Looking for Patrick Keely in Brooklyn

Brooklyn based Patrick Keely (1816-1896) was perhaps the most prolific church architect in US history.  He built quite a number in his hometown.  I've perambulated pass them a couple of times on  connect-the-dots hikes but not for some time now, the last being March, 2012.  Perhaps time for a reprise (with some differences of course).

Anyway, in January, 2012 I wandered about Brooklyn to see how Patrick's dots were faring.  Here is some of what I saw.



St. Mary Immaculate Conception (Williamsburg)

First to Williamsburg to see if St. Mary Immaculate Conception, which I had heard might have been demolished, still existed (my first Keely walk was in 2009).   On Maujer Street and called by some "St. Mary Maujer".  It did still exist, barely. Not sure what we would find in 2014.  Simple and unpretentious, I believe it is the oldest Keely church remaining in NYC. It was constructed in 1853, early in Keely's career - his first church (in Williamsburg, demolished) was 1847. I had thought this one might have been his oldest extant anywhere, but I have found at least one older in Newport, RI. 



St. John the Baptist Church (Bedford Stuyvesant)

On to Bedford-Stuyvesant for Keely's 1870 St. John the Baptist church. I had left it out of the 2009 walk mainly because I found out about it too late to fit it in. Probably his largest NYC church, the AIA Guide describes it as "a vigorous Renaissance Revival hulk". The term hulk certainly applies. Too bad about the boarded up windows but I suppose it stabilizes the structure as an alternative to demolition where restoration money is lacking. The parish was still active - they had a website - but I don't know what use they make of the church itself.  For its bulk alone, and to connect other interesting dots, it was included in the 2012 walk.




Patrick Keely home in Fort Greene

Next I walked past the Fort Greene home where Keely died in 1896.  Its not that I have an abiding interest in Patrick Keely or ecclesiastical architecture for that matter. Irish-born, Brooklyn-based, and untrained formally in architecture, Keely is said to have built some 600 (no one knows for sure) mostly but not exclusively Catholic churches across eastern North America, riding the great waves of 19th century immigration - much of it Catholic (Irish, Italians, Poles, etc.). So things associated with his life, his churches mainly, make for great dots to connect in a peripatetic perambulation across the Brooklyn neighborhoods built by those immigrants many of whom went to his churches.


But I would also like to put in a good word for Patrick. He is often dismissed as a hack by architectural historians, due in part to his lack of formal training in the profession (although his dad in Ireland may have been an architect, or at least was a builder). Indeed some of his churches are pretty dull. I take the more nuanced view of Francis Morrone ("The Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn", and many others) - that someone as prolific as Keely could not have produced something fine every time and that when he was good, he was very good. The 1875 St. Anthony of Padua in Greenpoint, one of Morrone's favorite Keelys, makes this point. I also like what the AIA Guide has to say about it: "Attired in red brick and white limestone, a quasi-cathedral on this religious block offers fancy dress for this mostly dour neighborhood. Its 240-foot spire, at a bend in Manhattan Avenue, is a visual pivot not only for Milton Street and Manhattan Avenue but for all of Greenpoint."

Saint Anthony of Padua (Greenpoint)


In 2012 we walked passed 16 Keely sites in Brooklyn mostly churches, and one in Hunters Point, Queens.  The only site I know about we missed was his grave in Holy Cross Cemetery because it was just too far.  His son-in-law, Thomas F. Haughton, continued Keely's practice after his death and designed several fine Brooklyn churches, but we gave those a miss.

(Note:  some of the names I have used for the churches may not be strictly correct today.  As parishes close and consolidate, the names are changed.  I think the names I have used are the ones the churches have historically been known by).



Union Township (NJ) architecture on the cheap?

Connecticut Farms Elementary School (1941)

They are not identical but you would be forgiven for thinking that Union Township used the same

blueprints with minor revisions for their municipal building and Connecticut Farms Elementary School.   You might be right.  To save money. NYC built five essentially identical high schools during the depression using the same plans due to fiscal austerity (I've thought about connecting them on one hike but they are too far apart). 

 

Union Township Municipal Building

Connecticut Farms Elementary School was built in 1941, which is sort of depression-era, and I would guess the municipal building around the same time (although I did not turn up a date upon very cursory googleing).  Both in the Georgian Revival style so popular at the time.

 

The buildings aren't next to each other but within an easy walk and are worthy dots to connect in a Union Township perambulation, along with other stuff including some Revolutionary War sites and concrete houses associated with Thomas Edison.  Plus what has been purported to be the tallest spherical water tower in the world!

Abraham Burton Cohen Apartment Building in East Orange, NJ



Photo by Craig Nunn.

The East Orange, NJ apartment building where Abraham Burton Cohen was living when he died in 1956. Who was A.B. Cohen you may ask? Only the greatest builder of railroad grade eliminations in US history (over 200 I believe). As an engineer for the Lackawanna Railroad, he was a pioneer in reinforced concrete construction and was responsible for the design of the Paulinskill and Tunkahonnock viaducts (1910 and 1915 respectively). Both I believe were the largest reinforced concrete structures in the world when built - the latter remaining so for some 50 years.





 

The Hobart Gap (ca. 2014).

Actually March 11, 2014.  Considerably more prosaic than in the past, this is the view looking towards the highest point of the gap on US. Route 24 from Hobart Gap Road on the border between Millburn and Summit, NJ.  With the obligatory security fence.

 

A major pass through the Watchung Mountains, the Hobart Gap has been crossed by Indian trails, colonial era roads, early railroads, and today a limited access highway. 

Of special significance during the Revolutionary War since the British held the lowlands to the east and George Washington's troops hung out just the other side.  A couple of times the British tried to send German mercenaries through the gap and if successful might have wiped out the Continental Army.  But as we all know, they only managed to get a few troops killed and provide locations for historical plaques many years later.  Also as a consequence, the Hobart Gap is not in Canada today.


Here is one of those plaques nearby.   Been around since 1896 and in its present location since 1908, so it is not so easy to read.  It commemorates a signal beacon and a cannon.