A demolition permit for St. Brigid’s Church on Avenue B was still in effect last week, despite the promise in May of this year of $20 million from an anonymous benefactor to restore the 1849 building and the East Village parish that the Catholic Archdioceses of New York dissolved in 2004.
But an archdiocese spokesperson said last week that architects were preparing plans and contractors were drawing up documents for building permits.
“We know the demolition permit has to be withdrawn and we decided to do it all at once,” said Joseph Zwilling. “There is no construction date and we’ll make an announcement when we have one.”
Nevertheless, Edwin Torres, president of the Committee to Save St. Brigid’s, the group that went to court in 2005 to prevent the church building’s demolition, said last week that the committee was troubled that the demolition permit was still on file at the Department of Buildings.
This year will bring a lot of change to St. Brigid’s Church. We would like inform you that work is progressing. There is currently on site testing going on. We will continue to monitor the situation.
The Archdiocese has informed us on Dec 16, 2008 the second installment (5 million) was received, a total of 10 million has been received and is earmarked for the restoration of the church. The Archdiocese will also be filing a motion to to render our case moot. We will inform everyone of the outcome through the website. The case is scheduled to be heard in The Court of Appeals on February 11, 2009.
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.
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.
Have the obnoxiously too bright lights at St. Brigid's on Avenue B bothered anyone else?
"But they are so freaking bright! I wonder if the fact that they're bothering me is my anal-retentiveness coming out ... or I’m guessing I can’t be the only one."
The rectory is part of the renovation. 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.
