SCOUTING
FIELD NOTES

Exploring An Empty Church In Brooklyn

11/03/2010

This is Greenpoint’s beautiful St. Elias Church, located on shady Kent Street. And yes, that’s a FOR RENT sign on the front.

Once serving the community as both a church and Sunday school for more than 140 years, St. Elias is now completely empty, and has been since 2007, when the property was purchased by developers.

For a while, the plan was to sell it as a mansion, with an asking price of $3.4 million for the church and $3.7 million for the school portion (the facade would be preserved). Unfortunately, the days of eccentric buyers purchasing empty churches seems to have passed, and St. Elias’ future is somewhat up in the air.

The good news is that St. Elias is available for film shoots, and any number of other short term uses. In fact, it was rented for a robot orchestra in February!

From a scouting standpoint, St. Elias is a one-of-a-kind shooting location. Finding film-friendly churches can be difficult, because you often run into the question of content approval. And for some reason, a lot of movies shot in New York don’t always portray the church in the kindest light…

There’s a lot of great detail in the church portion, which is lined with mahogany pews:

The school is equally impressive, with a mezzanine and windows encompassing the third-story level:

I love this choir loft on the upper level…

…which has two enormous sliding frosted glass window panels. I wonder how many kids sang up here over the years:

A very curvy hallway…

A classroom, with hardwood floors:

I believe this was the former vestiary:

A small chalkboard – no chalk, but the string still hangs. Something about this makes me sad, not sure why.

Beautiful windows at the entrance:

Stained glass windows poking through the decay:

The trap door to the tower, which has views of Manhattan:

But my favorite hidden find in St. Elias? This wooden bar in the basement, which feels as old as the church:

Note the liquor racks on the walls…

I would love to know if everyone knew about it…or if only certain parishioners were privy to its existence! It was a Catholic church after all…

-SCOUT

Many more posts in the archives!

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Dustin

11/03/2010

I passed by here Monday night and noticed the for rent sign, too. If only I had $4 million or so to spend…

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Monica Burns

11/03/2010

This church looks perfect for so many different things. I’m surprised someone hasn’t thought of using it for weddings and hosting fancy receptions.

As for the liquor rack, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s where the stored the communion wine. The church looks rather large, and at one time the number of parishoners might have called for a lot of wine being stocked. If I remember correctly (Catholic mother raised Protestant) communion is given every week. Can’t remember for sure.

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1. Lorraine Rosen
  
  03/28/2015
  
  This was not a traditional Roman Catholic Church. I know, because my friend Annmarie attend and was married in this church. I was in her wedding party. She often referred to this church as Greek Catholic. As for Communion wine, it is not stored at a bar in the basement. It is stored in the room off the altar and poured by the altar servers before the service or Mass.
  
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Peter

11/03/2010

There’s a Catholic church in Waterbury, Connecticut (St. Joseph’s) which for many years has had public bowling alleys in the basement.

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Queen TEE

11/03/2010

OOh! Thanks for posting this! I walked by this the other day and noticed the ‘for rent’ sign and thought about how amazing it would be to live there.

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Seattle

11/03/2010

Miles Davis lived in a converted church at, I believe, midtown, on the west side. This one might be good for another musician?

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DHM

11/03/2010

Actually, it was not a Catholic Church for most of its history; it was the Dutch Reformed Church from the time it was built, in 1870, to 1940, when its most notorious clergyman, the Rev. Benny Benson, who in 1937 had burned a Bible in the pulpit there (“If nobody is going to read this thing, you might as well burn it”), moved the congregation to their present home in the former Greenpoint YWCA on Milton Street, where they are still going strong. (It was after the move, in 1946, that Benson led a prayer meeting on the steps of Boro Hall for the Dodgers to win the pennant, though it didn’t do much good; dem Bums gave up two runs in the top of the ninth to lose the deciding game 11-9.)

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kmariekim

11/03/2010

i stumbled across your site when my friend found the shopping cart w/ cement shoes… these are gems. that’s really a good price for the lot/building!! (says a broke musician..) I’m donating a small chunk of change, but also, i am intrigued by your approach and would love to donate time/gear for the audio end of your film!

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Amy

11/03/2010

Speakeasy, perhaps?

