St. Augustine & Our Lady of Victory, Webster Avenue.

The parish of St. Augustine and Our Lady of Victory worships in this church on the east side of Webster Avenue at East 171 Street.  The red building to the left is the rectory, at 1512 Webster Avenue, Bronx NY 10457, telephone 718-583-4044. The informative parish website is linked HERE.
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Repairs to the facade are underway in this May, 2012, photograph.  The Bx41 local bus, providing frequent service from The Hub at East 149th Street, stops near the church at East 171 Street. The Bx41 Select Bus Service stop is further south, at East 170th Street. 

Symbols of the four evangelists surround the rose window: John and Matthew above, Luke and Mark below.

The cornerstone carries the date 1911.

For many comments about Our Lady of Victory parish and school, please see my earlier post.

For photos of St. Augustine's church and school, please see my earlier post.

St. Martin of Tours, East 182nd St.

The entrance to St. Martin of Tours church is on East 182 Street, the northeast corner with Grote St. Across Grote St. is Aquinas High School. Over the doorway is a statue of St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, France, who lived 316-397.


In the above photo, East 182 Street is to the left. Crotona Avenue goes north (at the right) past what seems to be a school gym.
See page 296 for the establishment of the parish of St Martin of Tours at the intersection of East 182 St. and Grote Street, Tremont, in 1897. This intersection is one short block east of Belmont Ave. The present church dates from 1953. See also page 348. The rectory address is 664 Grote St., Bronx NY 10457, telephone 718-295-0913.
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For decades, laity and the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill staffed the parish school.  Unfortunately, the archdiocese chose to close the school in 2011, and a public school now uses the rooms  
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David Gonzalez has written an excellent article on the final day of St. Martin of Tours school, which was Wednesday, June 22, 2011. The article appeared in the New York Times and is linked here. Photos accompany the article. Because newspaper articles sometimes change their url, you may have to do a search for the article. The web edition headline is "School's Out, Forever."



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St. Simon Stock, Valentine Ave. and East 182 St.

See pages 472 and 473 for the founding of the parish of St. Simon Stock in 1919 on the south side of East 182nd Street from Ryer Avenue to Valentine Avenue. The clergy are Carmelite Friars, known in some places as the Whitefriars, distinguishing them from the Blackfriars (Dominicans) and Greyfriars (Franciscans). The rectory address is 2191 Valentine Avenue, Bronx NY 10457, telephone 718-367-1251. The parish website (active in 2022) is linked HERE.

This is a view of the southeast corner of the intersection of Ryer Avenue and East 182 Street. The low building is the basement of the never-completed church, with a cornerstone (below) of 1921. As happened in several Catholic parishes in New York, the urgency of building a school meant that construction efforts turned to the school, which has a cornerstone of 1925. If my memory is correct, in 1950 St. Simon Stock High School had the least expensive monthly tuition in The Bronx, $8 for parishioners of other parishes.

The above photo of St. Simon Stock elementary school looks west. Valentine Avenue goes downhill (south) to the left. West on 182nd Street (at the right edge of the photo) is the lower church.

Any photo may be enlarged by clicking on it. The parish elementary school is located at 2195 Valentine Avenue. A few years ago, it has about 300 students, one section per grade. However, the school will not reopen in September, 2024, The school website is linked here. Please note that the home page has links both in the center and at the bottom. For me, the forty-two pages of the school handbook is an interesting and clear example of school management.

Above is the rectory at 2191 Valentine Avenue. The school is to the right.

St Mary Protectress, Washington Ave., Tremont

St. Mary Protectress church stands on the west side of Washington Avenue about two blocks south of the Cross-Bronx Expressway.


See page 254 for the 1943 creation of the Ukrainian parish of St Mary Protectress, 1745 Washington Avenue, Bronx NY 10457, telephone 718-731-9392. This is an Eastern Rite parish in the jurisdiction of the Eparchy of Stamford, Connecticut. Whether the Sunday Divine Liturgy is celebrated in modern Ukrainian or Old Slavonic, I don't know. It appears that the pastor is a Basilian monk. Yes, this is a Catholic parish.
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Note that the English name of the parish is a bit different from the Ukrainian name, which I take to be Holy Protectress. This link gives some of the history of the title Protectress.

