Christ Jesus Our Hope

The bishop of Brooklyn has announced a procedure for determining which parishes will close.  As of February 15, 2014, the link is broken.





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Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Williamsburg

The mailing address of the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is 275 North Eighth St., Brooklyn NY 11211, telephone 718-384-0223. For the informative parish website, click here, and peruse the menu items. For the renowned parish feast each July, click here.

Above is the intersection of Havemeyer St. and North 8th St. About fifty years ago, the older church was in the way of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. In a sense, Robert Moses paid for the new church.
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On the parish website, please notice the Saints Chapel.  I was unable to count the devotions to Mary (under many titles) and the saints.
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Architects did not consider the difficulty some people have climbing steps, as I observed before Mass 3.27.2010.

The size of the parish might be judged by the number of Masses scheduled on weekends.  In August, 2016, it is four in English, one in Italian, plus two at the nearby Church of the Annunciation: one in Lithuanian, and one in Spanish. 

Above is the former parish school at 10 Withers Street. Catholic elementary education is now provided at Queen of the Rosary Catholic Academy, 11 Catherine Street.  Clicking on any photo will enlarge it. 
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Two of the above photos show a new, taller building on Union Avenue behind the church and school. This is a rather typical view of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in 2010. Among houses of two or three stories are higher modern condos, perhaps not yet fully sold. One encounters these structures on all shapes of tracts, small or large, buildings of three centuries in a block.
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On February 16, 2019, the Tablet reported that Msgr. Jamie Gigantiello is pastor of the MERGED parishes of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Annunciation. The merger will be celebrated at an 11 a.m. Mass at Annunciation on March 24, 2019.



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Our Lady of Consolation, Williamsburg

The mailing address of Our Lady of Consolation parish is 184 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11211, telephone 718-388-1942. The church is on the south side of Metropolitan Avenue, between Berry St. and Bedford Ave., Williamsburg or Northside. Metropolitan Avenue replaces North 2nd Street. The parish website is linked HERE.
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The parish is staffed by Polish Salesians of Don Bosco, S.D.S. A third of the worship services seem to be in English, two-thirds in Polish.

The Saturday afternoon I stopped by this church, the vestibule was open for prayers at a painting of Our Lady, presumably under the title Our Lady of Consolation. The church itself was locked. Regarding the above schedule, please check the website instead.  The photo is several years old.




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Holy Ghost, Williamsburg

Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic church is located at 160 North Fifth Street, Brooklyn NY 11211, telephone 718-782-9592. It belongs to the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Stamford.

The church is on the south side of North Fifth Street east of Bedford Avenue.

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Sts. Peter and Paul, Williamsburg

Update in June, 2021. Please see the dedication of a church at 288 Berry Street. [url]https://thetablet.org/saints-peter-and-paul-parish-celebrate-new-church-in-historic-building/[/url]

The mailing address of the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul is 71 South Third St., Brooklyn NY 11211, telephone 718-388-9576. The church, pictured above and constructed in 1963, at 82 South Second Street between Berry St. and Wythe Avenue, will be closed April 3, 2016. Please take note of this decree from the bishop concerning the church building.  A news story in the Tablet (linked HERE), explains how parts of a former school will ultimately be rebuilt for worship.  Please check the dialogue in the comments below!

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The above photo and the two photos below were taken in 2010.   
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To the left of the church is a convent of the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara. This link describes their work. They, with the initials S.S.V.M., are connected to the group of I.V.E. priests from Argentina working in East New York parishes.
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Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it.

The pastor and staff serve a merged parish. This church is a few blocks north of the Williamsburg Bridge. Epiphany is a few blocks south of the Williamsburg Bridge. The website of the merged parish is lined HERE.

The parish, founded in 1844, was one of the first Catholic parishes in Williamsburg. From 1848 to 1957 this parish was graced with architect Patrick Keely's first church. Above is the 1963 church that will soon close.  Below is the building in which a church will be constructed.

This is the former parish school on Berry Street.

Sister Helen Patrick Howley, a Brentwood Josephite, was principal of the parish school. For a brief and inspiring biography, please scroll down on this link.

