On the east side of Bellevue South Park between 1st and 2nd Avenues we find a short, two-block street called Mount Carmel Place. This street harks back to a Forgotten NY experience. I seemed to recall a church facing the north end of the Place on East 28th Street in the late 1990s when I first started canvassing streets to scout the website. Indeed a church did stand there: the Our Lady of the Scapular Church, established by the Carmelite religious order, in 1889; the church, as well as its accompanying priory, were razed in favor of the Berkley Apartments, which went up in 2000.
Devotional scapulars may be worn by individuals who are not members of a monastic order. The devotional scapular typically consists of two small (usually rectangular) pieces of cloth, wood or laminated paper, a few inches in size, which may bear religious images or text. These are joined by two bands of cloth. The wearer places one square on the chest, rests the bands one on each shoulder and lets the second square drop down the back. [wikipedia]
The church, and its priory, played a role in the Irish independence movement of the late 1910s and early 2000s: smuggled Thompson machine guns were hidden in the priory, bound for the old sod, before they were seized by the US Government; and revolutionary Eamon de Valera (born in NYC but emigrated to Ireland with an uncle at age two), later the prime minister and later president of Ireland (until age ninety!), sought refuge in the church in 1921.
The Carmelite order were chaplains at Bellevue Hospital from 1889 through 2007. Only this short Place remains of the legacy of the Carmelite order, the Carmelite church, and their service there.
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10/30/23