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DECEMBER, 2001 -- The recent remodeling of the former Catholic chapel building on Rikers to fit New York City Department of Correction (DOC) command use prompted the New York Correction History Society (NYCHS) to delve into the archives it maintains at the Correction Academy.
On Dec. 7th, Commissioner William J. Fraser presided at ribbon cutting ceremonies that dedicated and formally opened the remodeled former Catholic chapel building for its new correctional command use. The remodeling left the building's exterior looking very much as it did back when it functioned as the resident Catholic chaplains' own chapel.
For eight decades prior to the 1966 opening of the bridge linking the island to Queens, the city agency that operated correctional facilities on Rikers -- first the Department of Public Charities and Correction and later the Department of Correction -- built and maintained residences there for key personnel. Wardens, doctors, clergy and others who were needed to respond quickly day or night to sudden emergencies had homes on the island for themselves and their families. Commuting to and from Rikers by ferry sufficed for most staffers since they worked various duty shifts. But a limited few were supposed be available 24x7. During pre-bridge decades, that meant residing there.
The existing former Catholic chapel building was built in the early 1940s, long after completion of construction of the Rikers Island Penitentiary that opened in the mid-1930s. The separate chapel structure is not shown on building plans for the prison but does appear on an early 1940s Rikers map of existing and planned sites. That is the earliest map in DOC possession that depicts both it and the Penitentiary. The separate chapel residence should not be confused with the Penitentiary's own rather large interior chapel facilities for the inmates. The resident Catholic chaplains' personal chapel was small by comparison since it was intended for their own spiritual use. There they could satisfy their religious requirement to conduct daily mass. On occasion they would be joined in the service by visiting clergy and/or invited guests including other resident Rikers staffers and members of their families. Present day DOC engineers searching for the Catholic chapel's original blueprints found a set of chapel blueprints that seemed to fit the structure's layout almost exactly. But that "almost" aspect posed troublesome misgivings. They found a few of the measurements shown on the blueprints did not match the measurements they had taken in the existing building whose remodeling they were to design. The blueprints' measurements were only slightly off but, for engineering and architectural purposes, "only slightly off" isn't good enough.
So those blueprints were put aside as perhaps an earlier set of drawings for what was actually built later with altered plans not yet found. In any event, the old blueprints -- even if they had been an exact match -- would have been used only for reference. But NYCHS research among old maps, photos, annual reports and newsletters in the archives it maintains at the Correction Academy solved the mystery of the "only slightly off" measurements on the old chapel blueprints. Those drawings and the dimensions shown on them had been for a second chapel building, this one erected for the resident Protestant chaplain and situated just across the road from the Catholic chapel. A paragraph under the heading Bureau of Engineering and Maintenance on Page 25 of the 1945 annual report by then Commissioner Peter F. Amoroso refers to a fascinating string of projects completed:
Repairs, alterations and additions to institutional property involved 165 separate jobs by this Bureau alone; 11 were let out on contracts amounting to $87,000; and 133 jobs totaling $22,000 were let out on open market bids. Industrial facilities were planned and accomplished for all institutions. The types of jobs completed involved electrical, plumbing, carpentry, iron work, boiler, locks etc. as well as the construction of the Protestant Chapel and Mission House and the erection of large chicken houses. A 1948 aerial photo of Rikers (at the top of this web page) shows both chapels. The Protestant Mission House and Chapel stands out as the solitary structure on the side of the road opposite both the Catholic chapel and the Penitentiary.
Behind the Protestant chapel can be seen, in the full aerial view, the vast tree nursery that in those days took up much of the island not occupied by the Penitentiary and its support buildings, many of which were clustered near the ferry slip facing the Bronx mainland.
The cultivated woodland supplied most of the trees and shrubs for the Parks Department and also gave inmates an opportunity for job training in tree planting and maintenance. A 1952 Rikers map (a detailed section shown above) depicts both chapels. That of the Catholic priest is identified as "rectory" and is shown on the same side of the roadway as the Penitentiary's main entrance. Across the road near the circular drive is shown the Protestant minister's place labeled as "mission house and chapel." On the snowy night of Feb. 1, 1957, Northeast Airlines Flight 823 crashed into Rikers moments after takeoff from nearby LaGuardia Airport, smashing into the wooded acreage behind the Protestant Mission House. The minister, the Rev. Dr. E. Frederick Proelss, and members of his family were among the very first on the horrific scene. They helped bring survivors to the safety of their home and soon turned it and its chapel into a makeshift emergency center.
Pages 40 and 41 of the 1957 annual report by then Commissioner Anna M. Kross retold, in text and photos, the role played by inmates and staff in the dramatic rescue operation. Braving flames whipped by freezing winds, inmates and staffers pulled, carried, and otherwise assisted scores of injured from the blazing wreckage. Thanks to the heroic teamwork of correctional personnel and the convicts, more than 60 persons aboard were saved that night. All survivors were taken from the immediate vicinity of the disaster and escorted to first aid stations at both the visiting room of the Penitentiary and the Rikers Island Hospital. There was then no bridge that would permit ambulances to rush the injured to hospitals in Queens and elsewhere. Commissioner Kross' report reads, in part:
His participation in the rescue of the airplane crash victims was not the first or only occasion that the Rev. Dr. Proelss found himself in the news spotlight. Proelss had left a successful career as attorney in his native Germany where his outspokenness against Nazism drew to him dangerously hostile attention. In America, he worked as a bookkeeper while studying for the ministry. Although from a Protestant tradition known as the Old German Catholic Church, he was accepted into the Episcopalian ministry and, although he later became a Lutheran pastor, he continued to work for the Episcopalian City Mission Society of the Diocese of New York that funded the Riker's Island mission. Thus came the building's name: Mission House and Chapel. With his advanced degrees and certificates in pastoral counseling and through the network of contacts he had developed while earning them, the Rev. Dr. Proelss played a key role in establishing on Rikers a Union Theological Seminary training program for newly ordained ministers and selected seminarians. On May 25th, 1962, the minister escorted on a tour of Rikers the world famous thinker and writer Karl Barth whom he had invited to the island after the noted theologian had made some criticism about American correction facilities. No news coverage of the visit was permitted at the time but five months later a Representative from New Jersey inserted into the Congressional Record an article that had then recently appeared in an Episcopalian magazine the Witness. It reads, in part:
Another 1962 article in another magazine, The Episcopalian, focused on innovative programs for inmates at Rikers and elsewhere in North America. It reads, in part:
The opening of the bridge to Queens four years later made even chaplain residency unnecessary. Not many years after the bridge eliminated dependency on ferry service, the houses attached to the chapels ceased to function as residences. However, for several years thereafter, they and their connected chapels served as storage places for supplies associated with their previous religious missions, such as hymnals, prayer books, bibles and other inspirational reading materials. Eventually, the buildings came to be used for all kinds of storage. The Protestant chapel building survived the nearby construction of the huge facility that opened in 1971 and eventually became the George Motchan Detention Center (GMDC).
When the road in front of the chapels was widened into a divided roadway with long lawns running down its center, the Episcopalian Mission House and Chapel building was demolished.
Sensitivity to how easily agencies' histories can erode over time is what prompted DOC Commissioners Michael P. Jacobson, Bernard B. Kerik and William J. Fraser and the other NYCHS founders from various state and city correctional departments to launch the society. A case in point: Retrieving the faded memory of the Mission House and Chapel in time to connect with the remodeling and new use of the former Catholic rectory and chapel. The retrieval serves to evoke appreciation of how DOC addressed potential and actual emergencies during Rikers' bridge-less decades and to enhance respect for the professional dedication of those who served during that era.
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