Crain's Business News reported on 4.22.2026 that a developer has signed a 99-year lease on Our Lady of Pompeii church for $17,000,000. The church is located at 225 Seigel Street in Bushwick. Please see my earlier post describing this church, once a rope factory. Please also note the personal comments below that post. Also, it appears that Our Lady of Pompeii was canonically merged into All Saints parish.
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Apartments atop Guardian Angel on Ocean Parkway
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Our Lady of Solace church on Coney Island is 1.4 miles west of Guardian Angel.
St. Mark's church, Sheepshead Bay, is 2.1 miles east of Guardian Angel.
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I marvel at the five different language groups for Holy Mass: English, Spanish, Polish, Malayalam Indian, and (under a different bishop or eparch of Stamford) Ukrainian. A recent total of weekend collections was $3,729, with the mid-morning Spanish Mass highest. It appears that autumn 2025 will see some changes in Mass schedules. Imagine the few transitional years of construction as the current church is torn down, replaced by a street-level (stepless) church at the base of an apartment house. I have not yet learned the height of the proposed apartment house. The bkmag article says 13-story, but that needs to be translated to feet or meters.
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An article in Newyorkyimby gives the planned height as 125 feet. Link HERE.
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Academy will close in June.
Link HERE.
The school is on the west side of Sixth Avenue between 59th Street and 60th Street. St. Ephrem Catholic Academy is a mile south of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, but this does not help those residing north of OLPH.
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On 9.4.2025, St. Ephrem's annouced it has picked up 65 students from OLPH, raising the enrollment at St. Ephrem to 240.
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Potential Mergers
The November 9, 2024, issue of The Tablet includes on page 8 a news story by Bill Miller, senior reporter, titled Diocese Engages Parishioners in Dialogue over Potential Mergers. I list only the proposed mergers in the borough of Brooklyn.
1) Mary Queen of Heaven in Flatlands and St. Bernard of Clairvaux in Bergen Beach, 1 mile apart. St. Bernard attendance Nov. 3 was 980.
2) St. Brendan in Midwood, Avenue O, and St. Edmund in Sheepshead Bay, Avenue T, 1.3 miles further south. Long blocks caused trolleys to be geared for higher speeds on Ocean Avenue.
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On November 16 & 17, the Mass attendance at St. Brendan was 545. A Catholic mission of the Byzantine Rite (Stamford eparchy) also celebrates the Divine Liturgy in the church. That mission is named Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On November 16 and 15, the collections at the three Masses at St. Edmund totaled $1,719. Many Masses had no stipend. St. Edmund's church is within the school, which runs K-12.
The neighborhoods of the two parishes (St. Brendan, St. Edmund) have about 36% to 39% Jewish households, but I note other mid-Eastern non-Catholic groups there, judging by storefronts along Coney Island Avenue.
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3) St. Bernadette in Dyker Heights and St. Frances Cabrini in Bensonhurst, 0.6 mile apart. At a brief glance, St. Bernadette appears to be the more attended of the two. Also, St. Bernardette has a school with a teaching staff pre-k to 8th grade of about 25.
4) In Sunset Park, St. Michael and St Agatha, 0.9 mile apart. Each parish has a full schedule of Masses, St. Michael in English and Spanish, St. Agatha in Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese?), Spanish, and English).
5) In Bay Ridge, St. Anselm and Our Lady of Angels, 0.7 mile apart. On November 10, St. Anselm had an attendance of 485. The same weekend, Our Lady of Angels had an attendance of 1,079. The parish school, Bay Ridge Catholic Academy, is at St. Anselm. Seats are available in each grade.
6) Mostly accomplished, in Park Slope, St. Augustine and St. Francis Xavier, 0.3 mile apart. Please see the website of the merging parishes https://sasfx.org/
At St. Augustine, the only Mass each week is noon on Sunday. At St. Francis Xavier, there is a 9 a.m. Mass Monday to Thursday, 5 p.m. on Saturday, 9:30 a. m. on Sunday.
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In 2020, the average Mass attendance in the diocese was 124,031, of 1.5 million identified as Catholic. That is 8%.
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The distances given above are church-to-church, but some parishioners may live on the far fringe.
Monday, September 2, 2024
Two prolific school architects
I am writing this post lest I lose the names of two men who designed school buildings in New York. One is James W. Norton, who designed many public schools in the City of Brooklyn between 1879 and 1898, when Brooklyn became merely one borough of five. Please see this article, which describes his work and happens to mention Colored schools and one Catholic school.
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A few years later, Charles B. J. Snyder oversaw the construction of many public schools in the five boroughs, including Wadleigh High School, which my mother attended. He chose mid-block sites, away from the more trafficked avenues. The schools had an H design, providing courtyards and good lighting in each tall classroom.
Friday, June 28, 2024
Friday, May 3, 2024
St. Catherine of Genoa - St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Academy to close
Sad to relate, St. Catherine of Genoa - St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Academy at 4410 Avenue D in East Flatbush will close at the end of this school year, June, 2024.
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