The West Brighton Projects Project: Part One - west side of State Street between Market and West Union Streets

While I haven't finished the Stapleton Projects Project yet, I was inspired to start this second Projects Project by a picture posted on Facebook the other day. It was of mass being celebrated in the old St. Benedicta Roman Catholic Church, one of the casualties of the construction of the West Brighton Projects in the early sixties.

I'm swiping the picture, but I highly recommend following this link to the original posting at FB. The poster and several commenters provide some valuable information about the lost neighborhood and the church.

Mass at St. Benedicta

original St. Benedicata ca. 1940 - corner of State and Market Streets

The part of West New Brighton destroyed was smaller than that which was razed in Stapleton. The residences were smaller, and so far, I haven't come across too many big multi-family buildings like in Stapleton. There isn't the commercial-residential mix here either as in Stapleton. The stores appear to have been mostly found out on Castleton Avenue and Broadway.

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.