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

The Methodist Churches: Part 2

Here's the second installment of North Shore Staten Island Methodist churches. Since the previous posting, I've already learned significant new information regarding these and the previously posted churches. I've also successfully contacted the archivist for this region of United Methodist church and been directed to several major sources of information. As usual, the SI Advance has also been a good source of information. I so wish they would digitize their entire print run. There's so much valuable information in the pages of our local paper but it's difficult to extract. Maybe one day.

Dickinson Methodist Church

Dickinson Methodist started as a chapel on the property originally owned by the Decker family. When the land was sold for the construction of P.S. 3, the congregation set out to build a new house of worship. They held services in the school house for a few years, but eventually moved to a building constructed on Victory Boulevard in 1871. According to A.Y. Hubbell's History of Methodism and the Methodist Churches of Staten Island, the original chapel was sold to a Lutheran congregation.

According to this SI Advance article, Dickinson Methodist closed down and its congregation merged with Christ United Methodist in Graniteville in 1974. Today the building is owned by the non-denominational Staten Island Christian Church.

Graniteville Methodist Church

Graniteville Methodist was founded in 1910 and in 1914 they bought this building on Willowbrook Road. According to Leng and Davis it had originally been a Baptist church. I don't have much information about it at this point other than it closed in 1958 and merged with Holy Trinity Methodist Church on Forest Avenue. The combined congregations were first called Holy Trinity Graniteville Methodist Church, but in 1960 took the name Christ Methodist Church. Today it's called Christ United Methodist Church.

Christ United Methodist Church

The most important thing I've learned in the past week regarding the North Shore's Methodist churches is the origin of Christ United. I put up pictures of the Italian Mission church on Harbor Road and theorized it faded away and its member shifted to Summerfield, also on Harbor Road.

The truth is very different. According to this article in the Advance, the Italian Mission was founded in 1919 by the Rev. Sante Buzzalini. In 1932 the church shown above was built from diabase rock taken from the quarry right next door (now Graniteville Quarry Park) on Forest Avenue.

Faith United Methodist Church

west facing and north facing sides of the steeple

Again, drawing on Leng and Davis, I learned that the congregation that built this church was originally called the North Shore Free Methodist Episcopal Church. It was organized in 1867 and built their church on this location. In 1895 it caught fire and a new church had to be built - this one.

In 1966, Methodism, facing a bit of a crisis on the North Shore, handled it by merging Kingsley, Trinity, and Grace churches. The new unified church was called Faith United. A good description of how this was done can be read here on the church's website.

The Methodist Churches: Part 1

I've written before about what I call "the Great Collapse" of the Methodist denomination of the late sixties and early seventies. Several churches, some of them with quite long histories, closed and consolidated with other congregations. I put it down to changing demographics. The Wasp middle-class Islanders who attended these churches were fleeing to New Jersey and other distant regions. I've tried reaching out the archivist for the Methodist church, but with no luck so far. I'm going to have to give it another try if I'm going to get a better understanding of just what happened all those years ago. 

Asbury Methodist Church - Richmond Avenue

In 1771, at the age of 26, Francis Asbury volunteered to bring Methodist teachings to America. He preached his first sermon in the colonies at the Methodist congregation in Woodrow, Staten Island. Eventually he became the leader of the Methodist church in America. On a regular basis, he preached on Staten Island, for over forty years. Asbury Methodist Church was founded in 1804. The present building, now home to SonRise Faith Church, was built in 1849. It has seen several major renovations over its 160+ years. Originally, it didn't have a bell tower, for example. The Advance did a short piece on it a few years back you can read here.

According to Leng and Davis, Asbury Church was founded in 1802. For decades it was the only Methodist church on the North Shore. I don't know what year Asbury disbanded and I don't know specifically which, if any, congregation it merged with. As the project progresses I'll, I hope, find out.

Italian Methodist Mission - Harbor Road

I don't know anything about this, other than mission churches to immigrant groups were standard for mainline denominations back in the day. Olivet Presbyterian started life as an Italian mission established by Calvary Presbyterian and I've written about the Italian Episcopalian church on Jewett Avenue. I'd guess that at some point the church closed and any remaining Italian congregants joined Summerfield Methodist Church just a few blocks up Harbor towards the Terrace. Today, it's part of Pentecostal Tabernacle

Summerfield Methodist Church - Harbor Road

Summerfield was founded in 1839 so the Methodists of Mariner's Harbor didn't have to travel all the way to New Springville anymore. This building went up in 1869. Of all today's churches, it's the only one still a Methodist church.

Kingsley Methodist Church - Cebra Avenue

Incorporated originally as the Tompkinsville Methodist Church, this building was built in 1855. Enlarged in 1870, it became known as Kingsley Methodist. It closed in 1967. Since then it has been a private residence, a non-denominational church, and a Mormon center.

Trinity Methodist Church - Delafield Avenue

The roots of the congregation of Trinity Methodist Church went back to 1837. This beautiful church was built in 1912 after the previous building, erected in 1869, burnt down in 1909. The Methodist congregation, once huge, was disbanded in 1970, its members joining other congregations. For the next 35 years it housed Congregation Agudath Achim Anshe Chesed, which had previously been located on Jersey Street.

Sadly, this building was lost to fire in November, 2015. The Advance, once again, has a good article on the church and its history.