Community Pressure Mounts To Save Brownsville's Our Lady Of Loreto Church

BROWNSVILLE, BROOKLYN — A coalition of community activists has made strides in its fight to keep the Our Lady of Loreto Church in Brownsville from being demolished to make way for affordable housing.

The group, Save Our Lady of Loreto, argues that the church built in 1908 is both a historic emblem of Italian-American and American Catholic immigration experiences and a building with the potential to take on several new uses for the Brownsville community.

The church on 124 Sackman St. has been vacant for years and requires extensive repairs to reopen. Catholic Charities said a feasibility study conducted in September 2016 by an "independent structural engineering company" found it would cost $9 million to make the necessary renovations to "stabilize" it.

"We have found that there is no viable use for the church structure due to its present condition," said Monsignor Alfred LoPinto, CEO of Catholic Charities, in a statement. "It would be irresponsible, neglectful and dangerous to leave the site abandoned and in disrepair. We are concerned for the safety of the residents in the neighborhood."

Catholic Charities has not received a demolition permit for the church but has made it clear it will destroy the church as soon as it obtains one. The religious agency has owned the property for 53 years and has the option to extend that lease to 99 years.

State Sen. Tony Avella wrote a letter to Catholic Charities leaders that the subsidiary "has not fulfilled its responsibilities to make good faith efforts to preserve [Our Lady of Loreto] and instead is hastening its efforts to have the Church demolished."

In February, John Bonafide, historic preservation officer of New York state's technical preservation services bureau agency, wrote a letter to Catholic Charities recommending to officially put the demolition on hold because of "a growing community based effort to preserve and reuse the building."

The New York Landmarks Conservancy group awarded the activists a $12,000 grant to study the conditions of the former church, which Bonafide wrote informed the state's decision to put the demolition on hold.

"...We strongly encourage the Diocese and Catholic Charities to work with the Brownsville Cultural Coalition to facilitate this important structural analysis," Bonafide wrote in the letter dated Feb. 23.

Save Our Lady of Loreto has reached out to local city council member Rafael Espinal for support. Espinal responded in a statement that the church "is under the private ownership of the Catholic Diocese and we have to respect the decision of the private owners of the property to use the space in a manner in which they see fit." He added that "a proposal for affordable housing should not be taken lightly, especially now as we are dealing with a housing crisis."

Preserving the church would help Brownsville in that it would give it a sense of pride and knowledge of its rich history, said Miriam Robertson, executive director of Brownsville Heritage House.

"The church was built almost like the pyramids in Egypt, brick by brick," Robertson said. "That accomplishment you will not see anywhere else other than if you go to Egypt. How many people here in Brownsville can afford to go to Egypt? There are a lot of people in this community who've never gone outside of Brownsville."

Robertson envisions a revitalized Our Lady of Loreto church as a performance venue where the Brownsville community could have better access to the arts and afford tickets to go to the ballet, a musical or an opera, she told Patch.

"People talk a lot about Brownsville gentrifying," Robertson said. "But what about gentrifying from within?"

Photo via Patch