How the Catholic Church Drove Suburban Expansion Within and Outside New York City

By Stephen M. Koeth, C.S.C.

Between 1950 and 1970, members of New York City’s white middle-class were on the move, both within the five boroughs, to newly developed suburban sections of Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens, as well as to the suburbs of Long Island. Although Catholic New Yorkers made up a sizable portion of this suburban migration, scholars have tended to focus on those Catholics who remained in the old ethnic neighborhoods, on Catholic leaders’ concerns about the ill effects of white flight, and on the stability that urban Catholic parishes and schools provided amidst the Urban Crisis. [1]

Often overlooked, therefore, is the role that Catholic leaders, associations, and media played in spurring suburbanization, shaping the pattern of suburban development, and establishing the necessary infrastructure to sustain suburban communities. The Catholic bishops of metropolitan New York cooperated with urban planners and developers in order to maximize the Church’s real estate holdings and to anticipate where the Church would need to expand in order to serve its suburbanizing flock. They also moved financial resources from well-established urban parishes to newly established suburban parishes and oversaw massive building campaigns in suburban areas. New York’s Catholic fraternal societies and Catholic press promoted the suburban housing blitz by publishing articles and advertisements hailing suburban developments and by sponsoring model home shows. And Catholic laity, desperate for their share in the American dream, decided which suburban home to purchase, in part, based on its proximity to a parish church and school. The Catholic Church was thus a crucially important agent of suburbanization in metropolitan New York.  

From the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, the pages of New York’s three Catholic diocesan newspapers were littered with advertisements for real estate and home sales, for department stores selling the latest furniture, appliances, and consumer goods to fill suburban houses, and for contractors prepared to modify and improve starter homes with attic expansions, replacement windows, and swimming pools. Developers advertised their homes in these diocesan newspapers, attempting to reach the lucrative market of Catholic homebuyers and to assure prospective buyers of ready access to ecclesial services from their new suburban homes.

In some instances, parishes in suburban areas of the city worked with developers to build dream homes that were toured by prospective homebuyers and raffled off as a means of fundraising. In 1958, Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish in Staten Island built and furnished a six-room, brick, ranch-style dream house and the women of the parish served as hostesses for those who toured the home. In turn, the funds raised were used to  add a kindergarten classroom  to the planned parish grade school, which opened the following year and expanded social services in the rapidly expanding neighborhood. [2]

Advertisement for the Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish Dream House in Staten Island. Source: “The Dream House,” The Catholic News, 74: Staten Island Edition (August 23, 1958): 1.

Catholic fraternal associations, too, promoted suburban living by building and raffling model homes. Between 1949 and 1960, chapters of the Catholic War Veterans of America (CWV) in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Westchester sponsored more than a dozen model home shows with multiple homes on offer each year between 1951 and 1953. For the CWV, these shows were an opportunity to raise funds and to promote the organization’s ideals of God, Country, and Home, which in the midst of the Cold War were seen as crucial antidotes to the spread of Communism. For builders and home furnishing retailers, the home shows provided an opportunity to display their latest designs and to encourage the dream of suburban homeownership within their Catholic visitors.

Advertisement for the Catholic War Veterans Christmas Model Gift Home, 1951. Source: The Tablet, 44:33 (October 6, 1951): 7.

Anticipating the need for new parishes and schools in rapidly expanding suburban areas, dioceses purchased undeveloped land in advance of, or in response to, the expansion of housing developments. Dioceses clearly worked in consultation with priests, private developers, and city planning commissions – including “master builder” Robert Moses – to determine where development would necessitate the establishment of new parishes. In July 1959, the Diocese of Brooklyn worked with the pastor of St. Clare Parish and a real estate developer to determine the need for, and boundaries of, a new parish in Rosedale, Queens near Idlewild, later John F. Kennedy Airport on the borough’s border with Nassau County. At the time, 2,364 homes existed in the area and about 1,276 of them were Catholic. Already some 500 new homes were planned, and future development was speculated to bring another 2,250 families to the area. In 1960, the Diocese of Brooklyn therefore established St. Pius X Parish in Rosedale from the southern section of St. Clare’s Parish. [3]

Planning Map for the Parish of St. Pius X in Rosedale, Brooklyn. Source: Archives of the Diocese of Brooklyn, Buildings and Properties Office – Parish Correspondence Files, Box 10, File: St. Pius X, 1959-1960 (OLL 2150).

