Friday, October 24, 2008

Newspaper: Brooklyn Catholic

I chose the name "Brooklyn Catholic" for this blog for directness and clarity. Now I have learned that a four-page weekly newspaper, the Brooklyn Catholic, was published from February 20, 1869, until the death of an editor in 1871. Source: John K. Sharp, "History of the Diocese of Brooklyn, 1853-1953," 2 vols., Fordham University Press, 1954. On page 240 of Vol. 1, Mr. Sharp says it was Brooklyn's first Catholic paper. Other Manhattan-based papers preceded it.
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Please click on Comments (in green above) for an important note from a reader.




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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Marketing of St. Elias, Greenpoint

Walking around Greenpoint in 2008, I was unaware that I passed close to the site of St. Elias Catholic church at 145 Kent Street. (The church was up for sale then, but it did not sell.)
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Please see this link to Curbed in February, 2012, with photos and narrative.  In October, 2012, I cannot determine the status.

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This link has many comments, some of which explain that the church, once Protestant, was purchased by Catholics of the Byzantine-Ruthenian eparchy of Passaic, probably in the mid-twentieth century.  

Monday, October 20, 2008

St. Mary Star of the Sea



On the east side of Court Street in South Brooklyn or Carroll Gardens is the church of St. Mary Star of the Sea. The mailing address is 467 Court St., Brooklyn NY 11231, telephone 718-625-2270. The parish website is here.
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For decades, the Dominican Sisters staffed the parish school, which closed in 1988. Adjacent to the church is a building which appears to have been the parish school now signed "Blue Feather School." The parish was established in 1853, apparently by Fr. David Bacon, pastor at Assumption. In "Brooklyn by Name," page 70, the authors Leonard Benardo and Jennifer Weiss point out that Al Capone married Mae Coughlin here in 1919.
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Please note the comment (link above photos) which states that the Sisters of Charity taught the girls and the Franciscan Brothers the boys.  Thanks for the correction, June, 2013.


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