Pieces of History for New Churches

[didymus]

tinyurl.com/yrdyyk

** Pieces of History for New Churches**

LaGRANGEVILLE, N.Y. — The Roman Catholic churches stand 66 miles apart, one in the center of Harlem, the other on 82 acres between a farm and a hunting club in this rural hamlet in Dutchess County.

The Harlem church, St. Thomas the Apostle, is an exquisite piece of neo-Gothic architecture, its spiky terra-cotta crown resembling a wedding cake. Finished in 1907, the church first served Irish parishioners and then a black congregation that waned and withered, its Sunday Mass sparsely attended, its building in dire need of repairs, until closing in 2003. Now it faces demolition.

The church here, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, is still under construction, modest in appearance yet impressive in size. It will have a steel frame, a bluish stone facade and seats for 1,200 people — four times the number that can fit in the church it will replace, which in recent years has rapidly run out of space for its growing flock of New York City transplants.

The two churches are connected by 12 stained-glass windows from Germany depicting New Testament scenes, which have graced St. Thomas for a century and will soon surround the altar at Blessed Kateri. The church is named after a 17th-century Mohawk who converted to Catholicism against her tribe’s wishes.

I’m glad the windows will be saved & given a new home and I hoe this becomes standard practice. It would be great for every new-built church to have windows or stations or statuary from an old church.

 

[idrum677]

tinyurl.com/yrdyyk

I’m glad the windows will be saved & given a new home and I hoe this becomes standard practice. It would be great for every new-built church to have windows or stations or statuary from an old church.

They’ve done that in my diocese as well. The pipe organ from my former parish (RIP) is being refurbished and they are planning on installing it in the cathedral.
We also send items from closed churches to our diocessean mission in Hondouras.
A few months ago, they furnished a chapel there with the pews of a former church.

 

[zagjames]

It is a great thing to do. The student Chapel at my school has old stained glass windows from a parish that was either destroyed or just the windows were no longer needed… from a parish in philly. There is one 3 window section leftover focusing on st. michael the archangel which will be placed in a new chapel being built on the other side of campus soon in a new housing unit. They are beautiful windows and it is great that they were preserved!

 

[peregrinus_WA]

When I lived in Philadelphia. One of the Churches in Ambler burned down but they were able to save the 100+ year old high altar. It was transferred to the new Church.

Also, a parish just north of there was building a new Church. They found most of an old altar and its associated sanctuary from a demolished Church and incorporated it into the new building.

 

[Cobbfmly]

Two years ago our diocese’s Cathedral, built in 1887, was restored. Recently, the last phase of the restoration was completed with replacing windows that were changed out in 1980’s with windows from a closed Wisconsin Catholic church that was also built in the 1880’s.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_the_Blessed_Sacrament_in_Sacramento

Our parish is getting ready to build a new church. We will be retaining much of our original art work, statues, etc, some of which date back to the our first church built in 1870 and the chapel at our first school built in 1886.

I am praying that we will be able to move the magnificent rose stained glass windows (two of Mary, one of St. Elizabeth Seton and one of St. Francis Cabrini).