St. Michael's Church

356 42nd Street | also 4202 4th Avenue, 346 42nd Street | Sunset Park | built 1930

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1870

    St. Michael's parish is founded with Rev. Michael J. Hickey as first pastor

    Before the parish was founded in 1870, Catholics in this part of Brooklyn had to travel to St. John the Evangelist on 21st Street or to St. Patrick's in Fort Hamilton to attend Mass. St. Michael's first pastor was Rev. Michael J. Hickey.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1886

    St. Michael's parochial school opens

    The parish opened its parochial school in 1886, sixteen years after the parish itself was founded. The school closed in 2005.

    “St. Michael's parochial school opened in 1886; it closed in 2005.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1905

    Raymond F. Almirall designs the current St. Michael's Church

    The present church was built in 1905 to designs by the church architect Raymond F. Almirall, in an early Romanesque style. Its domed tower, which has led people to call it Brooklyn's own Sacre-Coeur, was once the second tallest building in Brooklyn, behind only the Williamsburg Savings Bank Tower.

    “The current church was built 1905, and was designed by noted church architect Raymond F. Almirall. The exterior is in early Romanesque.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1985

    The film Heaven Help Us uses the church and school as St. Basil's

    The comedy Heaven Help Us (1985) was shot in the neighborhood. Interior and exterior shots of the church and of St. Michael's Parish School, now closed, stand in for a made-up St. Basil's Church and a school of the same name.

    “…filmed in the neighborhood, using external and internal shots of the church and the now closed St. Michael's Parish School as the fictional St. Basil's Church…”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 19 buildings with stories in Sunset Park