started this: documenting places that have been destroyed or damaged that are worth remembering. 

Staten Islanders talk a lot about the devastation wrought by development on the south shore, and while true, the north shore saw significant troubles as well. Whether it was the urban planners' deciding Stapleton's back streets were "blighted," or Port Richmond's stores falling prey to the Penny's Plaza, the north shore of the past is truly past. I believe it's worth documenting what that past looked like, if only to remind us, especially now as major development is taking place, that the Island's constantly changing. It's nothing new, it just needs to be handled with an eye toward not letting it look like garbage.

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The first two pictures are from the north side of Castleton Avenue between State Street and Broadway. You can see it was very similar to the surrounding stretches of Castleton: commercial spaces with apartments above. 

 NE corner of State and Castleton

NW corner of Castleton and Broadway

The remaining pictures are of the west side of Broadway between Castleton and Market Street. Off the main thoroughfare, we get something we've seen a lot of these posts, a heterogeneous mix of stores and housing. There was even an attached house on the corner of Market Street (#04).

The biggest, saddest thing I'm taking away from the projects projects is that existing neighborhoods were declared blighted. They were then wiped out and replaced with mono-zoned high density buildings. Now, fifty-five years later, these neighborhoods are far more blighted and run down than they were before the housing projects. It's almost as if the urban planners decided to corral as many poor people as possible into a single location and then forgot about them. 

The West Brighton Projects Project: Part Two - west side of Broadway between Market and West Union Streets

Moving right along, I've got another West Brighton Projects post. It was a little more complicated to assemble than I thought it would be. If you look at the annotated map you can see most of the property lots in Block 191 have buildings facing both Broadway and State Street. I'm pretty sure the buildings with the actual lot numbers are the ones facing Broadway.

Unfortunately, that leaves me with a batch of buildings with lot numbers that aren't shown on the map. I feel safe in assuming they're the buildings on State Street, but determining the order is proving troublesome. In a case like this, I have to look for clues in the backgrounds and street fixtures to give me a sense of where they should go. In the next post, I'll make my best guess at where they were. 

A

B

C

D

I've always been torn about the City's claim that the neighborhoods it destroyed were blighted, but doing these posts have revealed a significant number of run down buildings as far back as the early forties. I can only imagine what their state was twenty years later when the condemnation proceedings began.

E

F

The Capitol Theater - Broadway, West New Brighton

Here's a set of Yesterday and Today pictures. It's the Capitol Theater on Broadway just above the corner of Castleton Avenue. One of aunt's told me about going to the movies there and then getting ice cream at a shop next door. I'll venture a guess that it was in the building in the left of the picture.

You can see it had large windows and a striped awning. One of the most common changes to many old commercial buildings is their conversion to residential use. The large display windows are simply removed and space bricked up. 

Take a look around some day for similar buildings. It's interesting to realize how many neighborhoods had little stores sprinkled through them. The same sort of centralized shopping districts that killed the shopping districts (ex., Stapleton, Port Richmond, etc.) probably put the end to them as well.

Delafield Avenue - just another pretty house

587 Delafield Avenue (off Broadway), August 1932

   Delafield Avenue is an interesting street.  Like West New Brighton overall it runs the gamut from beautiful to  fairly shambolic.  This house is on the stretch between Broadway and Elizabeth and that piece of Delafield has a bit of both.  There are homes in beautiful states of maintenance, a few looking to fall to bits and some that have been repaired oft seen mix of lousy brick facing and cheap siding.

   I think the house above, listed in 1932 as belonging to the Gordon family, is one of the nicer ones.  Still, I don't like the replacement of the screening on the front porch with year-round windows, even with the added porch.  The loss of contrast between the window frames and the support posts causes their inward angle to be lost to the eye and that's one of the nice touches about the house as originally built.  Also, the siding over what appears to be stucco is disappointing.  Still, it's a nice house, a nice house.


             
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Lost West New Brighton

Sorry my only posts lately haven't been particularly Staten Islandy, but, hey, what can I tell you?
I've written about, and posted about, the lost West New Brighton neighborhood now squatted on by the West Brighton Houses. It was several blocks of homes, a church (the original St. Benedicta), and was served by theaters and stores along Broadway and Castleton Avenue. Nearby where the factories and dockyards where the people made their livings. It must have been something until the City decided packing thousands of people in like ants was a better alternative than small tenements and a vibrant neighborhood.




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Shiloh AME Zion Church, Henderson Avenue between Broadway and Richmond Street (no longer exists) June 29, 1931 - This pretty little wooden church has been long replaced with a larger brick one.




St.Benedicata, northwest corner of Staten and Market Streets, August 7, 1930. The intersection no longer exists.


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St. Benedicata stood on the ground behind the seniors apartments on Broadway.



PS 18, northeast corner of Market Street - March 24, 1930


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This beautiful, ornate structure was torn down and replaced with a fairly generic box of brick and cement a block to the north. The cigar store in the pictures left was where the Broadway senior houses shown above are now located.





North side of Richmond Terrace west of Alaska Street, November 4, 1931


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These two buildings (found at the left of the 1931 picture)are the sole survivors from the five originally shown. I'm sure a featureless brick box (the one on the right) is a much better neighbor that stores with apartments overhead.

An Industrial Bend in Richmond Terrace

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Taking Richmond Terrace westbound heading toward Mariner's Harbor and points beyond, at West New Brighton, right past Broadway, there's a great northward bend in the road. On a low rise on the south side of the road is an old factory building that is the beginning of an industrial and commercial area. Part of me always wondered what that factory made in the sooty days of its youth. Now I know (and you will too), thanks to my new found map friends.

It was the part of the C.W. Hunt Company. According to the NYPL website, the firm were "manufacturers of railway freight cars, coal handling equipment, and related machinery".



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This building appears to have been the boiler house. I assume it's where engine boilers were cast.








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These buildings were all part of the C.W. Hunt Co.'s factory once in a long ago past of red hot iron sparks and clanging machinery and coal dust.