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

North Shore House of Worship Project

Kingsley Methodist and parsonage

My original impetus for blogging about the North Shore of Staten Island was to complete something I called "the Church Project." Fascinated by the rise and fall of communities, the changing demographics of Staten Island over the last century or two, and the persistence of congregations despite surrounding changes, I planned to investigate and chronicle the history of the churches of the Island's North Shore. Where it occurred, I'd look into how buildings transferred from one denomination to another in the light, most often, of demographic changes. 

Kingsley buildings today

As some of the oldest churches are destroyed (i.e. Brighton Heights Reformed and Trinity Methodist), it is also important to document the churches as tangible things, as works of spiritually-inspired art and architecture. I wanted to get as many pictures of as many buildings as possible, particularly the lost ones.

I made a list of all the main worship buildings, past and present, I could think of or document. I put stickers on a map to get some sort of impression of where old ethnic or religious communities were located. I even reached out to one Episcopal church for information (they never got back to me). It was clear it was going to be a difficult undertaking, so when other elements of Staten Island history caught my eye I let the Church Project drop.

St. John's Lutheran

Now, I've been doing this site for about a decade. It's had it good and bad times, but my time at the CSI SI Archives for the last three years has been exactly what I needed to keep me revved up and excited about this site. So excited it turns out, I'm going to attempt to carry out the Church Project.

I'm going to start small. I'll start with one denomination at a time and see how it goes. I'm debating whether to do the Dutch Reformed Church or the Methodist Church first. The former is smaller, with fewer congregations, and its main archives are only in New Brunswick. It's also the church my dad grew up in.

The Methodist Church was bigger on Staten Island, at least through the sixties, and more intriguing. Something happened about fifty years ago and numerous congregations closed and merged with others. From seven churches it shrank to the three that exist today: Faith United, Christ United, and Summerfield, all concentrated in the NW corner of the Island. I'd love to learn what precipitated such a drastic change. The Methodist investigation, though, might be much tougher, so I'm still deciding.

St. John's today

I'm writing about this because I want your help. If you have any information about the archives or histories of any North Shore churches or synagogues, please let me know. I'm especially interested in buildings that have been permanently closed or destroyed. I want pictures, any pictures, but I also want documents discussing the conversations the congregants were having as believers and as members of an organization. I want to know what they were doing for mutual self-help and for their communities. Did community extend beyond fellow worshippers or out into the streets and homes beyond? At this early stage, any help will be greatly appreciated. At the very least, it will help me start focusing on exactly how I want this project to proceed.

For my purposes, the North Shore includes everything north of Victory Blvd. and the Expressway. I'm including the churches along Richmond Avenue opposite Willowbrook Park because several of them figure directly into the history of others further north. 

Lutheran Churches

Trinity - St. Paul's Ave. and Beach Street

Our Savior - Bard and Forest Avenues (originally Nicholas Ave.)

St. Paul/St. Luke  - Decker and Catherine (originally Wasa Lutheran)

St. Paul  - Cary Avenue - defunct, merged with Wasa

Zion - Watchogue Rd - originally Park Ave and before that Avenue B
Immanuel - Richmond Avenue
German Church - York Avenue - split from Trinity and closed ca. 1930

St. John's - Jewett and Post - LCMS

Bethany - Westcott - Lutheran Brethren

St. Olaf's - defunct, bottom of Hendricks - I don't know if this was actually Lutheran, but as it was Norwegian it's possible.

Methodist Churches

Faith United - Heberton and Castleton Avenues

Christ United - Forest Avenue in Graniteville

Summerfield - Harbor Road

Asbury - Richmond Road - defunct, presently SonRise Faith Church

Willowbrook Road (I don't even know the name of this church, or now that I think about it, that it was even Methodist. Maybe it's something I read once) - defunct, presently occupied by Iglesia Pentecostal Rehoboth

Kingsley - foot of Cebra Avenue, defunct

Trinity - defunct, Delafield and Elizabeth - burned down recently
Italian Mission - disbanded, Harbor Road