The Church of St. Joachim was a

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parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

under the authority of the

Archdiocese of New York The Archdiocese of New York () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the New York (state), State of New York. It encompasses the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York ...

, located at 26

Roosevelt Street Roosevelt Street was a street located in the Two Bridges district of Lower Manhattan, which existed from the British colonial period up until the early 1950s, running from Pearl Street at Park Row (Chatham Street) southeast to South Street ...

, in

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. The parish was established in 1888 by the Missionary Fathers of St. Charles Borromeo,Remigius Lafort, S.T.D., Censor,
The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X. Volume 3: The Province of Baltimore and the Province of New York, Section 1: Comprising the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn, Buffalo and Ogdensburg Together with some Supplementary Articles on Religious Communities of Women.
'. (New York City: The Catholic Editing Company, 1914), p.337-338. with

the Rev. The Reverend (abbreviated as The Revd, The Rev'd or The Rev) is an honorific style given to certain (primarily Western) Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and chur ...

F. Morelli, C.S.C.B., as its first

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

. It was the first

national parish National parish is a type of Catholic parish distinguished by liturgical rites or nationality of the congregation; it is found within a diocese or particular Church, which includes other types of parishes in the same geographical area, each parish ...

in the United States founded for Italians, who had previously had to worship in the basements of the Catholic churches made up of Irish-American congregants. The total debt of the property was $158,000. Because of the increased parish numbers, the Rev. Vincent Jannuzzi, C.S.C.B., founded St. Rocco's Chapel at 18 Catherine Slip as a mission chapel of St. Joachim Parish, as well as the Madonna Day Nursery on Cherry Street, which opened in 1910 and was staffed by the

Sisters of Our Lady of Christian Doctrine The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York covers New York, Bronx, and Richmond Counties in New York City (coterminous with the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, respectively), as well as Dutchess County, New York, Dutchess, Oran ...

. The 1913-1914 parish statistics listed 1,000 baptisms, 250 marriages and 400 confirmations. The parish had a brief connection with Mother Cabrini, who was helped by the Scalabrini Missionaries upon her arrival in the United States in 1889. The

Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a Catholic Church, Catholic female religious congregation founded in 1880 by Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini. Their aim is to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart by means of spiritual and corpo ...

, whom she had founded, were the first teachers at the St. Joachim

parish school A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The wor ...

when it was opened. They withdrew from the school in 1892. St. Joachim's was home to the St. Rocco Society, founded in 1889 by immigrants from

Potenza Potenza (, ; ; , Potentino dialect: ''Putenz'') is a ''comune'' in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata (former Lucania). Capital of the Province of Potenza and the Basilicata region, the city is the highest regional capital and one of ...

. The society's hand crafted statue of St. Rocco from Italy was housed at St. Joachim's. Every year the Society celebrated Saint Rocco's Feast with a procession. After the demolition of Saint Joachim's Church due to urban renewal, the statue was moved to Saint Joseph's Church on Monroe Street and the celebration continued there. With the closing in 2015 of St. Joseph's, the statue and Feast was moved to Most Precious Blood Church at 113 Baxter Street, where it is held today.St. Rocco Society of Potenza
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Building

The midblock gabled brick

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church with Romanesque details "in the Roman style" was designed with a seating capacity of 800. In 1914, the parish consisted of 18,000 Italian immigrants and second-generation Italian-Americans. The church owned three buildings then, of which one it had planned to turn into a parochial school. The Romanesque church tower, built 1888, at 22 Roosevelt Street "was a harbinger for

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Closing

By 1967 the City of New York had decided to build a housing development on Park Row as part of its urban renewal program. They acquired a six-block area for this project, which included the parish property, and the church was torn down. The parish was merged by the Archdiocese of New York with the nearby St. Joseph's Church, founded by the Scalabrini Fathers around 1923, with Father Januzzi as the first pastor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Joachim's Church (Manhattan) Roman Catholic churches completed in 1888 Buildings and structures demolished in 1967 1967 disestablishments in New York (state) Italian-American culture in New York City Closed churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York Demolished churches in New York City Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan Victorian architecture in New York City Italianate architecture in New York City Romanesque Revival church buildings in New York City 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Italianate church buildings in the United States Civic Center, Manhattan