Origins 1848-1861

On July 26, 1848 four De La Salle Christian Brothers under the leadership of Brother Stylien arrived in New York from France to take over the direction of St. Vincent’s Parish School on Canal Street. These were the first Brothers to establish a permanent foundation in New York but it was not the beginning of the New York District, even though Brother Stylien functioned as a sort of on-site supervisor of the foundations in New York. Ever since the foundation at Montreal in 1837, all the Brothers’ establishments in North America were under the direction of Brother Aidant, the Provincial Visitor as he was called, with Montreal as the headquarters. Shortly after the arrival of the Brothers in New York, Brother Facile succeeded Brother Aidant as the Provincial Visitor of North America. In that role, he took a special interest in the foundations in the United States, even after he was elected in 1861as an Assistant to the Superior General. So identified was he with the American Brothers that after his death in 1877 his remains were brought to New York and interred in the novitiate cemetery at Amawalk.

The earliest novices to join the pioneers in 1848 were allowed to make their novitiate in the Canal Street community but shortly thereafter all the postulants were sent to the provincial novitiate in Montreal, dominantly French in language and culture. The New York novices had plenty of company, however, in the large numbers of young boys recruited in Ireland and brought to Montreal.

This steady influx of vocations enabled the Brothers to expand their educational work in New York and beyond. Between 1848 and 1861 schools were opened in the (Old) Cathedral parish on Mott Street, St. Mary’s on Grand Street and in the parishes of St. Francis Xavier, Annunciation, St. Joseph, St. James, Transfiguration, St. Brigid in New York and St. James in Brooklyn. St. Vincent’s Academy that had been added in 1849 to the grade school on Canal Street had provisions both for days students and boarders. In 1853 the boarders were moved to Manhattanville in 1853 to become the Academy of the Holy Infancy and eventually Manhattan College. In 1856 St. Vincent’s Academy for day students was moved to Second Street as De La Salle Institute. Beyond New York, during this period the Brothers opened orphanages, grade schools and academies in Yonkers, Troy, Albany, Utica, Rochester, Buffalo and Detroit.

Transition from North America, to the United States, to New York 1861-1870

When Brother Facile became Assistant in 1861, he was succeeded as Provincial Visitor by Brother Turibe, a French missionary, who proved unequal to the task. In 1864 it was decided to split the North America Province into two Districts: Canada (Montreal) and the United States (New York). Brother Ambrose (Roarke) was appointed the first Visitor of the United States with residence in New York, leading to the perception that he was in fact the Visitor of New York. Second Street was the headquarters where a novitiate had already been opened in 1861.The new District extended well beyond the New York area to include foundations in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Ellicott’s Mills, Cincinnati, St. Augustine (Florida), New Orleans, Galveston, St. Louis, Carondolet, Jefferson City, and Santa Fe.

In 1866 Brother Patrick (Murphy) was appointed to succeed Brother Ambrose as Provincial Visitor of the United States. As Director at St. Louis in 1855 he had obtained a state charter for Christian Brother College. Already in 1854, as a delegate to the General Chapter of the Brothers, he had received oral permission from the superiors exempting the colleges conducted by the Brothers in America from the ban on teaching Latin. Transferred to New York from St. Louis in 1861, Brother Patrick so expanded the curriculum of the Holy Infancy Academy that in 1863 it was chartered by the State of New York as Manhattan College with Brother Patrick himself as president. At the same time he was collaborating with Doctor Silliman Ives in the foundation of the New York Catholic Protectory. When Brother Patrick was appointed Visitor in 1866 he continued as President of Manhattan College and kept his residence there.

The emergence of New York as a distinct District was complete when in 1868 Brother Justin (McMahon) was summoned from Baltimore to New York and from there, with the title of Visitor, left with seven Brothers to found the District of San Francisco. Two years later St. Louis was constituted a separate District with Brother Edward (Regaud) as Visitor. In the same year Brother Botulph was sent from New York to Santa Fe with the title and powers of Visitor to reorganize the faltering foundations in the Southwest that were later merged for a time with the St. Louis District. These developments effectively divided the United States into three distinct Districts with the New York District composed of the establishments east of the Mississippi. In 1878, the Baltimore District would be separated from New York, forming a fourth District with Brother Christian of Mary as its first Visitor. The earliest surviving document from the superiors in Paris that addresses Brother Patrick as Visitor of New York, rather than Provincial Visitor, is dated 1870.

