Our Lady of Pompeii leased for 99 years

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. 

Sad news from Bushwick

According to the unofficial Catholic News Agency (EWTN), on Friday, March 27, 2020, St. Brigid's parish, on the Bushwick-Ridgewood border, lost their pastor, Fr.Jorge Ortiz-Garay, to Coronavirus.  Link HERE.
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He was incardinated into the diocese of Brooklyn. According to this article in the official Catholic News Service, he was a naturalized U. S. citizen.

Diocesan press release on school closures

The Diocese of Brooklyn has posted a press release explaining the closures and mergers of Catholic Academies this week. The link to the press release dated February 8, 2019, is HERE. 
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Structural problems with the school building on Suydam Street have forced the merger of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Academy into St. Brigid's Catholic Academy one mile east.
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Also in Brooklyn, Mary Queen of Heaven Catholic Academy (Old Mill Basin) and Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Academy (Dyker Heights) will close.

St. Barbara, Bushwick

The mailing address of the parish of St. Barbara is 138 Bleeker St., Brooklyn NY 11221, telephone 718-452-3660. The parish has an excellent new (2016) website, linked HERE.
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Leonard Eppig, a brewer, it is said, had a daughter Barbara and son Leonard. He was born in 1839 and before he died in 1893, he was a benefactor in establishing two parishes.  About 1905-1910, his family gave generously to the construction of St. Barbara's church and nearby St. Leonard's. Far more important to me, however, is that my mother-in-law was baptized in this parish, her wedding to Bob was here in 1930, and my wife and her aunts also received Baptism here. I think Eppig and his generation called this neighborhood Bushwick, but many call it Ridgewood.

The school, long staffed by the Dominican Sisters of Amityville, closed in 1973, during an era when the people of Bushwick suffered from fires deliberately set in residences. Much has been rebuilt since, and the parish remains an active help in the community.
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The above photo and text is copied from my original post in 2008. The web newspaper Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 12.14.2016 has run an article "St. Barbara's Roman Catholic Church in Bushwick Gets Landmarked," linked HERE.
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The unanimous vote means that the Landmarks Preservation Committee must approve before the church is demolished or the exterior changed.  The article informs us that the architect was Frank Helmle (1869-1939). The style could be called neo-Plateresque or Spanish Mission Revival.  (That contradicts my assumption that the style was Bavarian or Austrian.)  I frequently look from the J train to see its 175-foot towers.

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For other buildings designed by Frank J. Helmle, please see The Brownstoner HERE.  He designed St. Gregory the Great church.

Our Lady of Good Counsel, Putnam Ave.

The parish of Our Lady of Good Counsel is located at 915 Putnam Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11221, telephone 718-455-6864 The bishop has merged this parish with that of St. John the Baptist, a mile away on Lewis Avenue, and one pastor serves both churches. 

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The website of the combined parishes is linked here.  St. John the Baptist's phone number is 718-455-6864.

Along the north side of Putnam Avenue is the church, a garden (with a statue of Mary and an Ankh) and the parish office.  Behind the garden can be seen a parish building that faces Madison Street.

The above photos show the north side of Putnam Avenue.

The photos below show the south side of Madison Street, that is, behind the church.

At 800 Madison Street, a new corridor connects what appears to be two former elementary schools of the parish.  The building to the left (east) shows the date 1893.  I could not find a construction date on the building to the right. Presumably a convent was someplace here. Present use of the building is for some 70 apartments of "single room occupancy" with permanent tenants, possibly under the management of a division of Catholic Charities.

Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it.

The property of this parish lies mid-block between Ralph Avenue and Patchen Avenue, named after Ralph Patchen, a farmer who owned 150 acres closer to the waterfront in the early 1800's.

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Our Lady of Pompeii, Bushwick

Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii Church was located at 225 Seigel St., Brooklyn NY 11206,  For Mass schedules, see the link underlined in the previous sentence.  The Pallottine Order of Priests and Brothers, S.A.C., or Società dell'Apostolato Cattolico, staff this parish. No! In 2026 there is no staff. The property has been leased. See the newer post.

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A decorative plaza faces the church door. An office and instructional rooms are to the left, along Seigel Street. The cornerstone, visible above, is dated 1902. At that time, the parish was almost entirely Italian. The principal languages now seem to be English and Spanish.
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In the distant past, the church was a rope factory, an elongated building needed for the shipping industry.



Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii began in the late 1800's, only a few years before this church was built.



For decades, the neighborhood has been more Latin American than Italian, so it is appropriate that Vincenzo Pallotti is honored with his baptismal name in Spanish. As he lived 1795-1850, he predates the devotion to Our Lady of Pompeii. A brief history of the work he founded is linked here. But who is Herr Seigel?


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St. Martin of Tours, Bushwick

St. Martin of Tours church faces Weirfield Street and Irving Square. Knickerbocker Avenue with the parish school is at the right. Most hours, the church gates are padlocked. The inscription above the pillars reads, "Ecclesia Sancti Martini Turonensis." St. Martin lived from about 316 to 397. Martin was bishop of the diocese of Tours, France. He did not get along well with St. Brice, who succeeded him.

The rectory is at 1288 Hancock Street, Brooklyn, NY 11221, just south of Knickerbocker Avenue. The phone number is 718-443-8484. This parish includes the closed parish of Fourteen Holy Martyrs. The rectory also serves as rectory for the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes. 
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The website of the combined parish is linked here, and it includes the Mass schedule at St. Martin of Tours church and Our Lady of Lourdes chapel.

