New signage for St. Brigid's

There are new signs up at St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street that note the upcoming restoration of the historic church...and its rebirth in the community.




An article in this week's issue of The Villager provides an update on the restoration:

Neighbors, elected officials and friends from near and far gathered on Feb. 1, the Feast of St. Brigid, to celebrate the victory of the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s in the group’s long struggle to prevent the demolition of the 1849 church on Tompkins Square Park.

The committee saw its dream come true last May when the Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced it had accepted a $20 million donation from an anonymous donor, including $10 million to restore and maintain the building and the parish and another $10 million to endow parish schools in the area.

The donor is still anonymous and the archdiocese has declined to identify the “angel” who made the gift.

Edwin Torres, leader of the committee, told the gathering on Sunday that the archdiocese had received the last $5 million installment of the $10 million for the building restoration on Dec. 16 and that architects and engineers have been working in the building at 119 Avenue B since the beginning of the year.

“We’ve been at the site at least once a week and we’ve spoken to the engineers — they’re testing the bricks and mortar in the church to see the extent of the problems,” Torres said, adding, “This will probably be the last meeting of the committee — we’ve achieved what we set out to 10 years ago. But we’ll continue to monitor the site,” he said.

By the way, there's also a new Post Office box there too...the old one at that spot was fairly battered looking...I liked it.


Previous St. Brigid's coverage on EV Grieve here.