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Ivey

11/03/2010

An Irish woman I used to rent a room from was explaining to me how most of the Catholic churches in Ireland had small pubs attached for the congregation and community to gather and mingle. It served as a source of income for the church, as well as insurance that there would be quite a few people asking for forgiveness on Sunday. Apparently, the church she grew up in over there was somewhat tongue-in-cheek about it. The church itself was St. Joseph’s and the pub was known as Holy Joe’s.

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1. Grace
  
  01/26/2011
  
  I’m from Ireland, and that is not true. At all.
  
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Mara

11/03/2010

They don’t build churches like this anymore. They don’t build anything like this anymore. Makes me sad.
What a beautiful building, with so much character and personality.

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The Vidiot

11/03/2010

Growing up Italian Roman Catholic, I can tell you we {they} drink and gamble, especially at feast times. They also may have rented out the basement for wedding receptions, baptism receptions, etc. I always thought it was an Italian thing, but I guess it’s everybody.

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C. Butler

11/04/2010

It occurred to me that if it looks to commercial that maybe the bar was for a chapter of the Knights of Columbus not the most common use but at least plausible.

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duck

11/04/2010

I used to live next door to this beautiful building and always wondered about the interior… really happy you chose to profile it here. This part of Kent St. is so lovely. I’d love an inside look at the Renaissance-style columned house at 130 Kent, supposedly the home of Neziah Bliss.

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andy padre

11/13/2010

i’m wondering if the “choir” space w/ roll up windows was not reserved for African American’s? is is in the back of the church? that might make sense if once all the congregation was seated, the windows would be rolled up so that people inside the loft could see w/o being seen. andy

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1. Mike
  
  11/30/2011
  
  Hi Andy. Good question. Not to my knowledge as the church was always an ethnic Slovakian parish for a century. If I recall the cornerstone correctly, the building was built in the mid-1800s and initially served as a Methodist or Lutheran church – but I could be wrong. Posters Annie or J. Lavryshyn below might know for sure. As to that choir space, it overlooks the parish social hall. If you view the 12th photo from the bottom, i.e., the view looking up at the choir loft, the sanctuary or church area itself is on the other side of those tall arched windows on the right.
  
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  1. Lorraine Rosen
    
    03/28/2015
    
    You are right, Mike. There was a Slovakian group of parishioners attached to St. Elias. It was a very tight knit group for many years. My friend, who lived on Kent Street, attended this parish and her grandmother used to speak Slovak to my mother who spoke Polish and they understood each other. Memories!!
    
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  2. Ann
    
    12/27/2015
    
    Note the earlier comment by DHM – this building was originally built by the Dutch Reformed Church, and served the congregation until the early 1940s when they moved from Kent St. to Milton St. At that time, the building had a complete steeple, which was in disrepair and which was later removed by the congregation which bought the building – St. Elias’, which was a Greek Rite Catholic congregation. This is a different Catholic than the Roman Catholic church.
    
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k

11/23/2010

A bar would be great for catered occasions like weddings.

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Steven

12/29/2010

I just read this entry for the first time yesterday, and now today there is a story in the New York Times about two immigrant congregations fighting over a Methodist church in Brooklyn. You’d think one or the other would adopt an abandoned church building like this one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/nyregion/29church.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

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Diana

02/01/2011

I grew up in Greenpoint. Kent St.was right around the cornor where I lived for 40 yesrs.That church was beautiful. I sometimes went to mass there even though I was raised Catholic. This church is only one of the many things I remember about Greenpoint.

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Kirby

02/04/2011

“i’m wondering if the “choir” space w/ roll up windows was not reserved for African American’s? is is in the back of the church?”

Obviously not- see two pics above roll up window pic. Also, I’ve never one seen a pub attached to a church in Ireland.

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Liz

04/06/2011

My father restored the stained glass windows in this church about 15 years ago. His brother (my uncle) lived 3 doors down and we would often play wiffle ball on the street and get our balls stuff on the roof of the church. Who knows how many things are stuck up there now!

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annie

07/10/2011

ST. ELIAS WAS MY PARISH. THE BUILDING HAS LOTS OF MEMORIES AND I AM GLAD IT IS STILL NOT TORN DOWN

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1. Lorraine Rosen
  
  03/28/2015
  
  Is this you, Annmarie?
  
  Reply