Sign of the cross at St. Brigid's

The front of the under-renovation St. Brigid's has been under wraps in recent months here on Avenue B at East Eighth Street... On Friday, the cross from the top of the church made an appearance...

[Top two photos by Bobby Williams]

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the restored church soon...

Here's a shot from 2009 ...


Previously.

New window frames for St. Brigid's

Meanwhile, yesterday, workers outside St. Brigid's were busy putting in new frames for the stained-glass windows for the front of the church...

Workers recently put in the stained-glass windows for the church's north side...

Photos by Matt LES_Miserable.

And later... via Bobby Williams...

The stained-glass windows at St. Brigid's

Have you seen the newish stained-glass windows at St. Brigid's here on East Eighth Street at Avenue B?

Meanwhile, as you may have noticed outside St. Brigid's in recent weeks, there are a handful of union picketers...

Matt LES_Miserable spoke with the picketers last week ... and they claim that "the contractor is paying poor wages and using non-union labor." As The Villager points out this week, they are protesting against DanMar Electric, the subcontractor of record, doing all the electrical work on St. Brigid's — not this specific construction site.

Speaking of The Villager, Roland Legiardi-Laura files a lengthy piece on the good, the bad and the ugly of the 164-year-old church's renovation process. He also provides the history of how we got to this renovation phase.

Per the article:

So what do we have to look forward to after 164 years of striving? A really fine initiative that is probably a million dollars shy of becoming one of the best church restorations this city has ever seen: a living example of history, community and philanthropy combining to right a wrong that had been done to a neighborhood and a parish...

St. Brigid's rectory emerges from behind construction netting, sidewalk shed

We've been posting frequent updates about the renovations at St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street. How about the progress next door?

Last week, workers removed the construction netting and sidewalk shed outside the St. Brigid's rectory on Avenue B...

Back in November 2009, Edwin Torres, chairman of the Committee to Save St. Brigid's, told us what was happening with the rectory.

"It will be fully restored and will serve several functions, one of which will be the home for the pastor. The current church I attend does not have a rectory and the priest rents an apartment [nearby]. It will be a luxury to have a rectory."

And a reader at the time said, "The interior of the rectory is a bit of a mess (as would be expected) but there are a lot of really nice details. Pressed metal ceilings, nice moldings, etc. It'll be a really nice place for the pastor once it's fixed up..."

Here's a photo of the rectory before the sidewalk shed went up in 2008...



During the time of the construction, the sidewalk shed between the rectory and the St. Brigid School often served as a makeshift shelter of sorts. Last September, police found a woman in her 50s named Liz here. Police believed that she died from a drug overdose.

[February 2011]

And in February 2011, Tompkins Square Park regular Grace Farrell, 35, froze to death while sleeping here.

[Saturday morning outside the rectory]

Someone to watch over St. Brigid's

Two photos via EV Grieve reader Robert M. ... showing the continued progress at St. Brigid's... And we can likely interpret that top photo in many ways...

St. Brigid's copper tone

Dave on 7th provides us with an update on St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street ... where workers are now polishing off renovations on the south slope of the roof...

And here's a shot of the church's backside, now mostly free of scaffolding...

h/t to @dens for first letting us know about the progress at the back of the church...

Workers remove scaffolding behind St Brigid's

Thanks to this photo via @dens ... we can see even more of the progress at St. Brigid's on Eighth Street at Avenue B ...

Flashback to March ... when the workers erected the scaffolding back here ...

St. Brigid's at night

How the under-renovation church on Avenue B and Eighth Street has looked at night this week...

Yes, we've been posting a lot about St. Brigid's of late, but it is one of the few really positive constrction-related stories around here ...

Photos by Bobby William.

A cover-up at St. Brigid's

Last week, workers wrapped a tarp around part of St. Brigid's as renovations heat up... On Friday, workers covered the rest of the church's front on Avenue B (at Eighth Street) ...

The shroud of St. Brigid's

[Bobby Williams]

Workers put up a tarp yesterday around part of St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street, where the renovations continue...

...and last night...

And now for something that isn't being torn down in the East Village

Just the opposite. At St. Brigid's on Avenue B yesterday. Bobby Williams took a quick look inside.

Previously.

More views of the freshly renovated St. Brigid's

Workers removed even more of the scaffolding on Saturday...

Breaking: Workers removing more scaffolding at St. Brigid's

We've been getting a good look this week (here ... and here) ... at the renovated St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street... this morning, a reader alerted us that workers were back at the scene removing the rest of the scaffolding on the historic church's north wall...

St. Brigid's is looking oh so 1848

So, as you probably know, some of the construction netting and plywood came down Tuesday on the north wall of St. Brigid's on Avenue B and Eighth Street... Yesterday, workers peeled back just a little bit more of the netting... exposing even more of the under-renovation church... Bobby Williams took a look...

As The Villager reported this past July, the church will have its original 1848 look... Per the paper:

Both the west and north facades (what everyone from the street sees) of the building are going to be sheathed in cast brownstone slabs, more or less restoring the look of what was there when the church was first built in 1848. They are working on this now, and roughly a quarter of the north wall has already been installed. The original north wall had to be completely demolished and rebuilt as part of the process of restoring structural stability to the church. This necessitated filling the entire church interior with scaffolding in order to support the roof during this reconstruction. But it was a big improvement over the original repair plan to simply re-stucco the existing facade.

Bobby also sent a view of the new roof...

And as a bonus — a view of the church from Tompkins Square Park circa the early 1870s ...

Here's the caption for the photo from The Villager:

A photo from around the early 1870s showing St. Brigid’s Church with its spires on Avenue B and, in foreground, a gazebo in Tompkins Square Park. Around this time, the park was stripped and leveled to turn it into a parade ground for the 7th Regiment. The gazebo had been likely the reviewing stand for the military brass. After much public outcry, in 1878, Tompkins Square was redesigned and rebuilt as a public park.

[Updated] Check out the progress at St. Brigid's: bricks and glass, oh my

Wow. We're now getting a look at the Eighth Street side of St. Brigid's without the construction netting and plywood... this photo is from @dens .... as he notes: "new brick, new glass, looks amazing!"

Yes it does.

One more from @dens...

Dave on 7th sends along this shot:

Previously.

A look inside St. Brigid's

Dave on 7th checked in on the progress with the St. Brigid's renovations on Avenue B and Eighth Street... A worker said that the renovations were going "slowly but surely."

He also spoke with one of the stain glass glaziers, who said that the crew was trying to get the windows in by winter so that they could work inside. Unfortunately, none of the original St. Brigid's windows were saved. The worker said that they were getting their stock of salvaged windows from other churches (via the Archdiocese of New York) and then they were filling in with new colored glass.

Bonus night shot via Dave on 7th ...