That same year, the Diocese of Brooklyn prepared for a new parish in the area of Mill Basin and Bergen Beach in Brooklyn. The diocese purchased property for a church on Island Avenue between 69th and 70th Streets for $120,137 and paid a builder $26,350 for a house at 2017 E. 68th Street to serve as a rectory. The same builder assured the diocese that 300 homes would be built directly across the street from the diocese’s property.

In May of the following year, the New York City Planning Commission announced that some 3,500 additional housing units could be developed on 200 acres of land in neighboring Paerdegat Basin. The staff of the Diocesan Projects office reported that although the area had a high concentration of Jewish residents, Italian Catholic families were also moving into the area and Bishop Bryan McEntegart was eager to “assure a continuation of this trend.” On June 30, 1961, the diocese established St. Bernard Parish and the parish’s first Sunday Masses were celebrated on August 20 in a tent erected on property purchased by the diocese. The initial parish census indicated that some 700 Catholic families already lived within St. Bernard’s boundaries, and within two years the parish had broken ground on a three-story, sixteen-classroom parish school building to serve the burgeoning neighborhood. [4]

St. Bernard Parochial School in Mill Basin, Brooklyn. Source: “To Dedicate School, Chapel-Auditorium,” The Tablet (May 6, 1965): 2 in Archives of the Diocese of Brooklyn, Catholic Information Center – Rev. Robert Hurley Collection, Parish Files, Box 1, Folder 19.

Developers, too, saw the benefit of collaborating with the Church in planning suburban expansion. In the spring of 1960, when the Diocese of Brooklyn purchased property in the rapidly developing Bergen Beach section of Brooklyn, a developer admitted that, despite the diocese’s preference to keep the purchase private, he had been enticing prospective buyers by informing them that a church would soon be built in the area. [5]

In addition to financing suburban expansion by purchasing property for future parishes, in some instances, Church officials also directed the transfer of money from well-established and financially secure urban parishes to newly created parishes in suburban areas. In June 1961, when Bishop McEntegart established St. Bernard Parish in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, he also informed Fr. Patrick J. Kenny the parish’s founding pastor that five parishes had, at his instruction, donated a combined $ 300,000 to the new parish. The bishop stated that such generosity was proof of “an admirable Priestly solidarity” and suggested that Fr. Kenny visit each of the five pastors to personally thank them for their generosity. [6]

In reality, of course, it was the parishioners of those established parishes who were providing funds through contributions they had expected would be used to support their own parish. Writing to Bishop McEntegart to provide the requested donation for St. Bernard Parish, Fr. Joseph J. Tschantz of St. Gerard Majella Parish in Hollis assured the bishop that “this transfer of funds will not hinder or inconvenience us in our plans for the future of this parish.” Although Fr. Tschantz had not announced the transfer of parish funds to his parishioners, he assumed that they would “all be in full agreement with your Excellency’s policy in these matters.” [7]

Similarly, when St. Jude Parish was established in Canarsie, Brooklyn in 1961, a total of $320,000 was donated to the new parish by nine well-established parishes. [8] In 1964, when St. Laurence Parish in East New York, Brooklyn was created, six established parishes and an anonymous donor gave a total of $200,000 to assist the new community. [9] And when St. Columba Parish in Marine Park, Brooklyn was formed in 1967, six established parishes each made $50,000 donations to the new parish. [10]

Records of all these financial transactions indicate that donating pastors were instructed to list the expenditure as a contribution to ‘Home Missions,’ that the diocese held donated funds in escrow until the new parishes needed them, and that the pastors receiving donations were to maintain confidentiality lest his parishioners “feel there is no reason to give their full measure of support” to the new parish. [11] Such secrecy also ensured that congregants from the parishes making these donations did not question why their contributions were being redirected to other parishes.

