| The Destruction of St. Brigid’s
 As we go to press, the future of St. Brigid’s Church hangs in the
balance. On August 24, parishioners and supporters in favor of saving
St. Brigid’s received a morale booster when Judge Barbara Kapnick
granted a temporary restraining order on any further demolition of the
East Village, New York, church while she deliberated on the evidence.
The Gothic-style church was designed by Tipperary man Patrick Keely, who
moved to New York when he was 25 and went on to have a long and
distinguished career as an architect. The cornerstone was laid in
September 1848 and the church was completed 15 months later, the work
carried out by Irish craftsmen who had fled famine in Ireland. The
church became a refuge for prayer and solace for Irish immigrants in the
New World. Its wealth of history and significance to the community seems
to have been lost on the archdiocese, which closed the parish in 2004
and wish to demolish the building. They argue that it is structurally
unsafe and estimate that it would cost over $7 million to repair, saying
that in particular, the east wall needs to be completely replaced.
However, a report by an independent structural engineer estimated repair
costs at $323,000. “This could [now] be a lot more due to the damage
done by contractors,” committee member Jerome O’Connor told Irish
America. Crews moved in and began to break down the church, destroying
the historic stained-glass windows (pictured above) and smashing an
eight-foot-hole in the east wall. The crew then proceeded to haul the
pews onto the street and destroy them in front of distraught
parishioners.
A legal battle has ensued, and one of the core issues is the validity of
the demolition permit. St. Brigid’s Church is property of the parish,
and any permit application should have been made by the parish board.
The board is made up of the cardinal, the vicar general, the parish
pastor and two members of the parish. The parish board did not apply for
the demolition permit, a representative of the archdioceses did. There
has been no pastor in the now defunct parish for several years. The
Manhattan Borough Commissioner put a hold on the permit, but on July 18
the permit was granted by the Citywide Commissioner Barbara Lancashire,
as a parish board meeting had convened the same day to rubber-stamp the
application. Since there was no pastor, a canonical administrator stood
in and two parish members, whose names the archdiocese refuse to
divulge, convened. The parishioners’ legal team is arguing that the
original application was illegal, as the archdiocese representative had
no right to apply for a demolition permit on a building it did not own.
The human element in this case cannot be overestimated. Parishioners who
baptized their children, married their loved ones and held funerals for
their dead at St. Brigid’s are loath to see the spiritual focal point of
their lives razed to the ground. Committee member Peter Harding
underlined the historic importance of the church. “It’s heartbreaking.
The church is a unique coming together of Famine people who all settled
in what was at the time a shipbuilding area. This church is not a
memorial to the famine people, it is their work.”
– By Declan O’Kelly |
