Cathedral Basilica of St. James
223 Jay Street | Downtown Brooklyn | built 1910
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1822
Peter Turner organizes Brooklyn's first Catholic church at Jay and Chapel Streets
Irish Catholics drawn to the Navy Yard had to cross to Manhattan to attend Mass. Peter Turner, a Fulton Street resident who worked at the Yard, organized a committee, and by 1822 Brooklyn's Catholics had raised enough to buy land at Jay and Chapel Streets. Bishop Connolly consecrated the ground, and Rev. John Farnan, Long Island's first official Catholic priest, became the full-time pastor. The church stood on the lot where the present cathedral now stands.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1853
St. James becomes the cathedral of the new Diocese of Brooklyn
When the diocese was established in 1853, the church built in 1822-1823 became Brooklyn's cathedral. Bishop John Loughlin later planned a larger Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Greene and started it in 1868, but money ran out with the walls only 10 to 20 feet high. In 1896 his successor, Bishop McDonnell, named St. James a pro-cathedral while waiting for that building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1903
George H. Streeton replaces the old St. James with a Neo-Georgian church
In 1903 the old church was torn down and a new one built on the same site, designed by Brooklyn-born George H. Streeton in the Neo-Georgian style rather than the Gothic look common to Catholic cathedrals. Inside, he combined Georgian pilasters and coffered ceilings with a large baldachino resting on black marble columns. St. James held pro-cathedral status up to 1972, the year it became a cathedral again.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1979
Pope John Paul II stops at St. James on his first trip to the United States
In 1979, during his first trip to the United States as pope, John Paul II stopped at St. James and blessed the crowds who had gathered there. The church had become a cathedral again in 1972. It remains small for large gatherings, so the cathedral role is divided between it and St. Joseph's in Prospect Heights.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1982
Pope John Paul II decrees St. James a minor basilica
A pontifical decree called Prima inter Civitatis, issued on May 6, 1982, raised the church to the rank of minor basilica. Because St. James is small, many major diocesan ceremonies are held in larger churches, and St. Joseph's in Prospect Heights was named co-cathedral of the diocese in 2013.
Source: Wikipedia
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