BRONX GOOD FRIDAY

Essays

Established in 1873 for the Germans of Tremont, the first St. Joseph fronted Washington Avenue. In 1898 a new church was built from the stone that was excavated below it, and fronted Bathgate Avenue. The first church was a gothic structure while the other St, Joseph was, appropriately, Neo-gothic, and probably the heaviest-looking stone church i’ve seen. Fordham shchist is like that.

St. Joseph church on Bathgate Avenue in the Tremont section of the Bronx, has always been an ethnic, immigrant parish of the poor and working-class. Built in1873 to serve German immigrants and rebuilt in 1898 of native stone from the Bathgate Avenue lot it was built on. It was faced with polished granite from the site, and always appeared as the most solidly built church in the Bronx, seemingly arising from the Cambrian-Ordovician Marble its made of, at a place where it meets Fordham Gneis just blocks from Crotona Park.

From Jerome Avenue to White Plains Avenue, East Tremont, has always been poor and immigrant, Germans were replaced by Irish, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Mexicans, which is why the St. Joseph Good Friday ceremonies are so authentic as home-made theatre made believable by the parishioners remarkable commitment to their faith, as shown in their method acting for Christ in a spiritual theatre that is brought out into all the streets of the parish, then pauses for a reenactment of the Crucifixion, at a high point in Crotona Park, two blocks away, before returning to church for final prayers and Mass.

The last Good Friday Procession was in 2014. The church closed in 2015 and was torn down. It wasn’t because of gentrification, but for the sake of a shrinking diocese that had to make hard decisions. Saint Joseph was combined with Saint Simon, and affordable housing will take its place. Tremont has never changed from its poor, immigrant, working-class roots where the church serves as a secure place, for the tight-knit kind-hearted, but poor residents of character and spirituality, in their struggle for a better life in America.

After the Germans there were, of course, Irish and Italian all over the place, and St. Joseph became largely Italian, just south of Belmont. As Puerto Rican families came north to escape a worsening South Bronx, the church reflected that, and, by the late nineties, Mexicans would come here until the church simply became a mostly Mexican parish.

Like the others that came before, poor, immigrant, hard-working and passionate about their religion. Of course, this is a scene performed all over the city, especially the Bronx and queens. A typical experience in Corona would be seeing random processions, on any given holiday, while driving.

At St. Joseph’s in the Bronx, it was entirely unfiltered, home-made and involved a good portion of the church to pull it off every year. The setting was ideal, after performing the stations of the cross on Tremont Avenue and its side streets, Jesus is crucified at a high promissory in Park, once part of Crotona Park, it’s connected to. It’s a good substitute fro the streets of Jerusalem and the NYC Parks providing a natural stage on a big hill overlooking the Bronx.

After that, it’s back inside the church where Christ and the flanking two thieves are still crucified and displayed in front of the altar.

Whether Italian or Mexican, the idea of a Good Friday procession out in the streets that surround the parish, took hold, and I considered it a great experience and would always go there, if I could. When I lived on Brooklyn I managed to get up there often, and, ironically, when I got displaced from Brooklyn, moved to the Bronx, three miles from the church, and when I got to the 2013 service that year, learned that St. Joseph would be closed in the downsizing of  parishes in the diocese, merging with St. Simon.

As if that isn’t enough, the church which was entirely renovated inside and out by 2013, closed and was recently demolished for new housing.

The pictures were taken between 2006 and 2014 which was the last Good Friday for this church.

The Martinez family looks to the crucified Jesus, inside St. Joseph’s after the procession through the neighborhood. We talked a lot that day in 2006, about the coming gentrification of the Bronx, as my-neighborhood, Williamsburg was just solidifying into its opposite  – working-class to leisure class. I was three years into my battle to keep my home that lasted until i finally succumbed to the Bloomberg Loophole, and was forced out of my home and into the Bronx.

It was this mother and daughter’s great fear, as it was mine, as well.

In America, with its economic sytem there is no way any neighborhood or its culture will last, unless self-exiled like the Amish, or, if you must stay in your beloved neighborhood, only do it, if you own your home.

As my practice, while taking care of my own ageing parents, i scanned the Martinez images, and printed it, then sent it to their home. 

Here Good Friday is both a religious day, but also a theatrical one.

The big three ethnic groups that defined the Bronx for a long time – Jews, Irish and Italian – came here as immigrants with an extremely strong historic institutional framework, as did the Germans, Dutch and British. The importance of a church or synagogue, particularly when you are completely new to a country is equal to family, and sort of the same. That’s why when the Mexicans came to the neighborhood, St. Joseph would be a center, as it always had been – a big old solid stone Gothic church that, like a ship,  hosted and sheltered waves of immigrants through time, until it was closed, then demolished.

The unselfconsconsciousness and sincerity of the players on Good Friday was phenomenal, especially the procession when it reached Tremont, one of the busiest and poorest streets in the Bronx, and headed west down, to Third Avenue. So many participated, including many behind-the-scenes folks in wardrobe, etc. It begins with the condemnation of Christ by Pilate on the steps of the church, leading to the complete reenactment of the Stations of the Cross, the Crucifixtion and return to the church. It never felt like a reenactment, even the plot itself seemed fresh, as performed with heart by the hard-working families, that had come to the middle of the Bronx, in Tremont, as their base, like so many before.

Meaning, sincerity and higher purpose in the middle of the Bronx, and poverty? Poverty. What does it mean with regards to a person’s character? It doesn’t matter what the religion is, or even if there is one, as much as that fact that, to judge someone on class and immigration grounds, remembering, it’s just like when the ones that came before, and, that, they do the work cheaper and better than the ones that have been here, and no longer want to do that type of work anymore, they move on, and, nowhere, like NYC personifies this American immigrant dream, and it’s starting point, at the bottom, where, you can also find a lot o soul.                                                        

The last Good Friday enactment took place, after the stations of the cross on the streets, on church grounds and not in the park along Tremont Avenue as in years passed. This would be the last, as St. Joseph’s church would close in the consolidation of parishes for the New York Dioceses. In 2020 the church was torn down and new housing will take its place.