STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — One of Staten Island’s oldest churches has been sold, prompting questions about the future of the historic house of worship.
St. Mary’s R.C. Church in Rosebank, which closed its doors in 2015 and was de-sanctified by the Archdiocese of New York in 2020, was sold in October 2025 to Lera Holdings, LLC for more than $2.8 million, according to online documents from the Richmond County Clerk.
Recent photos submitted to the Advance/SILive.com show that some work has begun at the nearly 170-year-old church building, with workers donning hazmat suits seen entering and exiting the premises.
Workers in hazmat suits are seen removing hazardous materials from the recently-sold former St. Mary’s Church in Rosebank. (Dennis Rees for Advance/SILive.com)Dennis Rees for Advance/SILive.com
Signs at the location read “Warning Keep Out: Poison Baited Area,” “Danger Asbestos” and “Authorized Personnel Only.”
A representative for Lera Holdings, LLC could not immediately be reached for comment, leaving it unclear as to whether the new owner intends to maintain the church building or demolish it to make way for future development.
St. Mary’s School
Across the street, the former St. Mary’s School has been demolished and work is underway to construct a new, 283-seat early-childhood annex for nearby PS 13.
St. Mary’s was one of four Staten Island Catholic schools that closed in 2011 shortly after the Archdiocese of New York withdrew financial support of the institution.
According to the New York City School Construction Authority (CSA), the former St. Mary’s School, located at 1 Virginia Ave. in Rosebank, will be leveled “in the next week or so.” Work will then begin on an early education annex, which is being created at the site for nearby PS 13. (Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-Hammel)Jan Somma-Hammel
The school had been shuttered for more than a decade when the New York City School Construction Authority announced plans for the annex, which is expected to serve pre-K through second grade.
Details about the construction of the new school are limited, but the total cost of the rebuild is estimated at $69.88 million.
About St. Mary’s Church
St. Mary’s opened in 1852, as the second Roman Catholic parish on Staten Island, after St. Peter’s, which was established in 1839. The first pastor, the Rev. John Lewis, came to Rosebank (then known as Clifton) from Alsace-Lorraine, and he celebrated mass the next morning in a parishioner’s home. Without delay, he began construction of a temporary frame building on the “Wood Road’’ (now named St. Mary’s Avenue), which served as a church and a school, according to Advance records.
Five years later, construction of the present brick church in the Romanesque Revival style of Italy was underway on “New York Avenue’’ (now Bay Street). The first mass was celebrated in 1857, and a brick rectory was added the following year. After removing the old school on St. Mary’s Avenue in 1862, Father Lewis sold the property and built St. Mary’s School (on Bay Street at Virginia Avenue across from the church), according to Advance records.
Sunday mass at St. Mary’s R.C. Church in Rosebank in April 2015 (Staten Island Advance/Bill Lyons)
Also on the site stood other works initiated by the pastor — an orphan asylum for the parish, a residence for the Sisters of Charity, and a dwelling for the male teachers. In 1878, at Father Lewis’s behest, St. Mary’s Hall was erected on Virginia Avenue for lectures, concerts, dramatic performances and meetings. Opposite St. Mary’s Hall rose the “Catholic Young Men’s Literary Union’’ rooms, which Father Lewis built for the young men of his parish to spend their evenings in recreation and literary activities. In addition, he established St. Mary’s Cemetery on a seven-acre site of the Parkinson estate in “Southfield,’’ now Grasmere, according to Advance records.
Father Lewis also constructed, at a personal cost to himself of $10,000, a chapel-of-ease in Stapleton for the aged and infirm, where services were held on Sunday mornings — the embryo of the future Immaculate Conception Church. The old St. Mary’s is still dominated by its impressive bell tower, which Father Lewis wanted to be built tall enough to be seen by all who traveled through the harbor. The structure was marked on navigational maps as an aid to 19th-century mariners making the trip between the Lower and Upper Bays. The original bell was replaced with an electronic mechanism, but the peals from the tower continued to be referred to as “The Bells of St. Mary’s.’’
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Vintage and new photos of former St. Mary’s R.C. Church in Rosebank