The First Three Visitors of New York 1870-1899

Brother Patrick continued as the Visitor of New York until 1873 when he was elected Assistant, the first American to hold that office. By the time he finished his term as Visitor, Brother Patrick had opened schools in the parishes of St. Columba, St. Nicholas, St. Teresa, and St. Peter in New York City, as well as schools in Hartford, Providence, Watervliet, and Syracuse. Staffing for the schools was provided by a vigorous program of recruiting candidates for the novitiate from Ireland. In 1871 Brother Patrick moved the novitiate from Second Street to an estate overlooking Long Island Sound in what was then Westchester, now the Bronx. With connections to the Sadlier family of publishers, as early as 1850 Brother Patrick had overseen the publication of Institute texts and some of the writings of De La Salle, including several editions of his catechism. As Visitor and Assistant he continued publishing through the facilities of the print shop at the Catholic Protectory, now permanently established also in Westchester. In 1861 the La Salle Bureau was set up at Second Street for the sale of the textbooks and other supplies for the schools and communities.

The precedent set by Brother Patrick of serving simultaneously as President of Manhattan College and Visitor of the District was continued by his two successors. In 1873 Brother Paulian (Fanning) was appointed to succeed Brother Patrick. During his term as Visitor from 1873 to 1879, Brother Paulian opened schools in the parishes of Immaculate Conception (Melrose) and Our Lady of Sorrows in New York City as well as in St. Joseph’s parish in Detroit. In 1878 he added a juniorate to the novitiate at Westchester, the first of its kind in the country. As the result of a meeting in 1877 with representatives from the American and Canadian Districts, a commission was established to supervise the preparation of texts for the schools to be authored by various Brothers. The commission operated out of New York with Brother Paulian as its president. The result was a series of readers at various levels that was eventually followed by arithmetics, spellers, and texts for penmanship and drawing.

In 1879 Brother Justin was transferred from San Francisco to become Visitor of NewYork, a position he would hold for the next twenty years. Those years saw the opening of schools in the parishes of Immaculate Conception (14th St.), Cathedral, Holy Innocents, St. Alphonsus, and Holy Redeemer in New York City, Sacred Heart Academy in Westchester, and St. Patrick’s in Newburgh. Schools were opened in New England at Waltham, Lynn, Fall River and Chicopee in Massachusetts, Bangor in Maine, Burlington in Vermont and Dover in New Hampshire. There were new ventures at the outer limits of the District in Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio. In 1887 De La Salle Institute was moved to 59th Street while classes continued at Second Street as La Salle Academy. Manhattan College, with its strong program in Latin and Greek, was serving for all practical purposes as a training college for the candidates for the priesthood in the New York Archdiocese.

Concerned for a better formation for the Brothers, in 1883 Brother Justin moved the novitiate from Westchester to Amawalk with separate buildings for the juniors and novices, adding a scholasticate to enable young Brothers to qualify for teaching certificates. Brother Benezet Thomas (Kane) was appointed Director. In 1896, because of a malaria epidemic at Amawalk, the novitiate was moved briefly to Troy where in 1898 Brother Adjutor, who had been recruiting in Ireland, arrived with several novices from Castletown. Many of this group would have long careers in the District, among them Brothers Leo the Great as Visitor, Austin Julian, a distinguished catechist, Kilian James (“Jimmy the Doc”), Director of the Procure, together with Sixtus Julian and Jeremy Paul who worked for years in welfare institutions . As Brother Angelus Gabriel remarks in his history, “No subsequent period in the history of the New York District has been so richly blessed by the expansion of the work of the Brothers as that which took place during the twenty years of Brother Justin’s administration.”

