St. Benedict, Fulton Street

A reader favored me with an inquiry about St. Benedict, a German national parish which existed for 120 years (1853-1973) on the south side of Fulton Street west of Ralph Avenue.  When the church at 1916 Fulton Street was sold in 1973, it continued as a place of Christian worship, now the Mount Sinai Cathedral.  The parish school on Herkimer Street is now a Head Start Center.  
---
Credit for information: Arcadia Book, "Brooklyn: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle post cards, 1902-1905."
---
A photo of the church that was St. Benedict's appears on the Facebook page of Mt Sinai Cathedral, linked here.  It is an excellent photo and can be enlarged by clicking on it.
---

Above is a view looking north from a train on Atlantic Avenue, taken in January, 2012.  The school faces Herkimer Street. The church faces Fulton Street. Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it.

---
Page 38 of "Diocese of Immigrants" has photos of eight German parishes, but not St. Benedict.
---
The first pastor, Fr. Maurus Ramsauer, was a Benedictine.  

St. Boniface, Duffield Street, Downtown

The website for the Oratory Church of St. Boniface is linked here. The church is at 190 Duffield Street, but the mailing address is 109 Willoughby Street, Brooklyn NY 11201, telephone 718-875-2086. The above photo looks north from the intersection of Duffield and Willoughby Streets.  A complex of large buildings called MetroTech looms north and west of the church. The parish location is truly downtown Brooklyn, with Lawrence Street, Jay Street, and Boro Hall subway stations nearby.

Designed by the prolific architect, Patrick Charles Keely, the church was built in 1872. It is maintained splendidly by the parishioners and the Oratorians. "Sacred Havens of Brooklyn," written by Terri Cook, describes the architecture well.  She points to a German prayer in one of the stained-glass window, as this congregation was formed by German Catholics in the 1850's.s
----
On Easter, 2012, the New York Times featured St. Boniface parish in an article of some length, as linked here.
----
An acquaintance suggested that I look at the video series "City of Churches," produced by Nick Vagas.  I have linked here his outstanding eighteen-minute video of St. Boniface parish.



-----

Annunciation, Williamsburg

These photos were taken in October of 2006. Please read below, as the information may have changed.


Many thanks to the author of the parish website (link here) for posting an informative history of this parish and its recent status. The address of Blessed Virgin Mary of the Annunciation parish is 259 North Fifth Street, Brooklyn NY 11211, at Havemeyer Street, just west of the din of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and very close to Metropolitan Avenue. The diocesan website in July, 2009, provides no phone number, so one might search through the above parish link.
-----
My interest in this parish came when a distant relative said her uncle, son of German immigrants, was baptized here in the 1890's. This parish was originally German. It became Lithuanian in 1914, and it remains a Lithuanian center that also welcomes the congregation of a Mass in Spanish. There is no resident priest. According to the AIA Guide, the present church was built in 1870 by the architect F. J. Berlenbach. The guide gives the shape was "basilica," that is a rectangular hall, Roman court house style, with Lombardian Romanesque designs. In the above photo, one can see a Lithuanian cross.
----
The 1889 convent on Havemeyer Street is a condominium. The Dominican Sisters of Amityville (and from Regensburg, Bavaria, in the mid-1800's) apparently staffed the school for decades. The school closed in 1973.




-----

Holy Family, 14th Street, Park Slope

The parish of Holy Family was established in 1880 for German Catholics, the same year that another Holy Family parish was established on Flatlands Avenue, Canarsie! A third Holy Family parish was established for Slovaks in 1905 in Greenpoint. The parish school here closed in 1978. The church in the photo was built in 1928.






Please click on the word Comments above the photo for interesting memories.
-----
Holy Family parish, 14th Street, has been merged with that of St. Thomas Aquinas, 9th Street, under one pastor. The website for the merged parish is linked here and a parish blog is linked here. Neither location offers a parish elementary school. It seems that Mass is offered at Holy Family once a week, 9 a.m. Sundays.