(Please click on the green word "comments" below for some memories.)In the above photo at sundown, Mermaid Avenue runs from left to right in the foreground. Our Lady of Solace church is on the northwest corner of Mermaid Avenue and West 17th Street.
The mailing address for Our Lady of Solace parish is 2866 West 17th Street, Brooklyn NY 11224, telephone 718-266-1612. This parish, founded in 1900, is the sole Catholic parish on the peninsula called Coney Island. By good fortune, the location has become central to transportation. West 17th Street is a continuation of Cropsey Avenue, with its exits from the Belt Parkway. Two blocks east is the Stillwell Avenue terminal of four subway routes (B. D. F. N) and and a maze of bus routes. One block south of the church is Keyspan Park, a resplendent minor league stadium. A further block south is the boardwalk and beach.------
The parish's excellent, well-developed website is linked here. Note especially the history page. At present, three Vocationist Fathers, S.D.V., serve the parish.
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The former parish elementary school on West 19th Street is now rented or sold to the Board of Education as a high school for transfer students, Liberation Diploma Plus. For many years before the parish school closed, the Dominican Sisters taught there.
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The numbered streets of Brooklyn do not resemble those of Manhattan, where east and west designate ends of the same street. In Brooklyn, the prefix is important. All the numbered streets prefixed "West" are in Coney Island. "East" numbered streets are in East Flatbush. "Bay" numbered streets are in Bensonhurst and Bath Beach. "Beach" numbered streets are in Rockaway, Queens.
