Augustinian Academy | |
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![]() Grymes Hill campus (1926–1969) | |
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General information | |
Town or city | Staten Island, New York City |
Country | United States |
Completed | 1899 (Tompkinsville), 1926 (Grymes Hill) |
Demolished | 2006 (Grymes Hill) |
Client | Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York |
The Augustinian Academy on Staten Island, New York, was founded on May 30, 1899, in conjunction with the new Roman Catholic parish of Our Lady of Good Counsel, both by the Augustinian Friars. The academy expanded in 1926 and closed in 1969; during its life it added about 250 priests to the Augustinian order.
The academy's original buildings were first erected for the Visitation Sisters, and were purchased and modified by the Augustinians for educational purposes. The academy was dedicated by Archbishop Sebastiano Martinelli on September 10, 1899, and officially opened on September 13 as "The Catholic High School of Richmond Borough". This was the first Catholic settlement in Tompkinsville, and the first Mass was said in the neighborhood on November 12, 1899, in McRobert's Hall on Arietta Street. Our Lady of Good Counsel occupied the large chapel in the academy building, along with the small chapel of Our Lady of Consolation, erected in 1902 on Saint Paul's Avenue. [1]
The original program of study comprised classical, commercial and grammar courses, and was soon accredited by the University of the State of New York. The valuation of the academy and church property was about $100,000 in 1914, equivalent to $3,000,000in 2022. On May 30, 1909, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the academy's founding, the Ancient Order of Hibernians presented the academy with a handsome 100-foot flagpole and a large American flag. [1]
Among the properties that the academy owned, and founded, was a site in Morrisania, Bronx, on the east side of Andrews Avenue, 200 feet south of Fordham Road. The structure would be a two-story brick school, 54x100 feet, built in 1906 to the design of architect J. O'Connor for $50,000, for the now-closed St. Augustine's School. [2]
The academy began educating boys for the priesthood in 1921. It expanded to a 16-acre site in the Grymes Hill neighborhood in 1926, but finally closed in 1969. The Tompkinsville property became a parochial school. The Grymes Hill property was used as a retreat house until 1983, acquired by Wagner College in 1993, then heavily damaged by fires, and ultimately razed in 2006.
"During its 70 years of existence, Augustinian Academy graduated approximately 1,348 men and added about 250 priests to the Augustinian order." [3] [4] One nationally prominent graduate was Edmund Dobbin from the Class of 1953, who went on to become the longest-serving president of Villanova University. [5]
In 2009, New York City renamed the academy's former location on Grymes Hill as "Augustinian Academy Way". [6] In 2012, Good Counsel Church dedicated its Augustinian Academy Historical Monument, including the bell from the school's demolished tower. [7]
Augustinians are members of several religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about 400 AD by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–13th centuries:
Grymes Hill is a 374 feet (114 m) tall hill formed of serpentine rock on Staten Island, New York. It is the second highest natural point on the island and in the five boroughs of New York City. The neighborhood of the same name encompasses an area of 0.894 square miles (2.32 km2) and has a population of 8,263 people. The hill also includes parts of the Silver Lake neighborhood. The area includes part of ZIP Codes 10301 and 10304.
Villanova College is a high school and middle school in King City, Ontario, Canada. Established by lay educators Paul Paradiso and Grant Purdy with the blessing of the Archdiocese Toronto and in cooperation with the Order of Saint Augustine's friars of Toronto and Marylake Augustinian Monastery. The school campus is within the grounds of this Augustinian monastic foundation in King City. Villanova College offers grades four to twelve and is the first, and only, Canadian institution to become a member of the Augustinian Secondary Education Association. It is a privately operated independent school, officially sponsored by the Augustinian Order.
The Order of Saint Augustine, abbreviated OSA, is a religious mendicant order of the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1244 by bringing together several eremitical groups in the Tuscany region who were following the Rule of Saint Augustine, written by Saint Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century.
Our Lady of Good Counsel is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary, after a painting said to be miraculous, now found in the thirteenth century Augustinian church at Genazzano, near Rome, Italy. Measuring 40 to 45 centimetres the image is a fresco executed on a thin layer of plaster no thicker than an egg shell. Over the centuries, devotions to Our Lady of the Good Counsel grew among saints and Popes, to the extent that a reference to it was added to the Litany of Loreto and the devotion spread throughout the world. Her feast day is 26 April.
Notre Dame College was a small Catholic women's college located in the Grymes Hill area of Staten Island, New York. It opened in 1933 as an affiliate of Fordham University and merged with St. John's University in 1971.
The Marylake Augustinian Monastery, also known as Marylake Monastery, Marylake Shrine, or simply Marylake, is an Augustinian monastery in King City, Ontario, Canada. The campus is nearly 1,000 acres (4.0 km2), residing on Keele Street, just north of 15th Sideroad (Bloomington). It is part of the Province of Saint Joseph, the Canadian province of Augustinians which operates under the jurisdiction of the Chicago-based Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel.
Thomas Galberry was an Irish Augustinian friar and the fourth Bishop of Hartford, Connecticut, serving from 1876 until his death in 1878.
The Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 10 Austin Place, Staten Island, New York City.
The Church of St. Roch is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 602 Port Richmond Avenue, Staten Island, New York City. It was established in 1922. It is sometimes confused with St. Roch's Church St. in the Bronx, which was established in 1899.
The Church of Saint Clare, located in the Great Kills neighborhood of Staten Island, New York City, is the largest-membership parish under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. It is dedicated to Clare of Assisi, and it includes a co-educational PreK–8 Catholic school and Religious Education program. It became an independent parish in 1925 and has six principal buildings dating from 1921 to 1979: the church, school, converted convent, parish center, chapel, and rectory. St. Clare's has received national attention for its architecture, its educational programs, its heavy casualties from the September 11 attacks, and its two priests lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tompkins Circle is a .131-acre green public space within a traffic circle in the Grymes Hill neighborhood of Staten Island, New York. The circle is located in a section of the neighborhood historically known as Pavilion Hill. At this traffic circle, the Tompkins Circle loop merges with Fiedler Avenue and Ward Avenue.
Edmund Joseph Dobbin was a Roman Catholic priest of the Order of Saint Augustine, and 31st president of Villanova University from 1988 to 2006. Raised in Brooklyn and Staten Island, New York, he became a noted educator in theology and mathematics, and Villanova's longest-serving president.
Michael Hurley was an American Catholic priest and an Augustinian friar. He served as pastor of St. Augustine Church in Philadelphia for seventeen years, as vicar general of the American province of the Order of Saint Augustine, and as vicar general of the Diocese of Philadelphia.