St. Gregory the Great, 138 West 90th Street
A visitor to the parish of St. Gregory approaches on a pleasant side street of the Upper West Side. Before him stands a typical parochial school like so many others dating from around 1900 to 1939 – four stories, all red brick and white stone facing. It may take a second before he realizes something is missing. There is no church. For where the parish worships is the first floor of the parochial school. The rectory is on the fourth floor.
Now in this day and age this must seem very strange. For nowadays it is the parochial schools that seem the expendable element. Famous parochial schools in Manhattan – like St. Peter’s and St. Ann’s – had been closed as early as 1940 when the surrounding area had become commercial. And capping an unending string of closures of the last few decades was the demise earlier this year of the schools of such ancient parishes as Old St Patrick’s cathedral and St. James. In Brooklyn the recent wave of closures has been even more dramatic.
But in an earlier age (say before 1962) it was often the other way around. For, from the time of Archbishop Hughes, the parochial school was the key means of preserving the faith. It was not at all uncommon for situations like St Gregory’s to exist; first build the school, and then, when resources permitted, a magnificent church. So to mention just one well known example from Brooklyn, the prominent parish of St. Anselm in Bay Ridge opened its school in the 1927 but built its church only in the 1950’s. In such cases mass would be celebrated in the gymnasium or school hall. (In the “good old days,” given the magnitude of the Sunday congregations that had to be accommodated, that practice might continue even after the erection of the parish church!).
St. Gregory the Great parish was erected in 1907. The parish school, built in 1913, also housed the church (it was thought only temporarily). (1) The church, as a “worship space,” is unique; a long low-ceilinged space encircled a band of stained glass windows and frescos all around the walls. If the proportions of certain furnishings seem a bit odd it may be because some of the decorative elements are alleged to have been salvaged from other demolished sanctuaries. Indeed, some of the glass and paintings are both unusual in subject matter and of a very high quality. Does a beautiful series of windows on the miracles of Christ come from the chapel of a hospital? Traditionalists should also consider paying a visit just to see the frescoes, painted (by a priest of St. Gregory’s) in the 1920’s and 30’s , on the life of St. Gregory the Great – the main codifier of the Traditional liturgy and music. (2)
Now the second pastor, Father William Hughes, was a very interesting character indeed. He installed the rectory on the fourth floor and launched all kinds of renovations. He also lead a very active social and intellectual apostolate, giving the parish much more notoriety in its day than many of it sisters. The very informative parish website recalls some of the colorful events of that era: the procession of the school children over to the statue of Joan of Arc on Riverside Drive in 1920 to celebrate her canonization that year; the semi – secret marriage of Babe Ruth at St. Gregory’s in 1929 (when each altar boy received an autographed baseball). When Fr. Hughes died in 1929 the parish was left encumbered by debt, as was so often the legacy of activist pastors in New York. (3)
In the mid 1980’s I was privileged to visit the rectory erected by Fr. Hughes on the fourth floor of the school. It was furnished with the most wonderful collection of artifacts mostly in the Spanish colonial style. In the course of time, as might be expected, a legend arose – at least among the clergy of St. Gregory’s: that so much money had been spent on furnishing the rectory that the church could not be built. Later in that decade the contents of the rectory were appraised – it turned out that it was mostly junk….
The council and its aftermath have not left St. Gregory’s sanctuary untouched.
A series of striking windows depicting miracles of Christ.
One of the murals of the life of St. Gregory and a statue of the saint.
A window dedicated to the first pastor of St. Gregory’s – when the parish was prediominantly Irish.
The failure to build a church was probably due to more obvious “demographic” issues (to quote a mantra of the Archdiocese). In the course of time this part of the Upper West Side first became heavily Jewish and later mostly “Hispanic” and very poor. In recent years it is has been steadily developing as an exclusive residential area. It seems that this parish also shared the same ideological conflicts suffered by many other Catholic institutions in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. Through it all St Gregory’s community by heroic efforts has maintained both the parish and the school.
Yes, it may seem strange to have a school but not a church. But shouldn’t there be a great market for Catholic private education in New York City where the public schools have so manifestly failed for decades? But such is not the case. It seems that neither the well-to-do or, increasingly, even the poor find it advantageous or feasible to patronize the parochial schools of the city. The reasons given are various: the disappearance of the female religious orders and their replacement by much higher cost lay staff, “demographic change” etc. But it for me that the real problem is the obscuring of the original purpose of the parochial school – to preserve the faith. Instead, New York Catholic schools seem to be viewed primarily as a kind of poor relief. Indeed, the current house historian for the Archdiocese seems decidedly ambivalent on the whole topic, hinting that Catholics may have taken a wrong turn – away from public education – under Archbishop Hughes. Thus is failure rationalized away… (4)
We do not know what even the near future may bring for St. Gregory’s. But it does impress that St. Gregory’s parish – and its school as an integral component of itssmission – have negotiated so many vicissitudes to survive to our own day. Who knows – given the reborn affluence of the neighborhood, maybe the church building so long denied this parish will finally be born some day.
1) http://www.stgregorymanhattan.com/History_.html
2) http://www.stgregorymanhattan.com/Art.html
3) http://www.stgregorymanhattan.com/History_.html
4) (Fr.) Thomas J. Shelley, The Bicentennial History of the Archdiocese of New York 1808-2008 at 124-125, 211 (Editions du Signe 2007)
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