100 years at St. Christopher’s

In the century since St. Christopher’s Parish was established in 1915, its role as a central part of the Baldwin community has remained constant and important.

The property, off Merrick Road, between Gale Avenue and Pershing Boulevard, has seen plenty of changes through the years — including about $1.7 million in renovations to the parish’s church, rectory, convent and school in the past five years — but it has always been a mainstay in town.

A long tradition

Three years before Baldwin had a Catholic church, the Diocese of Brooklyn, which once oversaw Long Island parishes, established a mission church in Baldwin, attached to Our Holy Redeemer Church in Freeport. The diocese bought a plot of land at the corner of Merrick Road and Gale Avenue for $5,000. The Baldwin house of worship remained a mission church — meaning that it did not have a resident pastor — for three years.

In July 1915, the Rev. John McGoldrick was appointed pastor, and St. Christopher’s Parish was born. Parishioners initially used a house on Gale Avenue as a rectory and a carpenter’s shop behind it as a chapel. But in June 1917, work on a church began, and it hosted its first Mass on Easter Sunday 1918.

As Baldwin’s population grew in the 20th century, the Rev. John Gorman, the parish’s pastor from 1946 to 1967, made plans for the construction of a larger church. The current church, which seats 1,000 people in the nave and an additional 200 in the choir loft, was finished in April 1962. The building also has a lower church that can seat 600 to 800 people.

The first school building, for first- through eight-graders, was completed in 1925. It currently serves about 340 children from pre-K through eighth grade. The school was added to in 1956, and the “new building,” as the current pastor, Monsignor Steven Camp, called it with a laugh, was completed in 1968. The parish’s rectory was finished in 1934, and the convent was completed in 1948.

A place to go in good times and bad