Visitation, Van Cortlandt Park South

Sometime in 2023, Visitation Church was sold and leveled.  Please see https://www.riverdalepress.com/stories/van-cortlandt-church-property-fetches-29-million,80028

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As of August 1, 2015, Visitation church was closed for regular worship.  The merged parish of St. John - Visitation worships at St. John church, Kingsbridge Avenue near West 230th Street. Visitation School closed in June, 2017. At the same time, the archbishop decreed that Visitation church, pictured below, has been canonically relegated to profane, not sordid, use. The decree may still be available HERE on the archdiocesan website.
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The photos below are from 2010.  This was demolished in 2023.

See pages 478 and 480 for Visitation parish, Kingsbridge, founded in 1928. The second church dated from 1953, because the previous church and school (a combined building, if memory is correct) was destroyed to construct Major Deegan Expressway. The rectory address was 160 Van Cortlandt Park South, Bronx NY 10463.

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The parish school, now closed, is at 171 West 239th Street, Bronx NY 10463. The school had one section per grade. Lay teachers, Sisters of Charity, and Dominican Sisters staffed the school. In the 1940's, Mom occasionally subbed here. She learned that the principal required the students to walk on the gold or bronze line that separated the slabs of terrazzo in the halls.
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This note is from a viewer:

Just some more info on the Visitation Parrish

My family the

Greco/Caputo's moved to 238th St. around 1935 from St Nicholas Ave.

I know that my Uncles owned the stores along Bailey Ave.

I think cousins still may own them

and each of the Uncles had a business - the others were rented.

One of the 10 or so stores was given to Father Stafford?? the founder of Visitation by my uncles to use for Mass.

until the first church was built on 238th st. next to 135 west 238 st.

my older cousins who are now in their 80's went to Visitation and graduated from the old school.

I was in the first first grade class  at the new school and graduated in 1961.

in those days our first grade class had 58 students. Sister Dorothy was our teacher.

FYI

Rosemary Dilgard

St. Margaret Mary, East Tremont and Morris Aves.

The above view looks south across busy Tremont Avenue. Morris Avenue is one-way northbound, at the right of the photo, and the rectory is a few steps down that block. To the left of the church is the former parish school and the Grand Concourse.

This view is also taken from Tremont Avenue. The church is to the right. This appears to be a parking lot or playground for the school, closed in 2023. .

Above is the south entrance to former St. Margaret Mary school, situated on East 177 St.

See page 408 for a 1950's photo of a First Communion procession in St. Margaret Mary church. Parents and Sisters of Mercy may be seen at the procession. See page 472 for establishment of the parish in 1923. Page 473 has an exterior photo of the church. See page 606 for a reference to parishioners from Ghana. The rectory address is 1914 Morris Ave., Bronx NY 10453, telephone 718-299-4233.
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On 10.18.2023, I phoned the rectory and learned that the parish school closed this year..

Nativity of Our Blessed Lady, East 233 St., Eastchester

Important!  Much of this post is contradicted by what I observed on 9.21.2019.  Please look at this update.
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The photographs below are from 2009.  On August 8, 2015, I passed this church and did not notice any sign that it was closed, even though the Archbishop merged this parish with Holy Rosary parish. Regular Mass and sacraments will not be available here, but rather at Holy Rosary - Nativity, on Eastchester Road near Gun Hill Road, where Father Dennis Williams is pastor of the combined parish.  However, some Mount Vernon Catholic churches may also be handy for displaced parisioners.  Historically this borderland of The Bronx has had strong ties to Mount Vernon.  Maybe most of the houses within Nativity parish (under the old parish-boundaries protocol) are, in fact, in Mount Vernon.  The Bronx side of the border, with Nativity church and school and the Dyre Avenue subway station is more commercial and industrial.


Nativity of Our Blessed Lady church stands at the southwest corner of East 233rd Street and Secor Avenue. The far side of the church, that is, facing Secor Avenue, has some windows. 

The address of the parish school is 3893 Dyre Avenue, Bronx NY 10466, telephone 718-324-2188.



See pages 484 and 485 for the foundation of the parish of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lady near Dyre Avenue and East 233 Street in the Eastchester neighborhood of The Bronx. 
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Though the parish dates from 1924, a first church was completed in 1933, according to a parish history at this link. The church burned in 1958, and in 1969 the new church was inaugurated at the corner of Secor Avenue and East 233rd Street. For many years since the parish school's opening in 1953, the Dominican Sisters of Newburgh educated youngsters of Nativity. The school is at 3893 Dyre Avenue, telephone 718-324-2188. It appears that the school has one section per grade, as it graduated about thirty students in June, 2009. In September, 2019, it is actively recruiting students both for Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK, a municipal program) and the K-8 school.
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The name Eastchester dates back to the late 1600's, it seems, but the Town of Eastchester shrunk as cities and villages were carved from it. This northern neighborhood of The Bronx is correctly called Eastchester, but the remaining Town of Eastchester lies about six miles north. Church and school are near the Dyre Avenue terminus of the 5 Train of the New York City subway.
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A comment follows:

michael said...

"I grew up in the north Bronx. entered Nativity school the 1st year it opened. In fact, I have the program when Cardinal Spellman dedicated the school. I also was an altar boy when the church was on Secor Avenue. In fact, I served the last mass there on the day it burnt down. I also have a photo of my baptism that shows the lawn where the playground now is or was."

January 19, 2009 12:22 AM

St Francis Xavier, Van Nest Ave., Morris Park

See 484 and 486 for St Francis Xavier, founded in Morris Park in 1928. The parish patron, Francis Xavier, was born in Spain in 1506. He became one of the first Jesuits and a missionary to India and Japan, dying on route to China in 1552. Brief biographies of St. Francis Xavier are linked here and here.
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The present church at Lurting and Van Nest Avenues dates from 1951. The parish has several substantial buildings, including what appear to be two schools. A convent was refurbished for the Franciscan sisters sponsored by Fr. Benedict Groeschel. The rectory address is 1703 Lurting Ave., Bronx NY 10461, telephone 718-892-3330. The parish website is linked here. Thanks to Tom, who provided the link.
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The parish school is at 1711 Haight Avenue, telephone 718-863-0531. With about 370 students, it appears that some grades have two sections, other grades one.
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Lurting Avenue and some parallel avenues to the west carry the names of former mayors of New York City. According to "History in Asphalt" by John McNamara, Robert Lurting was mayor from 1726 to 1735. Stephan Haight was a local landowner.

Yankee Stadium, 1957

See pages 523 and 524 for a celebration at Yankee Stadium in 1957.

St John's College and Fordham University

See pages 359, 360 and 386 for the foundation of St John's College in 1841 and the transfer of its administration to Jesuits in 1846. Somewhere I have read that the name "Fordham" referred rather to an estate along the Harlem River and that Rose Hill, the 106-acre purchase made by Bishop Hughes in 1839, was at the east end of the estate. See pages 111 and 132 for references to the first diocesan synod, held at St John's College, Fordham, in 1842. In 1905, the Jesuits renamed the college Fordham. Thomas Shelley's book, the Bronx references of which I am here indexing, is rich with footnotes. See footnote #14 on page 360 for a helpful history of Fordham University. Page 421 has a photo of Keating Hall. Page 522 refers to the San Juan Fiesta at Rose Hill in 1956. Page 598 reminds the reader that The Bronx was honored with its own cardinal in 2001, Cardinal Avery Dulles, .S.J., residing at Fordham University.