A Period of Crisis and Decline: The Latin Question 1899 -1923

This is not the place to record in detail the story of “the Latin Question,” as it came to be called, which is thoroughly documented elsewhere, most notably in the history of the Institute in the 19th Century by Brother Clair Battersby. Suffice it to say that the oral permission given to Brother Patrick in 1854, the support of the most distinguished American prelates, and the forceful presentations to the Chapter of 1897 by the American delegates, especially that of Brother Justin, counted for nothing in a Chapter dominated by French superiors. It was decided to enforce in the American colleges and academies the primitive rule of the Institute banning the teaching of Latin, which at the time was considered an essential part of the curriculum in any institution of higher learning. To pour salt into the wound, the most distinguished American Visitors and presidents of colleges, Brother Justin, his Auxiliary Brother Quintinian, and Brother Paulian among them, were deprived of office and exiled to Europe. Morale in the District was at an all time low and departures from the Institute at an all time high. To their credit the exiled leaders for the most part remained faithful and were eventually returned either to retire or to serve in secondary capacities. The reputation as well as the enrolment of the colleges and the academies suffered and many of the colleges became secondary schools. Manhattan College managed to survive by offering programs in the sciences and engineering while bolstering the offerings in philosophy, psychology and English literature.

The man chosen to be the new Visitor of New York at this moment of crisis was Brother Donatian Joseph (Kenny), a native of Cleveland. After teaching at the College and in Buffalo, he was sent to help out at London and Nantes, returning to New York as Inspector of Schools and Director at Second Street. Although forced to demand prompt submission to the decrees of the General Chapter concerning Latin, he won the Brothers over by his kindness and humility joined to a firmness of will and zeal for religious observance. He had the support of Brother Imier of Jesus, who had been Visitor at Nantes and was appointed as Provincial Visitor for the American Districts, in effect undermining the authority of the mild-mannered American Assistant, Brother Clementian (Muth). Fortunately, Brother Imier, who would one day become Superior General, was fluent in English and sympathetic to the American situation. Little by little the trend toward disaster was reversed. Enough vocations were forthcoming to supply the schools that were opened in the parishes of Carmelite, Epiphany, Holy Cross, Holy Name, Holy Trinity, Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. Augustine, St. Raymond, St. Veronica in New York City together with St. Cecilia’s and St. Augustine’s in Brooklyn. In 1905 a school was opened for English speaking students in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The departures from the Institute were somewhat offset by an influx of Brothers exiled from France as a result of the secularization laws. Many of these Brothers became mainstays in the District, among them Brothers Didace Pierre and Oliver Joseph in Barrytown and Brothers Honeste Celestine, Francois Jolivet, Defendant Felix, and Charles Bruno at Manhattan College. The crowning achievement of Brother D. Joseph’s administration was the building of a new formation center at Pocantico Hills to replace the property at Amawalk that had been condemned to make way for a New York City reservoir. Brother Joseph died in 1909 at the age of fifty-one.

Brother Eliphus Victor (McConnell), the Inspector of Schools under Brother Joseph, filled in as Visitor for one year until Brother Gerardus Camillus (Dwyer), a native of Syracuse and Director of the novitiate in Glencoe, Missouri, was appointed Visitor of New York. His appointment followed close on the election of the austere Brother Benezet Thomas as the American Assistant. It signaled a new trend in the appointment of the New York Visitor, the superiors opting for Brothers formed (or reformed) in the French-oriented Second Novitiate, followed by careers in the houses of formation where they gained a reputation for piety, strict adherence to the Rule and to the traditions of the Institute.

In his term from 1910 to 1915, Brother Gerardus was able to continue the revival begun under Brother Joseph with new schools opened in New York City in the parishes of Ascension, St. Charles Borromeo, and St. Thomas the Apostle as well as Queen of All Saints in Brooklyn. In 1913 Brother Gerardus introduced the Archconfraternity of the Divine Child into the schools in New York. In that same year the scholasticate was reopened at Pocantico under the direction of Brother Henry August (Kuntz) with Brother Cornelius Malachy (Hession) and Brother Azades Gabriel (Maher) on the staff.
In 1915 Brother Henry August, who had been a classmate of Brother Gerardus when they were students at Syracuse, after twenty-five years as Director in the novitiate and scholasticate was appointed Visitor of New York. His six year term was marked by the opening of two schools, St. Bernard’s in New York and St. Peter’s on Staten Island. During the same period eight parish schools were closed and many requests for Brothers to take over new schools had to be refused. World War I was underway and the higher superiors had to battle to have the Brothers exempt from the military draft. The influenza epidemic of 1918 also claimed many Brothers among its victims. The shortage of personnel was once again alleviated in some measure by the importation of young Brothers from Ireland. Brother Henry, with a reputation more for his piety than his effectiveness as an administrator, still managed somehow to keep the District afloat in spite of the difficulties.

