Church of Our Lady of Sorrows
99 Pitt Street | Lower East Side | built 1900
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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.
- 1867
Capuchin friars found Our Lady of the Seven Dolors as a national parish for German Catholics
The parish now called Our Lady of Sorrows began in 1867 under the name Our Lady of the Seven Dolors, with Capuchin friars in charge. It was the national parish for German Catholic immigrants arriving in New York, in the neighborhood then known as Kleindeutschland. Later it became a parish for Italian immigrants and then for Hispanic ones.
“…established in 1867 as Our Lady of the Seven Dolors Church and staffed by the Capuchin Friars. It served as the national parish for the large number of German Catholics…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1868
Archbishop McCloskey dedicates the Victorian Gothic parish church
Architect Henry Engelbert designed the church, blending Victorian, Byzantine Revival and Romanesque Revival styles, for the German Catholic immigrants of the Kleindeutschland neighborhood. Founded the previous year as Our Lady of the Seven Dolors and staffed by Capuchin friars, the parish saw Archbishop John McCloskey dedicate the finished building on September 6, 1868.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2011
The Archdiocese closes the parish school in a wave of shutdowns
The congregation, which had shifted over the decades from German to Italian and then largely Hispanic parishioners, still ran a parish school when Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan closed it in January 2011. It was one of 27 Archdiocese of New York schools shuttered that year in a broader reconfiguration of parish resources.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2024
Ephemeral New York notes a bronze tablet on the old parish school listing about 200 World War II veterans
A weathered tablet beside a first-floor window of the old parish school, at Pitt and Stanton Streets, lists about 200 parishioners and neighbors who served the U.S. in World War II. Although the parish began as a German one, the names are mostly Italian, with many Jewish ones too, a sign of how the neighborhood changed. Ephemeral New York wrote about the memorial on Veterans Day 2024.
Source: Ephemeral New York
Further reading
- Church of Our Lady of Sorrows (New York City)Wikipedia
- A dramatic Victorian building with an understated bronze tablet honoring World War II veteransEphemeral New York
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