Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Academic & Cultural Programs successfully nominated the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto, located at 36 Amity Street in Rosebank, Staten Island to be listed on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places on November 2, 2000.  Construction of the grotto began in 1937 by members of members of the Society of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on the property owned by the voluntary association. 

The grotto was listed as a traditional cultural property (TCP), the first in New York State.  According to the National Park Service a "traditional cultural property can be defined generally as one that is eligible for the National Register because of its association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that a) are rooted in that community's history, and b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community." 

Below is Dr. Joseph Sciorra’s “Statement of Significance” that accompanied the nomination:

The Society of Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto (1937) in Rosebank, Staten Island is culturally and architecturally significant as an example of Italian American vernacular religious architecture in the United States.  The grotto was designed and built by the voluntary labor of the lay religious society’s members and is a testament to the collaborative enterprise that defined this Italian immigrant mutual aid association. 

The Rosebank grotto is a well-preserved example of a religious building created by lay Italian immigrants that was not initiated nor maintained by representatives of the Roman Catholic Church.  Privately constructed and maintained religious buildings were prevalent in the New York metropolitan area in the first half of the twentieth century, and continue today, in modified form, with the creation of smaller yard shrines in front of private homes. 

The Rosebank shrine represents a continuation of a deep-seated tradition of religious activity surrounding natural and man-made grottos in Christian Europe and in particular Italy. The grotto’s stone-studded ornamentation and rough surface reflects the aesthetics of southern Italian vernacular architecture.  This aesthetic is also evident in five smaller structures located on the property, which include a crucifix, a kneeler, a fountain, a monument, and a shrine to St. Anthony of Padua.  The additional use of sea shells and bicycle reflectors demonstrate an appreciation for frugality and an awareness of the spiritual power of objects long associated with water and light. 

In addition, the society’s meeting hall (c. 1914) is one of the few free-standing buildings in New York City that survives as the original meeting hall for a turn of the century Italian immigrant mutual aid society.  The hall served as a workshop for the creation of the grotto and as a neighborhood meeting space where community residents celebrated rites of passage and annual holidays.

Directions to the grotto