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 Rest of Port Richmond's Churches

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St. Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Church - Richmond Terrace
Seemingly the primary church of Port Richmond's large Mexican population.


View Larger Map Once it had a parish school. I don't have any recollection of it ever being in operation.



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St. Paul's/St. Luke's Lutheran Church - Decker and Catherine - Once the Wasa Lutheran Church, this Swedish congregation changed name over the years and merged with that of St. Paul's Lutheran when it closed in the early seventies. It's where my mother and her family went until she was married. I have her oft mended confirmation Bible on my shelf and one of my aunts is a very active member of this small congregation. It's suffered from the demographic shift of the North Shore like most of the mainline Protestant churches, especially the ones with a strong ethnic component.


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St. Roch's Roman Catholic Church - Port Richmond Avenue



View Larger Map Port Richmond Reformed Church - I've written about this before. It's the oldest congregation on the Island as far as I know. The original building was burned by the British and this one only dates from the eighteenth century. There are very cool seventeenth century headstones in the surrounding churchyard.




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Mar Thoma Church - Faber Street - This new addition to the churches of the neighborhood perfectly reflects the amazing, a pretty cool, changes in the demographics of Staten Island.


View Larger MapTemple Emanu-El - Post Avenue - I think this is the oldest Orthodox Temple on the Island. "The Jewish Community of Staten Island" has some great pictures of the congregation and it's temple. There's an attached school and a light up Star of David on the steeple.






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Faith United Methodist Church - Castleton and Heberton - Faith is one of the results of the Great Methodist Collapse I've mentioned earlier. It's the result of the closing of Kingsley Methodist, Delafield Methodist and their merging with Grace Methodist in Port Richmond located in this beautiful red brick building.




View Larger MapSt. John's Lutheran Church - Jewett Avenue - I don't know anything about this church. I did attend a wedding there 20 years ago but since my church is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and it's a member of the Missouri Synod, it's like the Bloods and Crips. Not very brotherly. It's a pretty red brick building that was once a Methodist church, I think (confirmation later) and has a pretty little cemetery attached.

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Today there are several storefront churches and assorted non-denominational churches in the immediate area. There's also a Pentecostal church and Jehovah Witness Kingdom Hall nearby but for ease I'll say they're in Elm Park and save myself some work.

The Churches of Port Richmond Park

View Larger Map Today: St. Mary's Syrian Orthodox Church

Port Richmond was once one of the two shining commercial areas on the North Shore. Up through the mid-seventies it remained an important shopping and residential district with beautiful stores and homes. Of course all this changed with the advent of Forest Avenue Shoppers Town and later the SI Mall. Eventually the better stores moved out or failed and slowly the neighborhood slipped into an economic downturn that it's never recovered from. As old timers moved out the neighborhood's poverty and crime levels increased. At some point things got even stranger when Port Richmond became the home for all the Mexican immigrants coming to work the lawns and kitchens of the borough.


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St. Mary of the Assumption's Chapel


Still, much of Port Richmond maintains at least a gloss of architectural beauty. Central to the old Port Richmond was the park between Heberton Avenue (part of which was nicknamed 'Doctors' Row') and the churches that surrounded it. Here are some now and then pictures.




View Larger Map Today: St. Philip's Baptist Church

The Churches of Port Richmond Park

View Larger Map St. Mary of the Assumption's Chapel

Port Richmond was once one of the two shining commercial areas on the North Shore. Up through the mid-seventies it remained an important shopping and residential district with beautiful stores and homes. Of course all this changed with the advent of Forest Avenue Shoppers Town and later the SI Mall. Eventually the better stores moved out or failed and slowly the neighborhood slipped into an economic downturn that it's never recovered from. As old timers moved out the neighborhood's poverty and crime levels increased. At some point things got even stranger when Port Richmond became the home for all the Mexican immigrants coming to work the lawns and kitchens of the borough.


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Still, much of Port Richmond maintains at least a gloss of architectural beauty. Central to the old Port Richmond was the park between Heberton Avenue (part of which was nicknamed 'Doctors' Row') and the churches that surrounded it. Here are some now and then pictures.




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