Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
This is a 1940's Tax Department photograph. This image shows 431-449 E. 115th St. Block 1709, Lot 16. Source: 1940s Tax Department photographs, New York City Municipal Archives,
https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_3f96f35b-bcf3-4bb9-adf9-f5f275a84ec0/ Date: 1939-1941
"The center of the religious life of the district is the CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL, 449 East 115th Street. Overhead, from the rectory windows, two large Italian flags flap briskly. Inside the church is the shrine of Our Lady, enriched with precious jewels. The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the great religious and social event of the community, takes place on July 15, 16, and 17. It is suggestive of an old-world spectacle: the ritual procession, headed by a brass band and followed by clergy and the statue of the Virgin borne by the beneficiaries of “miracles,” winds slowly through the bedecked streets. Donations, fluttering from the tenement windows, are caught and tossed into an outspread cloth or pinned to ornate banners. Many pilgrims walk barefooted. Occasionally the procession halts under the window of a particularly generous donor and the priest recites the Dispensorio while firecrackers explode and the throng stands with bowed heads" (New York City Guide, p. 270)."
Most of East Harlem's Catholics struck with the religion of their ancestors, so Catholic Churches became popular for this area. The most popular church was Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which started in the 1870s (Gill, 143).
Images
This is a 1940's Tax Department photograph. This image shows 431-449 E. 115th St. Block 1709, Lot 16. Source: 1940s Tax Department photographs, New York City Municipal Archives,
https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_3f96f35b-bcf3-4bb9-adf9-f5f275a84ec0/ Date: 1939-1941
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-975e-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99#/?rotate=270 Date: 1924
https://nycrecords.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_a10c7953-b8e2-4390-b5bd-4463285c4b48/ Date: 1983-1988
This is a Google Street View image captured Oct. 2022 that shows the entrance of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. On the bottom left of the image, the date "1884" can be observed. It marks the year the church was established. Source: Google Maps, Street View.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/463+E+115th+St,+New+York,+NY+10029/@40.7946994,-73.9341845,1114m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c2f5fda3f18a51:0xda07f064dc0b6dc8!8m2!3d40.7946994!4d-73.9341845!16s%2Fg%2F11gsg4jjng?entry=ttu Date: Oct. 2022
Map bounded by E. 116th Street, Harlem River, E. 110th Street and Second Avenue, Plate 131 Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel found on Block 1709, Lot 16. Source: Lanbook of the Borough of Manhattan City of New York (Bromley, 1925).
Accessed through: The New York Public Library Digital Collection.
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-0b13-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 Date: 1925