Above is the former parish school at 751 Knickerbocker Avenue. Some years ago, the school was renamed St. Elizabeth Seton Parish School. In early 2009, Bishop DiMarzio threatened to close the school, but later allowed it to accept new students. The Brooklyn Tablet of 5.5.2010 announced that the school, with an enrollment of 180, would close in June, 2010.
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For years, the Sisters of St. Joseph provided staff for this school.  The above photos are from 2009.

Fourteen Holy Martyrs, Closed

The parish of Fourteen Holy Martyrs was established on Central Avenue, Bushwick, in 1887. After its 1976 merger with the parish of St. Martin of Tours, the property was sold to Pilgrim Church, which continues to use the buildings.
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Many thanks to a graduate of the class of 1962 for sending me a correction. He wrote that the building at the left above is a new parish hall, built in the 1960's to replace an older parish hall. He also explained that the church of Fourteen Holy Martyrs was located on the ground floor of the school, pictured below.
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Many thanks also to a former student, who wrote, "I went to that school starting about 1948.  At that time the church was in the same building as the school.  As the parish got larger, they had to use the other building to hold the overflow.  Both buildings were used as a church.  I don't know when they started to use the second building as a church." 
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The parish was named after a popular Bavarian devotion, that of the Vierzehn Nothelfer. For decades, the Dominican Sisters of Amityville staffed the parish school.

Both views look west on Central Avenue towards Covert Street and a public junior high school. For some years, until about 2002, the Pilgrim Christian Academy educated elementary school children in this building, the former church and parish school. Apparently, the academy has made another attempt to open. One address seems to be 628 Central Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11207.

St. Brigid, Ridgewood

St. Brigid's parish, at St. Nicholas Avenue and Linden Street, Ridgewood or Bushwick, served Catholics a hundred years ago, mainly Irish and German. Frescoes depict Irish saints, but some of the stained glass windows bear German memorial names. At present, the parish celebrates many ancestries with a collection of flags from the Caribbean and Latin America.
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The mailing address of St. Brigid's church is 409 Linden St., Brooklyn NY 11237, telephone 718-821-1690. The parish website is linked HERE.
---St. Brigid Catholic Academy, seen at the right, has the mailing address 438 Grove Street, Brooklyn NY 11237, telephone 718-821-1477.  The school's website is linked here.


Now, in October of  2017, a Queens website has republished a history of St. Brigid that appeared in the Ridgewood Times in 1988. The link is HERE.

Pupsie with Joseph Hone and the baseball team of  St. Brigid. If you can identify the approximate year or name anyone else, please comment below this post!  Thank you.

St. Joseph Patron of the Universal Church, Bushwick

The mailing address of St. Joseph's parish is 185 Suydam St., Brooklyn NY 11221, telephone 718-386-0175. Its website is linked HERE.
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The parish of St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, is known colloquially as St. Joseph, Suydam Street, to distinguish it from other parishes named after St. Joseph. From its 1919 origins, the parish was principally Italian. Now it is administered by the Scalabrini Fathers, an Italian congregation founded to accompany emigrants to their new lands and help them there. In this instance, it is obvious that they now assist new immigrants from Latin America. Many of the Germans, Irish, and Italians of Bushwick have emigrated again, this time to suburbs.
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The school, named St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Academy, is at 181 Suydam St., Brooklyn NY 11221, telephone 748-386-9277. Adjacent to the church on Suydam Street, between Central Avenue and Wilson Avenue, this is north of the Central Avenue station of the M train. For decades, the Dominican Sisters staffed the parish school.
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Unfortunately, on February 8, 2019, the diocese announced that this school would be merged into St. Brigid Catholic Academy a mile east at Grove Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. Please see the official announcement HERE. There seem to be structural problems with the school on Suydam Street.
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NBC has a report HERE.

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Many thanks for the following comment received 6.17.2011:

I tried to leave a comment on your home page, but I was unsuccessful.

I've been searching for quite some time for a web site for St. Joe's and was happy to come across one tonight.

I am not sure if there is a historian or if anyone is interested in stories from years ago. If so, here is a brief family history.

My parents, Salvatore and Rose Marie Lardizzone, married in St. Joe's Church in April of 1950. My brother, sister, and I were baptized there. My brother and I received our Communion and Confirmation at St. Joe's. I attended school there from 1957 to Nov. '62, my brother from '59 to Nov. '62. My parents bought a house in L.I. in '62 and we moved from Evergreen Ave., Brooklyn. My sister was 4 at the time.

One of the nuns would put on an annual show for the Bishop when he visited. One year I was a clown in the chorus (4th grade) and the following year I was a ballerina (5th grade). If I remember correctly the nun's name was Sr. Maria Concetta. My brother & I were cadets and participated in the annual marching competition. There is really only one student I remember. Her name is Edith Ciro. I've tried to locate her on Facebook, but to no avail.

I became a special education teacher 11 years ago.

I am sure the school and parish has been through some changes since the 50s. If there is any information you could share about the school or the nuns, I would love to hear it. Some where in my files I still hold dear my St. Joseph Patron School report cards.

Thank you in advance,

Anna M. (Lardizzone) Kearney

mskearneysped(at)juno(dot)com