Brooklyn Diocese Quietly Refiles Plans to Demolish Historic Brownsville Church

Brownsville, Brooklyn, NY — The Diocese of Brooklyn quietly filed plans on June 14 to go ahead with a "full demolition" of the historic, century-old Old Lady of Loreto Church at 126 Sackman St., city records show.

Back in 2010, a similar plan to demolish the out-of-use church and replace it with an affordable-housing complex was met with a diverse parade of local opposition.

Older Brownsville-area residents were mad because they didn't want to see a gorgeous neighborhood gem go up in dust. (Especially when it could instead serve as, they proposed, a beautiful, light-filled community arts center.) And the Brooklyn preservationist crowd — especially those with a stake in Italian-American history — was arguably even angrier. In an interview with the New York Times, architectural historian Flavia Alaya called the tear-down proposal "grotesque." In a letter to diocese leaders, she reportedly begged them to reconsider the “irreversible demolition of this extraordinary century-old church."

The diocese finally caved to the outcry — agreeing to keep the church intact and instead erect 64 new affordable housing units in the lot behind it, where the rectory used to be.

"Two different communities have come together," Mario Toglia, an Italian-American historian from Brooklyn, said at the time. (See below.) "The African-American community — which occupies a good part, now, of that part of Brooklyn — and the Italian-American community have come together for this struggle to save the church."

But in the six years since, Brownsville's Old Lady of Loreto Church — reportedly "the oldest national Italian Catholic church in Brooklyn that's still located in its original structure and on its original footprint" — has remained empty.

While in limbo, the church's cast stones, designed in Roman Renaissance style, have been overtaken by vines.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle noticed earlier this spring that a full three years after the Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens — the nonprofit recruited by the Brooklyn Diocese to develop the site — asked for outside proposals for renovating the church, the org still hadn't filed any plans with the city to do so.

And now, in June, we get this: An application, filed by a representative for the diocese, requesting a "full demolition of the "two story structure" at 126 Sackman, "using hand held equipment and mechanical means."

The demolition application has apparently been approved by the NYC Department of Buildings.

Patch's requests for comment from the Diocese and the Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, the property's nonprofit developer, went unanswered.

Iris Robertson, a native of the Brownsville area and longtime secretary for the Brownsville Heritage House — the community org largely responsible for saving Our Lady in 2010 — said Tuesday that she was not aware the diocese had filed new demolition plans.

Crazy timing, though: Her organization was already planning to host a meeting on the fate of Our Lady at its headquarters (second floor of 581 Mother Gaston Blvd.) this Thursday, June 23, at noon.

She said Toglia, the Italian-American historian in the video above, will be on hand Thursday to give a presentation on the church's epic past.

Much like in 2010, the meeting's organizers are hoping a diverse crowd of politicians, preservationists and concerned neighbors will re-commit themselves to the fight to save Our Lady.

"The community has to really come out and be strong about it," Robertson said.

In 2010, she said, "there was such strong support. But because no one has really been talking about it like they were back then, it's not top-of-the-mind."

It doesn't help that Patricia Deans, former director of the Heritage House and the woman whose passion drove the 2010 fight to save Our Lady, passed away in 2013, while the church languished.

But current members of her organization are still holding onto the dream that the church could be converted into a performance hall.

"It's just beautiful, with the stained glass and the arches," Robertson said. "The artisanship of it is just amazing."

Brownsville and East New York residents deserve a place, she said — much like in western Brooklyn and many neighborhoods in Manhattan — where "they can walk from their homes to to see live performances."

"A lot of people in this neighborhood haven't had that opportunity," she said.

Show up around noon Thursday, June 23, to the second floor of the library building at 581 Mother Gaston Blvd. — an architectural gem in its own right — to keep fighting for Our Lady of Loreto.