In 1921, after nine years as Visitor of Baltimore, Brother Abban Philip (Gagnon) returned to New York as Visitor. His most important achievement during his short term was to organize the professional preparation of the Brothers. He persuaded Brother C. Thomas (Fitzsimmons), the President of Manhattan College, to organize an extension division that would provide the Brothers with part-time courses leading the BA and MA degrees. The program was put into the capable hands of Brother Calixtus (Curran) who directed it for many years thereafter. Brother Philip also made provision for qualified Brothers to follow university programs leading to the doctorate as preparation for assignment to Manhattan College. When Brother Philip went to the General Chapter in 1923 he left the District in charge of Brother Calixtus. It was he who received the news, first that Brother Philip had been elected Assistant and, secondly, that by order of the Vatican the ban on teaching Latin was lifted. This brought to an end a long and difficult struggle to gain some measure of self-determination for the American Brothers as to how best to interpret the vision of De La Salle in the American situation.

Recovery and New Perspectives 1923-1946

With the war and the Latin Question out of the way, the path was clear for the new kind of leadership in the District shown by Brother Leo the Great (Farrington) who was appointed to that office in 1923. Great progress was made in all directions. Manhattan College was in the process of completing its move from 131st Street to the Riverdale section of the Bronx. De La Salle Institute was moved from 59th Street to occupy the former Vallon School on 74th Street. Clason Academy was moved to Oakdale, Long Island as La Salle Military Academy. Brothers were assigned to Sacred Heart School and St. Jerome’s in the Bronx, both soon to become a fruitful source of vocations. In New England, La Salle Academy, Providence, found a new home in a new location while new academies were open in Newport and Pawtucket. In Detroit, the alumni of St. Joseph’s contributed significant sums for the purchase of a site and the building of De La Salle Collegiate.

With the money gained from the sale of Pocantico to the Rockefeller family, a new center was built at Barrytown with facilities for the juniorate, the novitiate and a home for the retired Brothers. In a bold move, and in conjunction with the Baltimore District, a university scholasticate was built in Washington D.C. to function as an extension of the undergraduate School of Arts and Sciences at Catholic University and to provide access to graduate degrees for Brothers assigned to teach the scholastics. To finance these formation centers Brother Leo reorganized the Saint La Salle Auxiliary to insure a more aggressive fund raising program. The tenure of Brother Leo was, in the words of Brother Angelus Gabriel, “one of the most significant and progressive decades in the history of the Brothers in America.”

In 1932, Brother Leo was succeeded as Visitor by Brother Cornelius Malachy (Hession) who brought to that office a reputation as a gifted teacher, a PhD in philosophy, and experience as president of Manhattan College. The opening in 1933 of Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Brooklyn is an enduring memorial to his term as Visitor. The promise of his talents and vision came to a tragic end when death ended a bout with cancer in 1935 at the age of 44.

On the death of Brother Cornelius in 1935, Brother Eliphus Victor (Sullivan) was appointed to succeed him as Visitor. Over the next eleven years, there were new schools added to the District roster: elementary schools in the parishes of Good Shepherd and Incarnation to continue to meet the needs of the Catholic population of New York moving northward, and two parish High Schools, St. Bernard’s and St. Nicholas of Tolentine. In 1937 a new La Salle Academy was opened on Second Street and in 1939 a new Christian Brothers Academy in Albany. After 75 years, the New York Catholic Protectory was closed while the Lincoln Agricultural School was reorganized and the name changed to Lincoln Hall.
The last years of Brother E. Victor’s term were dominated by the events of World War II. The international upheaval was reflected in the District as some Brothers became unsettled in their vocation and departures began to multiply. To maintain the District’s commitment to the schools, especially large schools such as Loughlin, the Visitor was forced to withdraw sophomore, junior and even some senior scholastics from Catholic University before completing their degrees, a policy which proved counterproductive in terms of perseverance. At the war’s end in 1946 the Institute was finally able to convoke a General Chapter during which Brother E. Victor was elected American Assistant and Brother Alexius Victor (Lally) was named Visitor of New York.

