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.

Let's look at an aerial view of the neighborhood from 100 years ago

[Click on image to enlarge]

You may have seen this classic photo by Shorpy from 1913... I thought about it this past week while compiling the posts on St. Brigid's. (Like this post.)

EVG friend Pinhead linked to this photo a few years back for a St. Brigid's post on East Village Transitions.

Anyway, it's a shot looking to the east from the top of the Con Ed building on East 14th Street... Can you spot St. Brigid's? Tompkins Square Park?

Paying for these arrows by the hour, so ...

Recognize anything else...?

Here is St. Brigid's!

It has been two-plus years since we're seen the front of the under-renovation St. Brigid's on Avenue B at East Eighth Street...

This afternoon, workers began removing the construction tarp and scaffolding. Bobby Williams is on the scene.

Behold the new St. Brigid's...

New sidewalk shed at St. Brigid's brings an end to shelter for travelers

Last week, to meet the demands of the continued renovations, workers put in a new sidewalk shed on the Eighth Street side of St. Brigid's... the structure takes up most of the sidewalk now...



During August, before the expanded sidewalk shed, several travelers would camp out here at night ...



Last month, I spoke with several regular East Village travelers... they all told me that the NYPD had suddenly cracked down on them like never before... and, according to them, the police said that this area by the under-renovation church was OK for them to sleep... and that Tompkins Square Park was "strictly forbidden."

There was some talk of increased gang activity... with the travelers being the target of the violence...

By now, though, most of the travelers have already moved on as usual this time of the year... just a handful remain.... In any event, the new sidewalk shed would keep them from sleeping alongside St. Brigid's...

Meanwhile, I keep thinking about this image early one Friday morning in August... I was out around 6:30 a.m., and came across this young woman asleep on the front steps of an apartment building on Seventh Street... In my 10-second assessment, I could tell that she wasn't part of the travelers scene... and she also wasn't someone who got locked out of her apartment... She seemed so vulnerable ... I felt a little cheap for taking a photo... Still, I wonder what the story was...

[Updated] Behold the bell of St. Brigid's

Wow. EVG regular Salim just shared this... This morning, workers from a bell-restoration firm were putting a 3,000 pound, 150-year-old bell back in place at St Brigid's on Avenue B and East Eighth Street.

Wow.

Per Salim: "Everyone — cars, pedestrians, cyclists — was stopping to look at the bell. It was remarkably bright and beautiful, and the bell restorers had a lot of pride as they described it... forged in 1858, I think."

After a lengthy restoration, St. Brigid's is set to reopen on Sunday, as we first reported. And this might just do away with those fake "bells" that we've been hearing...

Updated 1-25

Salim and some other readers noted that the bell is actually on display now outside the church...

Hopefully people won't decide to do anything stupid here... it's pretty much right there in shenanigans way...

Reader mailbag: Are the new lights too bright at St. Brigid's?

A question from a reader:

Have the obnoxiously too bright lights at St. Brigid's on Avenue B bothered anyone else?

Well, yes — one reader mentioned the "the ludicrously bright lights and ugly fixtures" in this post about the bells of St. Brigid's.

Anyway, the reader understands the deterrent from possible vandalism (and perhaps warding off anyone from sleeping on the front steps) that the lights provide.

"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."

Anyone else with a comment on the lights?

Looking at the front of St. Brigid's

As we mentioned yesterday, the scaffolding came down in front of St. Brigid's on Avenue B at Eighth Street. We stopped by later to take a few photos. Been too long since we've seen the front of the church.

We sent an e-mail to Edwin Torres, chairman of the Committee to Save St. Brigid's, for an update. We'll report back soon as we hear from him. In his last letter to friends and supporters of the church (posted April 27), he said that the bids to repair the foundation were due that week. He also said that plans had not been submitted to the Department of Buildings.

Rectory also part of St. Brigid's renovation

We've noted the progress on the renovations at St. Brigid's. However, we never heard if the plans including repairing the rectory next door to the church on Avenue B.

The other night, we noticed that lights were on inside the rectory.




So we asked Edwin Torres, chairman of the Committee to Save St. Brigid's, what was happening with the rectory.

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.

P.S.

We've always liked this aerial shot that Gothamist published back in 2006....




Previously.

The renovation of St. Brigid's is under way; permit to demolish the church has been removed

You may remember that, despite the $20 million anonymous donation to save St. Brigid's on Avenue B and Eighth Street, the Archdiocese of New York still had the demolition permits on file as of September. No more. Edwin Torres, chairman of the committee to Save St. Brigid's, told his supporters last month that the permits had been withdrawn. Phew. Meanwhile, the renovation begins/continues. We've seen several workers there during recent walks by the 160-year-old church.

Torres said that the Archdiocese has retained architects and other professionals necessary for the renovation. The first step, though: asbestos removal. No word on how long this could take...Aug. 15, 2009?

Another brick in the wall at St. Brigid's

This past summer, workers removed the entire northern wall at St. Brigid's here on Avenue B and Eighth Street... From what we can tell walking by the under-extensive-renovation church of late...




...workers are in the process of putting in a new wall on the Eighth Street side of the church...

Previous EV Grieve St. Brigid's coverage here.

The Villager: No steeples for renovated St. Brigid's

Lincoln Anderson at The Villager has the details on the plans for the $10 million renovation of St. Brigid's at Avenue B and Eighth Street. The headline: "St. Brigid’s will have elevator and new A/C, but no steeples."

Saving St. Brigid's

To be honest, plenty of things need saving in the East Village -- St. Brigid's chief among them. There's a "keep the flame alive" party tonight at Solas. Find the info at the Save St. Brigid's Web site. (Plus, you may see Matt Dillon there...uh, at Solas, not the Web site.)

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 ...

Work moves to the backside of St. Brigid's

The renovations continue at St. Brigid's on Eighth Street and Avenue B. Workers put up scaffolding on the church's backside last week...

Meanwhile, the crew continues to rebuild the church's northern wall...

Oh, and some bonus photos that I took back in early January. Don't you miss the snow?





Previous EV Grieve St. Brigid's coverage here.