Birth of a Parish

In the mid-nineteenth century the Catholic population of Brooklyn began to explode with the arrival of German and Irish immigrants. In 1853, Pope Pius IX separated all of Long Island from the Archdiocese of New York, and a new see was established in Brooklyn under the leadership of Bishop John Loughlin. St. James Church, the first Catholic Church on Long Island (1822) was designated as the bishop’s seat, the pro (temporary) cathedral. Following the Civil War, a building boom ensued. The areas of Gowanus and Boerum Hill had been settled for decades, but now the farmland on the slope of Prospect Hill was divided into lots. A new park to rival New York’s Central Park was under construction and work on a great bridge linking the cities of Brooklyn and New York had begun. Settlement of the area which would become known as Park Slope progressed steadily.