For more than 160 years, St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church has borne
witness as transformation after transformation has cascaded through the
Lower East Side.
Worshipers at the dedication of the renovated church, which was founded in the 1840s.
Yet conflict, drama and wrenching change occurred within its walls, too.
In the church founded by Irish immigrants who fled the famine of the
1840s, the pews were in turn occupied by Poles, Ukrainians and Puerto
Ricans.
The church played a role in the clashes in nearby Tompkins
Square Park in the late 1980s and in this century was nearly demolished
itself before a mystery donor stepped forward with millions of dollars
to rescue it.
On Sunday, worshipers, including descendants of some of the original
Irish parishioners, gathered as Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan consecrated
and dedicated the newly renovated building. After 12 years and nearly
$15 million, the church, on Avenue B and Eighth Street, was once again a
parish church.
“You don’t believe in miracles, and then something like that happens,”
said Peter Quinn, an author whose grandparents were married at St.
Brigid’s in 1899. “It seemed so hopeless.”
From the altar, Cardinal Dolan praised his predecessor, Cardinal Edward
M. Egan, who also took part in the Mass, for making the decision to
restore the church.
“It was your dream, your trust, your daring at a time when so many
dioceses were cutting back and closing,” he said. “You wanted something
brand-spanking new.”
But in 2001, the parishioners and the Archdiocese of New York were on
opposite sides when the archdiocese announced that it would close the
church because of structural defects.
“The back wall was literally pulling away from the rest of the
building,” said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese. “The
back wall was six inches from the floor and walls. We had engineers in
there who said: ‘Literally, the roof can fall at any moment. You cannot
have people in this church.’ ”
Masses were moved to the church school. Parishioners formed a committee
to restore the building, which was built in 1848, and raised about
$100,000 of what they believed was the $300,000 cost.
“A ridiculous number, which I think was made up,” Mr. Zwilling said of
that estimate, adding that the archdiocese’s estimate was closer to $8
million.
Then one day in 2006, demolition crews arrived. A painted glass window
was smashed, pews were removed and an eight-foot-by-eight-foot hole was
punched through a wall.
“We had to change the Committee to Restore St. Brigid to the Committee
to Save St. Brigid,” said Edwin Torres, the committee’s leader.
Mr. Torres said parishioners felt that the archdiocese had strung the
congregation along, letting it raise money knowing all along that a
wrecking crew was coming: “I kept thinking: If we lived on Park Avenue
or Madison Avenue, they would not be treating us like this.”
Mr. Zwilling insists that the archdiocese had no choice but to close the
church, because the price tag to keep it open was too steep. With 375
parishes, he added, the archdiocese simply could not pour so much of its
resources into one.
Undaunted, the committee hired lawyers and went to court, where it lost.
Then in 2008, the anonymous donor appeared and offered $20 million to
restore St. Brigid and start a fund to help the parish school.
“We had lost at every step of the way, and now we’re going to the 5 p.m.
Mass,” said Marisa Marinelli, a lawyer who handled the case on a pro
bono basis. “Usually when you lose, you lose. We lost, but in the
process kept the church standing.”
The archdiocese hired Michael F. Doyle of the Acheson Doyle Partners
architecture firm to supervise the renovations. He said he found
daunting structural problems.
He explained that St. Brigid’s, like much the rest of the neighborhood,
was built on marshland, and with each flood over the years, the wood
pilings it stood on had deteriorated.
“We had to underpin the entire church,” he said.
“The architecture and engineering that went into it is mind-boggling.
People say: ‘How could you spend $15 million?’ We had to do all that
work, otherwise it would have come down.”
The pews were replaced and the exterior restored to resemble the
original brownstone.
Stained glass windows were brought from St. Thomas
the Apostle Church in Harlem, which closed in 2003.
Mr. Doyle also restored an elaborate inscription along the top of the
east wall that had been painted over in the 1960s, although there was
not enough money to put the original bell back in the tower.
The parish has been merged with St. Emeric’s nearby, and the parish and
the church are now known as St. Brigid and St. Emeric.
“It’s so gorgeous, I hardly recognize it,” said Sister Theresa Gravino,
who taught at St. Brigid’s school from 1955 to 1959 and had not seen the
church in half a century.
“It was Puerto Rican and Polish children who
were very poor, whose parents sacrificed a lot to send them here. There
was something special here, something they felt willing to donate money
to fix.”