It is not clear from existing records if this policy of providing seed money to new parishes was in effect when the Diocese of Brooklyn created new parishes in Nassau and Suffolk Counties between 1945 and 1957, but it seems likely that it was. Undoubtedly, in some cases the donation of funds from long-established parishes to newly created parishes, meant that money was following the very parishioners who had financially sustained parishes in urban neighborhoods as they themselves moved to homes near newly erected suburban parishes. But this transfer of wealth from urban to suburban sections of the diocese undeniably paralleled federal and state legislation that subsidized the expansion of the postwar suburbs at the expense of funding for inner city neighborhoods.

It is also clear that the exponential growth of Long Island’s suburbs caught the attention of the Vatican which, in 1957, established the new Diocese of Rockville Centre to administer the Church in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Recognizing the massive institutional expansion that would be needed to serve the Island’s new Catholic residents, the Vatican named the Most Rev. Walter P. Kellenberg as the diocese’s first bishop. Kellenberg had previously studied real estate, insurance, and business administration at Columbia University, and served in the Archdiocese of New York’s Building Office where he was responsible for planning new parishes and diocesan buildings, hiring architects, negotiating contracts, and supervising building contractors. He also served for six years as Chancellor of the Archdiocese. [12] Kellenberg’s expertise and experience were ideally suited to fashioning a new diocese in a burgeoning area.

At the time of its establishment, the Diocese of Rockville Centre was comprised of 112 parishes serving almost a half a million Catholics out of a total population of 1,778,000. [13] In the first five years of the diocese’s existence, between 1957 and 1962, the number of Catholics grew by nearly 50 percent whereas the overall population of Nassau and Suffolk Counties increased by 29 percent. Then, between 1962 and 1963, the diocese increased by six percent in a single year, an increase that was three times the national Catholic growth rate and made the Diocese of Rockville Centre the nation’s fifth largest diocese. [14]

Bishop Walter Kellenberg of the Diocese of Rockville Centre shaking hands with Fr. John Leonard, pastor of Our Lady of Grace Parish in West Babylon at the dedication of the parish’s new auditorium-church, June 13, 1965. Source: Archives of Our Lady of Grace Parish, West Babylon, New York.

Unsurprisingly, in striving to serve its rapidly growing population the new diocese continued the Diocese of Brooklyn’s tradition of speculating about further residential development and the need for new parishes, schools, and other Catholic institutions in emerging communities. In December 1960, the Diocese of Rockville Centre purchased two parcels of land totaling 38 acres in West Babylon from the Van Bourgondien family, which had operated a garden center in the area since 1919. Two years later, in June 1962, Bishop Kellenberg announced the establishment of Our Lady of Grace Parish and within just a few months the parish had nearly 6,000 families. [15]

Longstanding parishes in the territory that was now the Diocese of Rockville Centre had, up until that point, been small town and rural parishes. As they expanded rapidly along with their surrounding communities, most of these parishes were not in a position to also provide sizeable donations to support the diocese’s newly established parishes. Bishop Kellenberg did, however, establish a diocesan loan account in which parishes with sufficient financing voluntarily deposited surplus monies in a diocesan fund that then lent to parishes needing financial assistance with their building projects. Monsignor Edmond Trench, a former Chancellor and Finance Director for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, reflected years later that the diocesan loan account had helped build much of the diocese’s infrastructure. [16]

That infrastructure expanded exponentially, as the postwar generation of Long Island Catholics was exceedingly supportive of parish and diocesan building campaigns despite struggling with the financial burdens of suburban mortgages and taxes. In just the first four years of the Diocese of Rockville Centre’s existence, the diocese and its parishes spent over $65 million to build 28 new elementary schools; 27 additions to existing parochial schools; 3 high schools; 11 churches and five church expansions; 18 convents and eight convent expansions; seven rectories; 22 parish auditoriums; a CYO day camp; a hospital; a preparatory seminary; and a building for the diocesan chancery. [17]

Thus, on Long Island, as in other suburban areas in metropolitan New York and around the country, the Catholic Church played a crucial role in helping spur, design, finance, and build the suburban landscapes that came to typify the postwar era.

