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

Quick Churches for a Thawing Friday

Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church on the corner of Elizabeth and Delafield - another victim of the Great Methodist Collapse of the late 60's. I first saw this church in 1995 when I started driving (yes, I learned to drive very late and some, like the luminous Mrs. V., would tell you I've never really learned) and it blew me away. It's a gorgeous old neo-gothic building in the center of narrow, tree lined residential streets. At one time it must a have been a true community church. There's no place to park and if Methodists moved away (which I presume is what happened) then who's coming by bus?

At the time it was operated as a yeshiva but even that's passed on. The building's marked with the deadly FDNY "don't save" boxed X symbols now. Very sad.


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I'll have to get some actual photos someday. The googlemap picture is totally overgrown.









Calvary Presbyterian - corner of Castleton and Bement.

A beautiful church and a fading congregation. There must have been one big Scots Irish concentration for both Calvary and nearby Olivet Presbyterian (Broadway and Myrtle) to have existed so close together.


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It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as of 2002.