The Last of the Glory Years 1946-1967

The nine years during which Brother A. Victor served as Visitor might best be described as a holding pattern. The General Chapter of 1946 had little impact on most of the Brothers. The notion that now that the war was over the Institute could return to its restrictive practices and policies proved to be illusory. In the District the approach was to accept in theory but to ignore in practice the attempts of the distant Regime to regain control. The Brothers concentrated their efforts on running good schools, living a reasonable community and religious life, and doing everything possible to attract vocations to the Institute. The major event at this time was the celebration in 1948 (deferred from 1945) of the centenary of the first Brothers schools in the United States. Brother Athanase Emile, the Superior General, came to the States, toured the country, visited schools and formation centers, and was feted everywhere, including ceremonies at the Metropolitan Opera and Manhattan College in New York where Brother E. Victor was his companion and Brother A. Victor the host.

In 1950, a new school was opened in St. John’s parish in the Bronx in the hope of attracting quality vocations. In 1952 the Brothers took direction of St. Gabriel’s parish school in East Elmurst in Queens. Forced by the visit of the Middle States Association to Manhattan College in 1951, the District had to change its policy of sending scholastics to community prematurely, leaving them to complete their degrees at Manhattan after doing most of the course work at Catholic University. This decision, plus a new influx of vocations, resulted in overcrowding at the Washington scholasticate. In 1949 the freshman class had to be housed in the recently vacated juniorate building at Ammendale. The next year the Baltimore District withdrew from De La Salle College and moved the scholastics to a new facility in Philadelphia. Beginning in 1954 until 1967, the New York scholastics took the freshman courses at the former Hillside School in Troy. Meanwhile, in 1953 a juniorate program for day students was opened at St. Bernard’s High School on 14th Street in 1953. In 1955 the Provincialate was moved from 77th Street to 330 Riverside Drive. In dealing with these developments, Brother Victor relied heavily on his two Auxiliary Visitors, Brothers Antony John and Charles Henry.

Brother Antony John (Halpin), appointed in 1955, took a more vigorous and single-minded approach to the office of Visitor. The first item to be addressed was the size of the District. With some 700 Brothers in 44 communities, it had become unwieldy. The problem was where to draw the dividing line. A split between New York and New England would make logical and geographical sense but at the time New England had no schools owned by the Brothers and none that were productive of vocations. It was eventually decided to draw the line through the East River, ceding Bishop Loughin (vocations) and Oakdale (revenue) to the new Long Island/New England District. Brother John was successful in opposing a last minute move by the District Council of the new District to have the institutions in the Albany area attached to LI-NE. Beginning in 1958, the two Districts undertook a joint commitment of personnel to a new missionary venture, opening schools from Eritrea and Ethiopia to Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa.

As Visitor, Brother John had implicit faith in the Directors of the houses of formation and supported them in their attempts to adapt the formation of their young subjects to contemporary trends in psychology and sociology. To bring quality to the welfare institutions, he established a policy whereby young Brothers, upon completing the work for a master’s degree, would be assigned for at least a year or two to Lincoln Hall or La Salle School. He favored Brothers with a reputation for piety and seems not to have had a very high regard for the level of religious observance in the school communities, doing what he could to correct what he considered abuses.

Convinced that the District had no future in the elementary schools, he consistently refused requests from pastors for more Brothers and began to close them one by one in order to supply personnel for the High Schools. During his tenure the Brothers took direction of St. Joseph’s parish High School in West New York N.J., Queen of Peace High school in North Arlington, N.J. as also the boys’ department of Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, a co-instructional archdiocesan institution. In St. Raymond’s parish the Brothers took over the new High School as the grade school was gradually phased out. De La Salle Institute on 74th Street was closed to make way for the opening of Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft, N.J. A drive was set in motion to raise the funds for the construction of a new wing and a chapel at De La Salle College. In 1963 work was completed on a thorough renovation of the novitiate chapel in Barrytown to have it conform to the latest liturgical and artistic standards. Meanwhile word from Rome indicated that the Institute was asking for input from the Districts for a new Rule that was in preparation to be presented to the next General Chapter. Brother John took a keen interest in this process both by consultation in the District and at national meetings of the American Visitors.

This process was barely underway when Brother John’s term as Visitor came to an end and he was succeeded by Brother Bertrand Leo (Kirby). Brother Leo came to office in 1964 after years of experience with the young candidates in Barrytown and Washington where the winds of change stirred by Vatican II, which was still in session, were blowing strong. But his attention had to be given first to requests for the Brothers to take over the direction of schools. In 1965 Sacred Heart parish High School in Yonkers and the diocesan High School in Paramus, N.J. were added to the District roster, as was the Msgr. Kelly school on 83rd Street in Manhattan, giving the Brothers a new opportunity to serve the urban poor.

