A Visit to St. Pascal's and St. Albans
Bob Maloney (Class of 1945)
Thursday, April 8, 1999 -- Inspired by the lovely spring weather yesterday, the need
for some exercise, and reading the St. Pascal Baylon Web Page, I bicycled from home in
Jackson Heights to St. Albans yesterday. This short note summarizes my observations.
The neighborhood looked wonderful! Houses were in good shape, lawns were taken care of,
plants were in bloom. Some blocks looked better than others, but in general I thought the
neighborhood looked better than it did 40 years ago.
St. Pascal's Church looked great from the outside. Cherry blossoms bloomed around the
church. As I walked around the church, I noticed a man locking it up. I asked whether I
could go inside and he said sure. Inside, the church had not changed much at all. I know
several churches that have added and removed statues, paintings, etc. over the years when
pastors and/or taste changed. I am not sure of the St. Pascal architectural style, but
there were never many statues in the church. In any case, the altar is turned around in
agreement with Vatican II and there is a reasonable space between the altar and the rest
of the pews. There were also a number of seats on the gospel side of the altar, presumably
for a choir. The church was loaded with flowers (after all, Sunday was Easter).
The man who let me into the church was the custodian. In the old days we called him the
sexton. Was the St. Pascal sexton a Mr. Steadman? I remember he lived on 199th St. next to
the church. In any case, the present custodian brought me up to date on the other church
buildings. Both the high school and grade school are closed and are now used by a social
service agency as a school for the blind. The original convent is now used as a home for
unwed mothers. The facility is not going to waste.
I bicycled through the streets, past places from my youth and brought back many
memories. I stopped for a few minutes in front of my parents' house on 201st St. The
building had new shingles on it and looked great. It was still green too! The only thing
that showed its age was the chain link fence in the back yard years ago. I pedaled past
many of my old friends' homes.
Both the Island movie on Hollis Avenue and the St. Albans movie on Linden Boulevard are
now churches. Kids were playing basketball in O'Connell Park. However, the basketball
courts are now at the south end of the park near Murdock Avenue and not in the sprinkler
area near 113th Avenue. There were absolutely no signs of Krisch's ice cream parlor on
Hollis Avenue or Wrieden's on Linden. Nor were there signs of the Graybar or Wickersham
bars. Bob's Tavern on Murdock was still there with a Bob's Tavern sign but was not open,
and there appeared to be a bar and grill on Linden and 201st where the Little T was years
ago. But though the sign said "open" the bar was closed. Actually, there seemed
to be a whole lot fewer bars and a whole lot more churches (storefront variety) in St.
Albans, probably a move for the better. The Q3A bus is now the Q83, the Q4 is still the
Q4, and I forgot to notice the Q2.
I mentioned to the custodian the existence of the web site and said I would let the
pastor know about it. I see his E-mail address is on the site, so I presume he already
knows about it. |