The Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

parish church located at 365

Avenue of the Americas Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...

(Sixth Avenue) at the corner of Washington Place in the

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Constructed in 1833–1834, it is the oldest church in New York City specifically built to be a

sanctuary. p. 219.Although the

Church of the Transfiguration The Church of the Transfiguration ( he, כנסיית ההשתנות) is a Franciscan church located on Mount Tabor in Israel. It is traditionally believed to be the site where the Transfiguration of Jesus took place, an event in the Gospels in w ...

on Mott Street was built in 1815, it did not become a Catholic Church until 1853. Se
Church of the Transfiguration Parish history
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History

St. Joseph's Parish was founded by Bishop

John Dubois John Dubois (french: Jean Dubois) served as the third bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York from 1826 until his death in 1842. He was the first Bishop of New York who was not Irish-born and, as of 2021, remains the only Bishop or Archb ...

in 1829.Remigius Lafort, S.T.D., Censor,
The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Volume 3: The Province of Baltimore and the Province of New York
'. (New York City: The Catholic Editing Company, 1914), p. 340. At the time St. Joseph's Parish began, the population of New York, numbering 203,000, was concentrated in the southern half of Manhattan. Early church records indicate that St. Joseph's first congregants were predominantly Irish-Americans. The parish boundaries stretched from Canal Street to 20th Street, and from Broadway to the Hudson River. As additional parishes were created, St. Joseph's boundaries were trimmed, spanning from Houston Street to 14th Street, and from University Place to Hudson Street.

St. Joseph's was the sixth parish to be established in Manhattan, among those still in existence in the

Archdiocese of New York The Archdiocese of New York ( la, Archidiœcesis Neo-Eboracensis) is an ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church ( particularly the Roman Catholic or Latin Church) located in the State of New York. It encompasses the boroug ...

. The five parishes that preceded it were St. Peter's on Barclay Street (1785), St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on Mulberry Street (1809), St. Mary's on Grand Street (1826), St. James on Oliver Street (1827) and Transfiguration on Mott Street (1827). After several years in a rented hall at Grove and Christopher Streets, the cornerstone of the present church was laid on June 10, 1833. The church was designed by John Doran in the Greek Revival style,Bahamón, Alejandro and Losantos, Àgata
''New York: A Historical Atlas of Architecture''
(New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2007), p. 99. but it has been extensively renovated over the years. Two fires, one in 1855 and the other in 1885, caused extensive damage to the interior. Renovations after the second fire were supervised by Arthur Crooks. p. 138. The interior of the church was restored in 1972. At the time, a fresco of the Transfiguration, after Raphael's original in the Vatican, was discovered under layers of paint and restored. Structural restoration work was performed in 1991–1992. St. Joseph's School was established in 1855, with

Sisters of Charity Many religious communities have the term Sisters of Charity in their name. Some ''Sisters of Charity'' communities refer to the Vincentian tradition, or in America to the tradition of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, but others are unrelated. The ...

teaching the neighborhood girls and Christian Brothers teaching the boys. The first building was along Leroy Street, replaced in 1897 by a new building adjacent to the church. The first public education program on

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

ever held in Greenwich Village was held at St. Joseph's. The first meeting of

Gay Men's Health Crisis The GMHC (formerly Gay Men's Health Crisis) is a New York City–based non-profit, volunteer-supported and community-based AIDS service organization whose mission statement is to "end the AIDS epidemic and uplift the lives of all affected." Hist ...

also took place there. The event organized by parishioner David Pais was originally planned to be held in the school, but so many people attended that it had to be moved to the church. When then-pastor Aldo Tos retired in 2003, the

asked the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

's Province of Saint Joseph, which was already staffing the nearby Catholic Center at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, to assume the responsibility of staffing priests for the parish. The result was a merger of the parish with NYU's Catholic Center in December 2003. Tos was removed from ministry following accusations of sexual abuse of a minor, which were determined to be credible by the Archdiocese of New York. His laicization process was pending at his death in 2014.

The church today

Church of Saint Joseph in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York

The Catholic Center provides a wide spectrum of activities, programs, lectures and outreach programs. It is the center of five

(NYU) student clubs and for five groups of students and non-students. In addition to its campus ministry and other missions, the parish organized a weekly soup kitchen in 1982 (starting less formally in 1976) that operated for more than 30 years and has continued as an independent charity since 2015.

Pastoral staff

*Pastor: Boniface Endorf, O.P. *Priests: John Baptist Hoang, O.P., Pier Giorgio Dengler, O.P. *Previous pastors: ** James Cuddy, O.P. ** John P. McGuire, O.P. (1943–2016) ** Aldo J. Tos (1928–2014) ** John D. O'Leary (1928–2008) ** Robert Wilde (?–2004) ** John P. A. Sullivan (?–1971) ** Timothy F. Herlihy (1907–1970) ** John P. McCaffrey (?–1967) ** John J. Hickey (1869–1943) ** John Edwards (1833–1922) ** Denis Paul O'Flynn (1847–1906) ** John B. Salter (c.1847–?) ** Felix H. Farrelly (1832–1882) ** Thomas Farrell (1823–1880) ** Michael McCarron (1803–1867) ** Ambrose Manahan (1814–1867) **

John McCloskey John McCloskey (March 10, 1810 – October 10, 1885) was a senior-ranking American prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the first American born Archbishop of New York from 1864 until his death in 1885, having previously served as Bishop of ...

(1810–1885), later Archbishop of New York and the first U.S. cardinal ** Charles Constantine Pise (1801–1866), previously

Chaplain of the United States Senate The chaplain of the United States Senate opens each session of the United States Senate with a prayer, and provides and coordinates religious programs and pastoral care support for senators, their staffs, and their families. The chaplain is appoi ...

** James Cummiskey (?–1850) ** Patrick Duffy (?–1833), first pastor

References

Explanatory notes Citations

External links

"St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich Village"
official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Joseph's Church, New York Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York Joseph in Greenwich Village, Church of 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Religious organizations established in 1829 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1833 Greenwich Village 1829 establishments in New York (state)