1183 Franklin Avenue at 167th Street.

Although the current structure of St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church dates from 1894, the history of the parish goes back to the earliest village in the area.

 

In 1848, a group of skilled workers purchased land from Gouverneur Morris II to create a suburban village named Morrisania. The proximity of the New York and Harlem River Railroad (today’s Metro North Harlem Division) made commuting to jobs in Manhattan swift and convenient.  Local Irish immigrants who found jobs in the growing village established St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in a private residence on Boston Road in 1849. The following year, they purchased land on Jefferson Place off Boston Road and erected a small wooden church there.

 

In 1858, this was replaced by a brick building. Starting in the post-Civil War era, increasing numbers of German immigrants came to reside in Morrisania and the Catholics among them joined the parish. In 1894, a fire completely destroyed this structure. Because the number of Catholic congregants had grown, the parish built a new and larger church on Franklin Avenue at 167th Street.

 

As with many structures erected in the late nineteenth century, the new church borrowed several elements from past European designs. The windows have rounded tops, similar to those in Romanesque churches, but they are much taller and narrower than found in Europe, making them akin to those in Gothic churches. The stone facing is rusticated, a style that was started in Renaissance Florence, but it is exuberant throughout the façade as found in Baroque. Similarly, the attached columns, or antas, at the entrance, along with the frames of the flanking side entrances, are also taken from the Baroque style. The windows bear stained glass. There are two square towers each topped by a cupola held aloft by tall slender columns with rounded arches.

 

Perhaps the most noteworthy event that happened inside the church was the marriage in 1900 of young Alfred E. Smith, future New York State governor and 1928 presidential candidate, to Catherine Ann Dunn, a local girl from Third Avenue and 170th Street. However, through the years, the parish had to mount a number of fundraising campaigns to cover the operating costs of the massive church. Following World War II, the Morrisania neighborhood experienced an influx of people of African and Latino descent, but the number of Catholics in the parish began to dwindle. With the spread of poverty, crime and drug addiction in the area in the 1970s and 1980s, the parish leaders inaugurated several programs to meet the needs of the residents. Nevertheless, by the start of the twenty-first century, it was clear that the number of parishioners was too small to continue to operate such a massive structure. In 2010, the Catholic archdiocese decided to close St. Augustine’s, but the structure, as of now, still stands.

 

Lloyd Ultan