The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds
CNG Boro Politics

Church in state! Lebanese cathedral on Remsen needs help

By Evan Gardner
The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Evan Gardner
Father James Root of the 162-year-old Lebanon Maronite Catholic Cathedral on Remsen Street shows off the church’s prized, but badly tarnished, doors.
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Julie Rosenberg
The 162-year-old Lebanon Maronite Catholic Cathedral on Remsen Street needs some serious repairs.

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

Brooklyn Heights’ own Notre Dame is in line for a multi-year makeover of Biblical proportions.

Father James Root of Our Lady of Lebanon Catholic Cathedral, which is the seat of the country’s entire 100,000-member Maronite Christian community, is helping spearhead a campaign to raise funds to restore the 165-year old edifice on Remsen Street.

“We need about $3 million,” said Root, noting that the church has not undergone any major restoration in recent memory. “The stained glass needs to be cleaned, the pipe organ needs to be rebuilt, and we’d like to install air conditioning.”

Root led The Brooklyn Paper on a survey of the building, proudly showing off historical artifacts, such as marble tiles from the French and Lebanese pavilions at the 1939 World’s Fair, and massive bronze medallions taken from the 1930s French luxury liner Normandie that are possibly the building’s most recognizable exterior features.

But he also interrupted himself to point out several spots in need of repair.

“Here’s some water damage from the bell tower,” said Root. “And here’s a piece of marble that I am very afraid could fall off the wall. The sidewalks are also terrible.”

The Maronite faith dates back to early fifth-century Lebanon, and its members constituted a majority of the population of Lebanon until the mid-20th century.

Members of the roughly 2,000-person congregation met last Tuesday night to discuss fundraising plans, which will include seeking donations from churchgoers and a Lebanese food festival on May 29–31.

The work, once it is begun, could take three to four years, estimates Root, but plans have already been set in motion.

“We’ve started getting permits, and an architectural firm has been hired,” he said.

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

←Music: Danny Kalb joins Folk Fest lineup!
→Crime: Here they are — your Police Blotters

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

Water Street Restaurant
Brooklyn Paper Parent

Links