Above: the rectory at 71 South Third St.
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(Edit of 1.11.2017:) Because of inquiry in the comments below, "Where was the original church?" I refer the reader to this link.  On an aerial photo collection of the entire city taken in 1924, the church appears to be on the east side of Wythe Avenue between South 2nd Street and South 3rd Street.




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Transfiguration, Marcy Ave., Williamsburg

The mailing address of Transfiguration parish is 263 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11211,telephone 718-388-8773.  The home page of a new website is linked HERE.  The church is located at Marcy Avenue and Hooper Street, only two blocks south of the Hewes Street station of the J elevated train.

A correspondent has inquired which windows in the church are Tiffany windows.  He recently sent me a list that probably dates from 1910: Four Evangelists, St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, St. Mary Magdalene, Madonna and child, St. Dominic, Sts. Peter and Paul, ornamental windows and gable and porch lights.   I took the above photo before I learned about the possible Tiffany source.  Would anyone be able to identify the above windows or verify that the listed windows are currently in the church?  Please email the inquirer at wab104(at)hotmail.com    Thank you.

The window in the north transept depicts the Transfiguration.  It is probably not a Tiffany.

The above photo was taken in 2010, and schedules may have changed.

Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it. Bryan Karvelis, a deceased pastor, is commemorated on the street sign. See the link here for more information. A description of the church organ is here.

Transfiguration parish was founded in 1874, and 1889 is the date on the church cornerstone.

The parish school closed in 2005. Nearby on Marcy Avenue is a large public school now an academy for Satmar Hasidim.


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St. Agatha, Sunset Park

St. Agatha's church is on the northeast corner of 48th Street and Seventh Avenue in the Sunset Park neighborhood. The parish address is 702 48th Street, Brooklyn NY 11220, telephone 718-439-1080. The parish website is linked HERE.

The parish school is located at 736 48th Street, Brooklyn NY, telephone 718-435-3137. The websites are linked here and here. As of 2.7.2017, the school website makes no mention of this unwelcome story of possible closure of the school.

Clicking on any photo will enlarge it.

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On August 4, 2013, someone inquired of this editor when the school year begins.  I do not know the answer, and it is probably best for the inquirer to phone the school office at 718-435-3137.

St. Catharine of Alexandria, Boro Park

St. Catharine of Alexandria Church is at Fort Hamilton Parkway and 41st Street in Boro Park. The mailing address is 1119 41st Street, Brooklyn NY 11218, telephone 718-436-5917. Clicking on any photo will enlarge it (to read the Mass schedule, for example).

The Lourdes grotto, above, is shown in a photograph taken through a fence separating this garden from Fort Hamilton Parkway.

Across the street is the older of two parish school buildings. There is no longer a parish school.

In the above photo, the rectory can be seen on 41st Street, to the right.

In the above photo, looking east on 41st Street, is the newer former parish school, now used by two public high schools. Its cross is covered. The adjacent building is a convent, then the church across Fort Hamilton Parkway. A contemporary description of Boro Park is given on Wikipedia here.


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A September 2, 2019, article in Brooklyn Paper describes the demolishing of the school facing the church on Fort Hamilton Parkway. The city School Construction Authority may get this and adjacent parish property. Link HERE.

Our Lady of Peace, Gowanus

Our Lady of Peace parish is at 522 Carroll Street, Brooklyn NY 11215-1030, telephone 718-624-5122, west of Fourth Avenue and near the Union St. station of the R train.  It seems that the Immaculate Conception Province of Franciscans, O.F.M., serve the parish.

The parish school is now occupied by PS 372, The Children's School. Note the two flags, two crosses.

Above, the Franciscan monastery and the church are on the south side of Carroll Street. The cornerstone of the church is marked 1904.

The official international website of the Neocatechumenal Way is linked here.
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If you have not done so yet, you may want to view the Comments link above the first photo.  One inquiry is for photos from the 1930's.  Google's Blogger or Blogpost hides the email addresses on most profiles, so communication can be difficult.  For photo searches, I suggest trying the Image search on Google, Bing, or Flickr.  The Brooklyn Public Library has a rather good (but not all-inclusive) photo catalog search tool linked here.