It may be hard to believe St. Barbara’s, Bushwick’s monumental Catholic church, is not a city landmark already. But it’s one of 95 sites currently on a Landmarks Preservation Commission backlog list, and seven of those, St. Barbara’s included, are among Brooklyn’s 168 sites on America’s National Register of Historic Places.
But that could be about to change. As reported by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the LPC reviews the backlog today, and if St. Barbara’s makes the cut, it will receive a “Prioritize for Designation” status.
St. Barbara’s, one of Bushwick’s biggest churches, is not only worthy of landmark status in the context of the longer history of New York. Its parishioners are among the residents at Hope Gardens, the Bushwick public housing project that has been referred to as “one of the least heralded and most successful urban reclamation projects in New York City”—a status that it earned largely because of the church community.
Stay tuned for news of St. Barbaras’ new LPC desgination.