Reds, purples, blues and oranges bathe the pews in warm light, welcoming all who enter the church’s soaring sanctuary. On one bitter-cold weekday afternoon, a lone man, a stooped-over neighbor, a well-dressed elderly couple, some tourists with cameras in tow, and the priest who stops to greet them, all walk through the light. Some gaze up to look at the names memorialized in the stained-glass windows. Organ music floats through the aisles, soothing the souls of parishioners and softening the footsteps of even the most hardened New Yorkers.

Our Lady of Pompeii Shrine Church has served this city’s faithful since May 8, 1892 – located first on Waverly Place, then in two other locations, until opening its doors on Carmine Street. Through more than a century of change, this church and the Scalabrinian Fathers, a Roman Catholic society of priests and holy laymen founded in the 1870s, have stood firm in their mission to support the local immigrant communities of downtown Manhattan. Originally created by and for the neighborhood’s burgeoning Italian population, the church today also includes a large number of Brazilian and Filipino, as well as a new group of young Italian migrants. Along with a regular attendance of 600 parishioners and serving over 2,700 families, Pompeii provides space for the Scalabrini Migrant Center, Our Lady of Pompeii Catholic school, and a number of church events, programs, and aides.

Our Lady of Pompeii: Then

“‘One gets a sense of Pompeii’s participation in dramatic events: the immigration and resettlement of thousands of people, raising a new generation in a new place, adding another community to the mix of people in Greenwich Village, establishing a tradition of charity,”’ author Mary Elizabeth Brown writes in the preface of her book, “‘The more my research progressed, the more apt the word “extraordinary” seemed.’”

Her book, From Italian Villages to Greenwich Village: Our Lady of Pompeii 1892-1992 (Center for Migration Studies, 1992), discusses Pompeii’s history, and the changes that have occurred not only around them, but within their walls.

Our Lady of Pompeii was founded by Scalabrini priest, Father Pietro Bandini, as a haven for Italian-Catholic immigrants, to protect them from exploitation and prejudice, and to preserve their culture. Established first as a modest chapel, Pompeii rapidly undertook two moves, the first due to a gas leak explosion, and the second due to construction on the Holland Tunnel and the extension of Sixth Avenue. In 1928, the church completed its final move to Carmine Street, where they erected the new church from the ground up.

Although this final move took place as the Depression loomed, parishioners donated all they they could, recalls Pauline Migliorini. For her family, this meant donating all that they had.

“They had to pledge to build this church, and my grandmother pledged $50,” recalls Migliorini, a volunteer at Pompeii. “Her husband lost his job, but she had to pay no matter what.”

Her grandmother came to New York City when she was 18, met her husband and married him at the church. Migliorini’s mother, herself, and her daughter, Maria, were also married at the church. Most of all, what puts a nostalgic smile on her face are the memories of the 11 o’clock Italian mass her family would attend each week, and watching her grandfather usher during mass. Pompeii was Migliorini’s childhood, her school, and her family.

For Migliorini’s fellow volunteer and parishioner, Frances Illuzzi, the church was her introduction to her new life in America.

“I came from Italy on December 4, 1954. It was a Saturday and my husband took me to the Italian mass the day after I got off the boat,” Illuzzi recalls fondly. From that day, the church has been her home. Her four children attended New York University and St. John’s, eventually moving throughout the city, pursuing pharmacy and sportswriting. After her husband passed away, Illuzzi still had Pompeii.

Starting after the 1890s, Italian-immigrant familes were the core of the church community – a generation of day laborers and factory workers. In the period between the 1920s and 1940s, the children of this first generation along with new migrants, started to buy inexpensive buildings.  According to Brown, the jazz-bohemian life of between the 1930s and 1960s flourished thanks, in part, to Our Lady of Pompeii’s Italian immigrants and parishioners, who “provided venues and real estate” where “creative types” like musicians Bob Dylan and James Baldwin, could gather and perform. Without immigrant-owned Village clubs and restaurants like Mori’s and Arthur’s Tavern, says Brown, the reputation of this downtown neighborhood as an epicenter of the arts, “well, it would’ve been a different story.”

Our Lady of Pompeii: Now

In the 1970s and 80s, the Italian-immigrant population got older, and their children got married and moved away, different immigrant groups took their place. In the 1990s, the church began to offer masses in Portuguese, Spanish and Tagalog, for the growing Brazilian, Filipino and Hispanic communities.

Father Walter Tonelotto has been the pastor at Our Lady of Pompeii since 2013. The Italian-born priest provides religious guidance and sacraments to the neighborhood’s shifting immigrant communities.

“We are here,” he says, “for confessions, counseling, opinions, problems and difficulties.”

Pompeii also offers practical help for immigrants as well, through the Scalabrini Center NYC, which provides citizenship and English-language classes, document translations, low-cost legal assistance and help with immigration applications. According to Father Walter, the center has two paralegals in the office daily, and an immigration lawyer present every Wednesday, to give legal assistance, sign application papers, and prep applicants for naturalization interviews and exams.

Nearly 200 children of a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds attend the pre-K-8 Catholic School at Pompeii. Students are bussed in from surrounding neighborhoods including Chelsea and Battery Park. And according to school secretary Greg Lubert, some kids travel in from the outlying boroughs, New Jersey, and Long Island with their parents, who commute to the city for work.

“We had a student who graduated last year,” said Lubert, “that would come in from the Poconos.”

“It is a great service to the parents that work around here,” says Father Walter. “They prefer to have their children nearby.”

However, for parishioner, mother and Catholic convert Evelyn Polesni, the church is lacking in the community that others applaud, leading her to send her daughter to Sunday school at St. Josephs on 6th Avenue and Washington Place.

“There are 9,000 different masses,” Polesni jokes, “And each [mass] doesn’t have that many people.”

Polesni, who found the beauty of the church and its open door policy helpful during a period of crisis, is currently helping to implement the Way, or group sessions of parishioners who emphasize the word of God, the Eucharist, the Christian community and evangelism. She believes that the Way can help created a stronger community between the different groups of the church.

This separation is also noted by Brown and Father Walter, who noted that every ethnic group has developed its own festivities within the church, such as the Filipino Poon Hesus Nazareno fiesta, or the celebration of the sacred statue of Jesus Christ in the Minor Basilica of Black Nazarene in the city of Manila, Philippines and the Brazilian’s prayer group every first Friday of the month. Father Demo hall will also be holding Free Public Art Lectures in June on Piero Della Francesca and Michelangelo.

“The church satisfies everyone with their own diversity,” Brown acknowledges the separation but notes that the community still comes works towards unification on some levels.

“On special occasions, like Good Friday, we break it down and come together.”

For the last year has offered two 24-hour streaming services, TeleMater USA in English and Telemater in Italian, to compliment their website and Facebook page. Religious services are live-streamed for those who cannot attend church, plus there is religious programing throughout the day – “conferences and movies of religious character,” says Father Walter. The church is currently working towards providing additional channels in Spanish, Portuguese, and Tagalog.

Even with these changes, Pompeii, in a way, has come full circle. As active church volunteers, Illuzzi and Migliorini observed that more young Italian migrants are coming to the church, much like the Italian immigrants of the early 20th century.
Frances Illuzzi looked back on the years when she was one of those young parents who found guidance and comfort inside Our Lady of Pompeii’s always-open doors.

“I am very grateful for the Scalabrini fathers, the way my family grew up, very good, no problems. Thank God.”

Featured Image: Danielle Elmers (please check out the multimedia I did for the story here!)