Helmle & Huberty, 1910;
John Ericsson (Monitor and Merrimac) Monument;
Sculptor: Antonio de Filippo, 1938|
Originally called Winthrop Park, this park was renamed in 1941 in honor of Monsignor Edward J. McGolrick, the Pastor of St. Cecilia’s Church. Its interior pathways are lined with shade trees, and its exterior perimeter is bordered by modest residential architecture. A highlight is the Shelter Pavilion, a Beaux-Arts comfort station that recalls the Grand Trianon at the Palace of Versailles. The structure features two end pavilions connected by a crescent-shaped open arcade of paired columns. In front of the pavilion is a statue commemorating the Greenpoint natives who lost their lives in World War I. Also within the park, the John Ericsson Monument is named for the engineer who built the Monitor, America’s first iron-clad warship, in Greenpoint in 1862. The park and pavilion were designated a New York CIty Individual Landmark in 1966.
Humboldt Street;
1903-04|
This Gothic Revival church, with a capacity of 1,250 worshippers, houses the largest Polish Catholic congregation in Brooklyn. In fact, the flanking stretches of Humboldt Street and Driggs Avenue were renamed Pope John Paul II Square and Lech Walesa Place, who each made visits to the parish. The church’s most marked feature is its spires that stand tall over the neighborhood. They are asymmetrical to one another, octagonal in shape and richly ornate.
84 Herbert Street;
Thomas Henry Poole;
1891-93|
The congregation of St. Cecilia’s formed in 1869 and originally occupied a small wood-frame church built in 1871. Over the course of the fifty-year leadership of Rev. Father McGolrick (1857-1938), the congregation vastly grew and the church set out to construct a larger building. This structure, which can hold roughly 1,400 people, is constructed of Georgia marble and limestone, and its altar is made of a cream-colored, French limestone called Caen stone. It features an imposing corner bell tower, capped with a copper roof.
Come raise a toast to the founding of Preservation Greenpoint and to Greenpoint’s selection as one of the Historic District Council’s Six to Celebrate in 2013! The evening will kick off around 6:30pm, visiting a bar that was once a longshoremen’s hangout during the neighborhood’s shipbuilding heyday, and continue crawling through the historic hot spots of the district.
Join Preservation Greenpoint and author/photographer Frank Jump on a walking tour of the fading ads of Greenpoint. For nearly 20 years, Jump has been documenting the painted ads of New York City as they rapidly disappear.
Historian Alec Cumming discusses Brooklyn’s contribution to the city’s radio history, from the many Yiddish stations of the ’30s and ’40s to Radio Soleil’s work in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, followed by a guided trip over to the historic radio site at Transmitter Park. Cosponsored by Word Bookstore.
Greenpoint’s historic factory buildings and modest workers’ housing are strong reminders of Brooklyn’s role as a powerful industrial center during the last half of the 19th century.