St. Joseph, Bathgate Ave., Tremont

St. Joseph's school remains open, but as of August 1, 2015, St. Joseph's church on Bathgate Avenue is closed, and the parish is merged with that of St. Simon Stock.  The photos below were taken in 2009.  For a photo of the church interior and some other parish photos, please click on this link.  Then scroll down that page. (As of 2022, the church may have been demolished. I don't know for certain. One of the windows may go to the parish in Bellport, Long Island.)

Above is a view south on Bathgate Avenue. Clicking on any photo will enlarge it.


The school is on the east side of Bathgate Avenue. The cornerstone is dated 1922. The church cornerstone is dated 1899.


See page 216 for the influx of Germans into Melrose, Morrisania, and Tremont, and the creation of the parish of St Joseph in Tremont in 1873. See page 218 for prints and photos. See page 292 for its quickly becoming a territorial parish. Page 392 shows St Joseph's parish on the list of coadjutor archbishop Corrigan's visitations in August, 1883. Page 222 refers to an Irish-American pastor at St. Joseph's in 1895. See page 412 for a photo of a Holy Name Communion Breakfast in 1938. The present church was built in 1902 on Bathgate Avenue, just north of East Tremont Avenue and a block west of Third Avenue.
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The address of the parish school was 1946 Bathgate Ave., across from the church. The school closed in 2019. For years, the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill staffed the school and lived on the top floor.
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The neighborhood bustles with residents, shoppers, and workers in many small enterprises. Quite a few smaller churches line the streets.
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In this 1969 photo of the Third Avenue El, one can see both the church and the school. The school has a white-painted wall facing east and a satellite dish for the archdiocesan television network. The church stone is afflicted with the grime from many Bronx furnaces. In fact, one cloud of soot can be seen in the distance.

Aquinas High School, East 182 St.

Aquinas High School, a leading Catholic high School for girls, is located at 685 East 182nd Street, Bronx NY 10457, where both Belmont Avenue and Grote Street meet 182nd Street. The telephone is718-367-2113. The school website is linked here.


Aquinas High School is not a parish or archdiocesan high school. Rather, as with numerous Catholic high schools and academies, it was established by a congregation of teaching Sisters, the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill. They and lay teachers have staffed the school for many decades.


The above photos are taken from the east side of the intersection, where the parish church of St. Martin of Tours is located.


The Metropolitan Transit Authority inherited many of its bus routes from previous owners who had arranged with some high schools to provide direct bus service at the student fare, rather than have students change from bus-to-bus. Perhaps because of the different requirements for school buses, in recent years these routes have become marked as public routes. They have never used yellow buses. This bus stop sign shows that at dismissal students may board a Bx12 bus which travels Fordham Road to Sedgwick Avenue.


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Our Lady of Victory, Webster Avenue, Tremont

On January 29, 2012, the parishioners of Our Lady of Victory welcomed the faithful in procession from St. Augustine's parish, closed that day and merged with Our Lady of Victory. 
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Webster Avenue proceeds north at the left of this 2008 photo. The rectory is the shorter building at the left. Maybe classrooms are above the church, but the parish has no elementary school. Instead, a vigorous CCD program is offered.
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See page 472 for the establishment of the parish of Our Lady of Victory, 1512 Webster Avenue, at East 171 St, a block south of Claremont Parkway, in 1909. See page 474 for a photo of the church, which dates from 1911. For an explanation of Mary's title, "Our Lady of Victory," you may check out this link from the University of Dayton. I have long been puzzled by the question, "Which victory?" The primary victory seems to be Lepanto in 1571, but as the French often use the plural, there is a hint of more than that single battle.
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The rectory address is 1512 Webster Ave., Bronx NY 10457, telephone 718-583-4044.
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To read the comments, please click on "Comments" below.  A 2012 post is linked here.