The Churches of New York XLVI: Losses 5

(Centro Maria – St. Ambrose parish)

We have seen that the roster of New York City parishes has not been static. In earlier ages however, when a particular parish found that its congregation had vanished or that it was in the path of the construction of a bridge, tunnel, road or housing developments alternate uses and alternate sites were sought. The most common instance of the former is the redeployment of a parish – whether originally “ethnic” or not – as a new national parish. The reverse development is also not infrequent: St. Jean Baptiste, for example, was originally an ethnic (French Canadian) parish that became a “general-purpose” parish (if I may employ such a term).

A curious subset of such redeployments is the transformation of a parish into a religious institution. There is the instance of the mysterious, once socially prominent parish of St Leo on East 28th Street, carved out of St Stephen’s parish in 1880 (for political reasons relating to Fr. McGlynn, pastor of the latter church?). 1) In 1909, after the death of its first and only pastor, the parish was folded back into St Stephen’s. In 1910 the church and rectory of St. Leo’s were given to an order of nuns (Sisters of Mary Reparatrix) fleeing the anticlerical laws in France. In 1984 the convent was closed and the buildings razed. 2)

The interior(above) and exterior(below) of St. Leo parish. 3)

Many years later yet another parish was founded not too far to the north of the old site of St. Leo’s – Our Saviour’s.

But a similar example survives to the present day: “Centro Maria” formerly the parish of St Ambrose. This parish, located at 539 West 54th street, was established in 1897 in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. Its current edifice was begun in 1911. This church is also remarkable because the structure is a combined church, rectory and school. We have seen that parishes not infrequently built their school before attempting a magnificent church (for example, St. Gregory the Great in New York). In other cases, however, a multipurpose building was contemplated from the beginning (for example, St Stephen of Hungary in Yorkville). And so it was with St. Ambrose. The church, rectory and school were all contained within in the same rectangular structure. 4)

The two cornerstones of the buildings of old St. Ambrose parish (above and below)

The whole edifice still makes a handsome appearance on West 54th Street with its impressive late Gothic arch and small statue of St Ambrose. I cannot say anything about the state of the interior, however, for the nuns refuse to allow visitors (well, at least this visitor) to the chapel – the former parish church.

When the present parish complex was being completed, St. Ambrose seemed to be relatively large parish of over 3500 with a flourishing parochial school. 5) But by the late thirties all that had changed. St Ambrose fell under the administration of Sacred Heart parish. How did this come about? It seems a strange turn of events at that the time for a parish that did not serve some small ethnic group or had (apparently) not been undermined by transportation projects in its neighborhood. We suspect that the rapid and complete commercialization of the far west side of Manhattan was the culprit. Shortly thereafter, in 1938, St Ambrose was closed and converted into a home for young women studying or working in New York. As Centro Maria, it retains that function even today under the administration of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate. So while the parish was lost, the Catholic identity and dedication of the edifice was preserved. It is a better fate than many of St. Ambrose’s sister parishes have endured.

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Leo’s_Church_(New_York_City)

2. The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Vol 3 at 343 (Catholic Editing Company, New York 1914)

3. http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/MaryReparatrix.html

4. The Catholic Church, Op.cit at 311.

5. id.