Brother Leo, who was determined that the District make its contribution to the revision of the Rule, expanded the District Council to include Brothers with special expertise. In this way Brothers Gabriel Costello and Luke Salm came to prominence that led to their election in 1965 to serve with the Visitor, who was ex officio, as delegates to the upcoming General Chapter. All three participated in the national meetings aimed to assure an active and informed role for the American delegates to the Chapter, despite their longstanding numerical and linguistic disadvantage in general chapters traditionally dominated by a disproportionate number of French delegates. One result was the election of Brother Charles Henry as Superior General. He was a native New Yorker, former Director of Scholastics, Auxiliary Visitor of New York, Visitor of LI-NE, and American Assistant. He was the first Brother not a Frenchman to be elected Superior. Incidentally and ironically he had earned a PhD degree in Latin. The Chapter of 1966-1967 also established subsidiarity as a principle of government in the Institute, promulgated a declaration on the Brother in the modern world, and prepared radically revised texts of the Rule and Book of Government. When Brother Leo was elected the American Assistant, he was replaced as Visitor and delegate ex officio by Brother Augustine Loes, who was a potent advocate in the Chapter for a strong statement on the service of the poor.

The Aftermath of Vatican II: 1967 to the Present

The events of Vatican II and the 39th General Chapter of 1966-1967 are well known and recorded elsewhere. Suffice it to say that, despite attempts to interpret the changes proposed as a process of evolution, they did in fact amount to a revolution for which the New York Brothers, among others, were poorly prepared to understand or to implement. The result was confusion and divisiveness at district and regional chapters, traditional structures dismantled without suitable replacements, personal choice and fulfillment valued more than the authority of superiors or community consensus. Wholesale departures from the Institute followed while the sources of vocations began to dry up. The houses of formation were the first to feel the effect. The juniorate program at Barrytown was terminated in 1968, and the novitiate in the following year. The scholasticate in Washington followed suit in1970, some of the faculty transferred to Manhattan College with residence in the community on the Chapel Farm property owned by the College. In the schools, as the numbers of Brothers declined and the average age increased, it became the policy to place the few available Brothers in administrative posts and leave the classroom teaching to the lay faculty.

In due time, however, some more positive signs began to emerge. The revised formation process yielded more mature candidates and a good percentage of those who finally committed themselves by vow have persevered. The concept of shared mission and the opening of national Lasallian programs to lay persons gave hope that they could well be entrusted to carry on the Lasallian mission with or without the Brothers. The Brothers began to understand better and affirm their identity as Brothers. They began to see the need to take more seriously their vowed commitment to the direct or indirect service of the poor, while striving to deepen their experience of religious and community life.

Such was the situation facing the leadership of the District after Vatican II and the General Chapter of 1966-1967. Since all of the Visitors from 1967 on are still living at this writing, and since the memory of their personalities and administration is fresh in the minds of the Brothers at least, it will be sufficient for the purposes of this concise history simply to list their names and then summarize the important developments in the last years of the twentieth century. Brother Augustine Loes was Visitor from 1967 to 1972, Brother John Martin from 1972 to 1981, Brother William Spellman from 1981 to 1984, Brother Timothy Wentworth from 1984 to 1990, Brother Jerome Sullivan from 1990 to 1996, and Brother Michael Corry from 1996 to 2002. Brother Frank Byrne has been the incumbent since then.

Experimentation with various programs of formation was characteristic of this period. One conviction was that the novitiate should come at the end rather than the beginning of initial formation. After using the facilities of a national novitiate for a time, the New York District decided in 1974 to open a novitiate of its own on an historic property facing the lake at Skaneateles just west of Syracuse. This lasted for 25 years until it finally had to be closed for lack of candidates.