Stephen M. Koeth, C.S.C. is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. His first book Crabgrass Catholicism: How Suburbanization Transformed Faith and Politics in Postwar America is forthcoming from The University of Chicago Press’ Historical Studies of Urban America Series. It is based on his dissertation which won Columbia University’s Bancroft Dissertation Award and the American Catholic Historical Association’s John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award.

[1] See: John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Gerald Gamm, Urban Exodus: Why the Jews Left Boston and the Catholics Stayed (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); Nicolle Stelle Garnett and Margaret Brinig, Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools’ Importance in Urban America, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

[2] “The Dream House,” The Catholic News, 74: Staten Island Edition (August 23, 1958): 1.

[3] See Memo of July 8, 1959 in ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 26, St. Pius X Folder 1 (OLL 1848).

[4] “First Mass in New Parish in Tent,” The Tablet 54:29 (August 29, 1961): 1 and see Memos from the Secretary of Diocesan Projects to Bishop McEntegart on February 15, 1960, June 17, 1960, and May 1, 1961 (ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 3, Folder St. Bernard, BK (OLL 1825).

[5] March 30, 1960 and June 17, 1960 Memos from Secretary of Diocesan Projects to Bishop Bryan McEntegart, in ADB, Bishops Office Papers, Box 3 Folder: St. Bernard, BK (OLL 1825).

[6] Bishop McEntegart to Fr. Kenny, Letter of June 29, 1961 (ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 3, Folder St. Bernard, BK (OLL 1825)).

[7] Fr. Joseph J. Tschantz of St. Gerard Majella Parish, Hollis to Bishop McEntegart, Letter of July 3, 1961 (ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 3, Folder St. Bernard, BK (OLL 1825)).

[8] Bishop Bryan McEntegart to Fr. Rosario Pitrone, Letter of June 29, 1961 (ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 8, Folder St. Jude BK (OLL 1830).

[9] Bishop Francis Mugavero to Fr. William A. O’Leary, Letter of April 25, 1972 (ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 8, Folder St. Laurence BK (OLL 1830)).

[10] Bishop Bryan McEntegart to Father Jolley, of St. Columba Parish, Marine Park, Brooklyn, Letter of June 19, 1967 (ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 4, Folder St. Columba BK (OLL 1826)).

[11] Fr. John E. Steinmuller of St. Barbara’s Parish to Bishop Bryan McEntegart, Letter of June 28, 1961 (ADB, Bishops Office Collection, Box 8, Folder St. Jude, BK (OLL 1830)).

[12] Sr. Joan de Lourdes Leonard, C.S.J., Richly Blessed: The Diocese of Rockville Centre, 1957-1990 (Marceline, MO: Walsworth Publishing Company, 1991): 20-22; and see: “Business-Trained Bishop: Walter Philip Kellenberg,” New York Times (May 28, 1957): 25.

[13] Leonard, Richly Blessed, 11.

[14] “Diocesan Growth is 3 Times U.S.,” Long Island Catholic 2:1 (2 May 1963): 1.

[15] Our Lady of Grace 50th Anniversary Journal (Archives of Our Lady of Grace Parish, West Babylon, NY).

[16] Transcript of September 22, 1981 Interview with Msgr. Edmond Trench by Sr. Joan de Lourdes Leonard, CSJ (Archives of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Sr. Joan de Lourdes Leonard Collection, Box 106, File Edmond Trench): 10-11.

[17] Leonard, Richly Blessed, 60.