In 1946 the City of New York was projecting the Jacob Riis Houses overlooking the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive from Sixth to Thirteenth Streets. Simultaneously the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was building Stuyvesant Town, from Fourteenth to Twentieth Streets and from First Avenue to Avenue C. Anticipating the increase in population, His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman bought a plot of land on Avenue D from Twelfth to Thirteenth Streets as the site for a future parish to serve the religious needs of the Catholics in both developments. On New Year's Day, 1949, the Cardinal announced the founding of a new parish on the site. He placed it under the patronage of Saint Emeric, son of St. Stephen, first King of Hungary, to honor His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty who had been arrested and imprisoned by Hungary's Communist Government.
The Reverend Vincent J. Brosnan was appointed pastor. Father Brosnan had been an Army Chaplain and Assistant Director of War Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. On January 3, 1949, the firm of Vorhees, Walker, Foley, and Smith, architects, was engaged. Months of discussion culminated in the decision to build a combination church and auditorium which could serve eventually as an auditorium and gymnasium. Ground was broken for Saint Emeric's first building on August 28, 1949 with the Most Reverend Joseph P. Donohue, D.D.V.G., officiating.
With the cooperation of Metropolitan Life officials an apartment at 271 Avenue C was made available as a rectory. Mr. Alfred C. Berol, President of the Eagle Pencil Company located on the site of the present Consolidated Edison plant, offered space for Sunday Mass.
Over five hundred persons attended the first Mass which was held on Sunday, June 12, 1949.
That same afternoon, the Parish's first baby was baptized, Patricia Marie Blanchfield. The Baptism took place in a Chapel established in a store on Avenue C opposite the Eagle Pencil Company. The Chapel was used for week-day Masses.
On June 19, 1949 His Eminence appointed the Reverend John F. Brennan and the Reverend Harry J. Byrne as assistants, both ordained in 1945.
With great rejoicing, Sunday Masses were held for the first time in the new building on Thirteenth Street on July 16, 1950. On July 28th His Excellency, the Most Reverend Joseph F. Flannelly, solemnly laid the cornerstone of the building. On Sunday, September 10, 1950 came the culmination of all the efforts of the priests and people of Saint Emeric's when Cardinal Spellman dedicated the building to the honor and glory of God under the patronage of Saint Emeric.
The priests and parishioners now turned their attention to the erection of a school for the children of the parish. Plans were made for a building to house classrooms for kindergarten through grade eight and to include offices and a school Library. Construction proceeded steadily and in September 1953 the first classes were held. The school was staffed by the Sisters of Charity.
In 1957 Monsignor Brosnan was named Pastor of the Church Of the Annunciation in Crestwood. He was succeeded at Saint Emeric's by Father William O'Connor. Monsignor O'Connor assumed the burden of reducing the large parish debt. It was at this time that the decoration of the interior of the Church was begun. New lighting fixtures were introduced and stained glass windows were installed. Soon after, arrangements were made for pews to replace the folding chairs that had been in use since the Church was first opened. The pews were placed in time for Christmas services in 1962.
Monsignor William O'Connor was appointed Pastor of Saint Matthew's Church, Hastings, New York and early in 1962 Monsignor Edward J. Jordan came to Saint Emeric's from Most Sacred Heart Church, Port Jervis, New York. The Solemn Blessing of the church took place on March 24th 1963, with the Most Reverend John J. Maguire, Auxiliary Bishop, officiating.
A civic group which included clergy of different faiths in the vicinity became involved in planning the Haven Plaza and Tompkins Square East housing developments, and Monsignor Jordan was elected Chairman. When the buildings were ready for occupancy, the rectory was moved to an apartment at 740 East Thirteenth Street, adjacent to the Church and School. Because of ill health Monsignor Jordan had been unable to take an active part in parish affairs for some time, and in May 1973 His Eminence, Terence Cardinal Cooke, appointed Father James F. Doyle Administrator. Father Doyle came from the Church of the Annunciation on Manhattan's West Side.
One of the unique features of Saint Emeric's was the "Hut." The exact history of the hut is not completely clear. It seems to have been on the property when it was purchased for a parish. Many years ago this building served as a storage area for supplies when construction was going on at St. Vincent's Hospital. For all at Saint Emeric's it had been the scene of many enjoyable evenings. It has witnessed card parties, fashion shows, dances, socials, cocktail parties, and was always the social center of parish life.