In 1978, a new venture was undertaken led by Brother Edward Phelan who opened, directed, and established on a sound financial basis the Highbridge Community Life Center at Melrose in the Bronx . Now staffed by a Lasallian community composed of Brothers and resident lay volunteers, it continues its mission to involve the entire local community in educational and social projects. As part of a felt need to return to elementary schools, in 1979 the Brothers took over the Blessed Sacrament school on Staten Island, but personnel problems resulted in the departure of the Brothers after six years.
In 1978 the Provincialate was moved from Riverside Drive to Lincroft N.J. With the sale of Barrytown a new home was needed for the retired Brothers. Since the residences rented at Scarsdale and Garrison proved unsatisfactory, it was decided to build a new facility on the Lincroft property. In 1980 De La Salle Hall was dedicated as a retirement and nursing home for the elderly Brothers of the District.

A long-festering dispute between the Brothers and the trustees of Lincoln Hall came to a head in 1980-1981 and was resolved only when Brother John Martin decided to withdraw the Brothers after 40 years of service to the institution and its disadvantaged clientele. Some of the Brothers involved tried to find another outlet for their zeal for the education of the poor. The most successful of these ventures has been De La Salle Academy, founded by Brother Brian Carty in 1982 as an endowed middle school for the education of bright and promising minority students. In the same direction, by 1995 enough Brothers were willing to volunteer so that the District could take over the direction of the grade school of Resurrection parish in East Harlem.
Meanwhile the District continues its commitment to the 14 schools where there are still Brothers. The schools are operating well and the hope for the future is that, with or without the Brothers, the Lasallian mission will continue to provide a human and Christian education to young people, especially the poor and disadvantaged.

Missing Persons

In this concise history, to provide logical and chronological organization as well as brevity, the structure has centered on the successive District administrations presided over by the Brother Visitor. In the process some important personages have been overlooked whose achievements might have been duly noted had the historical narrative been developed along thematic lines that transcend the terms of office of the various Visitors. Such for example would be the Brothers noted for their scholarship, their work on the missions, their contributions to the welfare institutions, to the administration of the schools, or the encouragement of vocations. With or without reference to the Visitors, they are the ones “in the trenches” who made it possible for the District over 150 years to carry out its apostolic mission.

In this final paragraph, and at the risk of leaving out many others who also deserve to be remembered, it is possible to cite some at least of the most notable of these Brothers. Here are a few examples of those whose memory should be preserved on earth while, as we hope, they now enjoy their reward in heaven. We cannot forget the nationally and even internationally known scholars of a century ago: Brothers Azarias Mullaney, Chrysostom Conlan, Potamian O’Reilly and Benignus Gerrity; historians of the District like Brothers John Chrysostom, Albeus Jerome and Angelus Gabriel; Brother Barnabas with a national following in the area of child welfare and his successors in child care, for example, Brothers Arnulf Paul, Charles Austin, Stephen O’Hara and Augustine Loes; recruiters like Brothers Adjutor and Jasper who recruited candidates for the American mission in Ireland or Simon of Jesus, Auxilian Felix and Thomas Jenkins who recruited so successfully in the District; such missionaries as Brothers Bonaventure John and Raymund Barry in the Philippines or Peter Dougherty in East Africa; inspectors of schools like Brothers Calixtus, Andrew Philip, Benedict Ayers and Bernard Peter May; dynamic presidents of Manhattan College like Brothers Thomas McGinty, Philip Nelan and Gregory Nugent; brilliant college professors, many of whom helped the Brothers to obtain master’s degrees such as Brothers Alban Dooley, Andrew, O’Connor, Eugene Law and Gabriel Costello in the arts, or Brothers Alfred Welch, James Walton and Gabriel Kane in math and science; novice Directors like Brothers Austin Joseph, Conall Andrew and the perrenial “Sub,” Brother Conrad Vincent, all kept in line by the ever vigilant Visitor General, Brother Cornelius Luke. The longest list would include the names, some remembered and some forgotten, of all those Brothers, principals and teachers in the schools at every level, who with faith and zeal persevered in their vocation and did in fact procure the glory of God in the lives of the students who benefitted from their teaching and example. As De La Salle would have summed it up, “Lord, the work is yours.”

Luke Salm, FSC

February 2004

NOTE: The sources of this chronicle are drawn from the archives of the New York District, Brother Angelus Gabriel’s “The Brothers of the Christian Schools in the United States 1848-1948″ (New York: McMullen, 1948), and the personnel lists and other documents prepared by Brother Eugene O’Gara, who was good enough to review this essay and to make suggestions for its improvement.