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Our 125th year of serving the people of God in Coney Island Shrine Church of Our Lady of Solace History: Part 3 A New Pastor, A New Parish Campus, and a New Church

In 1925, Dr. Brophy’s dream of a magnificent permanent church building and parish complex was finally realized under the administration of Fr. Walter Aloysius Kerwin, who succeeded Msgr. Areese in 1914. Almost immediately popular with the parish, Fr. Kerwin wasted no time in pursuing Dr. Brophy’s dream of the parish campus. In late 1915, ground was broken for the grand new rectory at the corner of Mermaid Avenue and West 19th Street, and Our Lady of Solace School on West 19th Street. The new magnificent spired neo-Gothic three-story rectory on a man-made scenic hill along Mermaid Avenue opened its doors in 1916, followed by the school in 1917, and the convent in 1919.

In May of 1924, the last Mass to be celebrated in the original church took place. Masses were moved to the auditorium of the new school as the old former dance hall was demolished and a magnificent new church rose to take its place on the site in the old church’s footprint located on the northwest corner of West 17th Street and Mermaid Avenue. The new Shrine Church of Our Lady of Solace, designed by noted architect Robert J. Reiley, was constructed in a Spanish neo-Romanesque style that was exceedingly popular and successful among seaside parishes. The tablet-style stained glass windows were smaller than those in similar-sized churches to protect them from the ravages of high winds off the ocean. A magnificent Spanish-style apse with an Oriental-style mosaic was constructed above the main sanctuary in the church. Titled “Holy Trinity Apse,” the colorful mosaic tiles depict symbols of the Holy Trinity as well as the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The building’s brickwork, however, and much of the interior carefully followed Neapolitan design. Capitals at the top of its support columns are images from the last book of the Holy Bible, the Revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, trimmed in gold leaf. The floors were a highly polished terrazzo. Its overall design brought to the near cathedral-sized structure the prayerful intimacy of a small country church. The Stations of the Cross, hand-painted in fine oil paints with almost photographic renderings surrounded the church interior on its walls between its colorful leaded stained glass windows; they had hung in the original church from 1917 until its demolition in 1923. The Eucharistic hand chimes, a gift to the parish in 1917, were used in the new church. After more than a decade of disuse, they were repaired and restored in 2015 and are still in use during Sunday Masses today.

The church’s grand all-mechanical tracker pipe organ, originally built in 1865 by Odell and rebuilt and enlarged in 1884 by Hilborne Roosevelt for the Second Reformed Church of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was acquired from the Second Reformed in 1924, the year before the new church’s completion. When the building was completed, and the organ in place in the loft at the rear, it received its only electric part: a new high-pressure blower in an adjoining room to replace the boys and manual bellows that provided the wind at the Second Reformed Church.

 Attached to the church building with its baptismal chapel in its base was an imposing 185-foot tower that could be seen from miles away. Its gargantuan Meneely-cast and controlled chimes consisting of massive fire bells were donated by the New York City Fire Department and the Tilyou family, owners of what became Coney Island’s greatest and last surviving of its original three great theme parks, “Steeplechase, the Funny Place.”

Finally, in August of 1925, the new church opened to great fanfare with a Solemn Concelebrated High Mass and processions from what is now Seagate, to a BMT streetcar escort down Stillwell Avenue, returning to the church along Mermaid Avenue.





CONTINUE ON TO PART 4.

Dr, Brophy’s memorial plaque that had hung in the original church  until 1923. It was moved to the current church in 1925. The original 185-ft. bell tower at the end of the arcade. Its largest bell weighed 12,000 lbs. (6 tons). Our Lady of Solace School along West 19th Street. Gates are open to the path leading to the school auditorium, rectory service entrance, the convent,  and the church. As yet there is only one parking lot  at the north side of the school building. The 1884 Hilborne Roosevelt Organ.(removed 2013) For specifications, click here.