The parish community was blessed with a substantial number of Spanish speaking members who immigrated to the East Village. Their language, culture and customs added a richness and variety to parish life.
A New Era...the merger with Saint Brigid's
Holy Union: St. Emeric's Merging with St. Brigid's
Members of the old St. Brigid’s and parishioners of St. Emeric’s Church will be worshiping together at a new Church of St. Brigid and St. Emeric this autumn when the restoration of St. Brigid’s on Avenue B is completed.
It has been a long wait for St. Brigid members. Their parish was dissolved in 2004. But it was then resurrected by an anonymous “angel” who donated $20 million to the New York Catholic Archdiocese in May 2008 to restore the deteriorated 1848 church building and endow its future maintenance.
The new parish will be created from the closing of St. Emeric’s Church, built in 1950 at 740 E. 13th St. at Avenue D, and the merging of the St. Brigid and St. Emeric parishes.
For many at St. Emeric, like Edwin Torres, who went to the church on Avenue D after St. Brigid’s, at 119 Avenue B, was closed, the change is really a homecoming.
President of the Committee to Save St. Brigid, Torres has been teaching youth confirmation classes at St. Emeric’s since he began worshiping there seven years ago.
“We had a graduation on Friday [June 15] for 22 students with Bishop Dennis Sullivan,” Torres said, adding that he plans to continue the classes at St. Brigid’s in the fall.
Joseph Zwilling, archdiocese spokesperson, said he hoped for a September opening of St. Brigid and St. Emeric but he was not able to give a definite date.
“But the church will have a rectory, which St. Emeric’s doesn’t have, and no debt,” Zwilling said.
Father Lorenzo Ato, priest in charge at St. Emeric for the past four years, will be the pastor of the new parish and has already moved into the rectory. Ato, a native of Peru, will also continue to serve as assistant director for Hispanic media for the archdiocese.
Zwilling said there was no decision yet on the disposition of the St. Emeric’s church building or the two-story parochial school built in 1952 next door on E. 12th St. and Avenue D.
“The first preference is always to see if another Catholic agency wants it,” Zwilling said.A leased city preschool program is located on the second floor of the St. Emeric school building, and parish confirmation classes use space in the building. However, there is no longer a St. Emeric’s parochial elementary school.
Con Edison’s power plant virtually surrounds the St. Emeric property and the area currently has construction activity.
Down at St. Brigid’s, the parish elementary school has been operating since it was built in 1959 at the corner of Avenue B and E. Seventh St., and is expected to continue.
The church, at E. Eighth St. across from Tompkins Square Park, was designed by Patrick Keely, an Irish-born architect, and built during 1848-49 by Irish boatwrights from the East River boatyards.
Two original Gothic stone spires were dismantled in the mid-1960s, and other alterations over the years made the building an unlikely candidate for landmark designation.
In 1991, a significant crack in the church’s east wall had to be buttressed, and by June 2001, after a visit by then Archbishop Edward Cardinal Egan, the building was declared unsafe. Masses were then shifted to the school building’s basement cafeteria.
The archdiocese estimated the cost of restoring the 150-year-old building at $580,000. The parish, largely Hispanic for many years, organized the Committee to Save St. Brigid to raise the money. But $103,000 that was raised went to the parish’s general expenses.
Moreover, the archdiocese secured a building permit in 2003 to construct a five-story residence on the site, potentially as a new home for the Cabrini Nursing and Rehabilitation Center that was in rented space on E. Fifth St.
In 2004, the archdiocese closed the parish, but Save St. Brigid held demonstrations, marching from the East Village to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The committee also went to court to challenge the closing and preserve the building. However, the challenges failed.
The $20 million from the anonymous “angel” in May 2008 provided $10 million to fix serious structural problems and restore the church, plus $2 million for an endowment, and $8 million to support St. Brigid’s School and other Catholic schools in the area.
The angel remains anonymous, although Zwilling at the time said he was not Matt Dillon, who filmed in the church for his 2002 movie “City of Ghosts.”
St. Brigid of Kildare, who died in 524, was a founder with St. Patrick and St. Columba of Celtic Christianity. The daughter of a Druid and a slave, she became an abbess and was the patron saint of blacksmiths, boatmen and scholars.
St. Emeric (Americus in Latin), a son of King St. Stephen of Hungary, was killed at the age of 23 in 1031 by a wild boar during a hunt. Healings and Christian conversions that occurred at his grave led to his canonization in 1083 along with his father and his teacher Bishop Gerhard.