St. Gabriel's Roman Catholic Church is a parish located in the
Riverdale section of
The Bronx, New York. The parish was created in 1939 by
Francis Spellman
Francis Joseph Spellman (May 4, 1889 – December 2, 1967) was an American bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church. From 1939 until his death in 1967, he served as the sixth Archbishop of New York; he had previously served as an auxiliary ...
, then the
Archbishop of New York, as the successor to the
St. Gabriel's Church on East 37th Street in
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 ...
, which was razed in 1937 to accommodate the construction of the
Queens–Midtown Tunnel
The Queens–Midtown Tunnel (also sometimes called the Midtown Tunnel) is a vehicular tunnel under the East River in New York City, connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens. The tunnel consists of a pair of tubes, each carrying two ...
. The pews, altars and statues of the original church were relocated to the new structure, and many of the church's
Irish-American congregants also moved to the Bronx to be near their parish. The Right Reverend Francis W. Walsh, pastor of the Church of the Assumption in
Peekskill, New York, and president of the
College of New Rochelle, was named pastor – a post he held until his retirement in 1969.
The St. Gabriel's complex encompasses a church, elementary school and rectory. In 2004, St. Gabriel's was at the center of a zoning debate when a real estate developer unsuccessfully attempted to pay $7.2 million to build a new church and rectory and to renovate the church's school in exchange for the sale of air rights to build a 30-story condominium on the site of the rectory.
References
External links
St. Gabriel’s Roman Catholic Church websiteSt. Gabriel's School website
Roman Catholic churches in the Bronx
Demolished churches in New York City
Demolished buildings and structures in the Bronx
Roman Catholic churches completed in 1939
20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States
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