After 160 Years, Immaculate Conception School on E. 14th Will Close at End of School Year

For nearly 160 years, there has been an Immaculate Conception School on the lower East Side of Manhattan, but at the end of the current school year, the Archdiocese of New York said it will shut down permanently.

“It’s hard to grasp,” said one mom as she emerged from the school on Feb. 16, the day after the closure announcement after dropping off her son in the fourth grade. “It’s going to be a hard journey to find a new school,” she said. She had looked at Epiphany School which has a lower level school on 22nd St. and Second Ave. and a middle school in the former St. Stephan’s School on E. 28th between Third Ave. and Lexington Ave. One drawback: Epiphany’s tuition is $12,000 a year--nearly double the $6,000 to $7,000 a year she was paying at Immaculate.

The Archdiocese cited financial problems for the closure of Immaculate Conception, four other schools in Manhattan, six more in The Bronx and one on Staten Island.

The pastor of the adjoining Immaculate Conception Church, Father Kevin Nelan, said the school has operated with nearly a $900,00 deficit over the past two years that included $400,000 last year and an estimated $500,000 this year.

At one point in the mid-19th century, fueled by the explosive growth of immigrant families mostly of Irish and Italian background, the parish that started in 1854 had close to 20,000 parishioners and the school that traces it roots to its founding in 1864 had 2,100 students.

Today, according to Immaculate Conception pastor Father Nelan, there are only 135 students enrolled in the K- 8th grade school. “It’s a sad day of course,” he told Our Town Downtown. “We could have sustained it with 250 students,” he said. But keeping the school open would have put the entire parish, which was bankrolling the losses, in a financial bind, he said.

There is now only one other Catholic elementary school in Manhattan south of 14th Street, Transfiguration in Chinatown. St. Brigid’s which was another nearby Catholic school had closed in 2018. And Our Lady of Pompeii in Little Italy closed at the start of the pandemic.

“I feel bad for the kids who have been there since kindergarten,” said Mary O’Halloran, who lives in Stuyvesant Town. She had initially sent two of her kids to St. Brigid’s. When that closed she moved them to Immaculate Conception, but said she pulled them out a year ago and sent them to the Epiphany School.

“I saw the same thing happening at Immaculate that I saw at St. Brigid’s,” said O’Halloran, who also runs a popular restaurant on Avenue A and Third St. called Mary O’s that had been involved in fundraising for the school over the years.

She said the Immaculate Conception school principal, Mary Barry, had been there for a decade and a half as a principal. “She was really dedicated,” said O’Halloran who said she felt that the parish could have done more to support the school with fundraisers and other activities. “The reason I kept the kids at Immaculate was because the principal was so hardworking and dedicated,” said O’Halloran. But as the student population plummeted during COVID, she moved to Epiphany for her daughters Tara, who is now in fourth grade and Erin who is in seventh grade.”

”A lot of the parents are shell shocked,” said Carolyn Colon, a mom of a seventh grade son who also runs the parish Scouting program. She said it comes at a particularly difficult time because parents in seventh grade were starting to scout for high schools and getting ready to take the Catholic school high school admission test early in the 8th grade. “We’ll be losing the one person we thought could help us through the admission process,” she said, referring to 8th grade teacher Joan Wise.

Pastor Nelan, who has been in the job for 13 years said that pre-Covid he had gotten enrollment up to 275 students for the K through eighth grade school. “We could have survived if we had 250 students,” he said. But he said COVID created lots of problems. A weekly flea market that raised $100,000 was forced to close. In its place, homeless people began taking over the corner around First Ave and spilling east down E. 14th, selling all kinds of goods off of blankets such as jars of peanut butter, beans, used clothing, tools, and electronics. Father Nelan said janitors had to clean up the junk every morning and the parish had to hire security guards on weekends.

The other Manhattan based school closures include: Ascension School on 108th St. on the Upper West Side, Guardian Angel School in Chelsea, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Inwood and the Academy of St. Paul & St. Ann–itself a previously merged school--in Harlem.

In addition to Immaculate Conception and the four other Manhattan schools, six are closing in the Bronx including Holy Family–which counts Jennifer Lopez as an alum–another Immaculate Conception on Gun Hill Rd (not to be confused with Immaculate Conception on 151st which is now a public charter school operated by Partnership Schools), Santa Maria School, St. Angela Merici School, St. Brendan School, St. Margaret Mary School. Two other Bronx schools will merge into two, St. Francis Xavier will merge with St. Clare of Assisi and St. Gabriel School will merge with St. Margaret of Cortona. One school on Staten Island will also close. St. Christopher School.

There is now only one other Catholic school in Manhattan south of 14th Street, Transfiguration in Chinatown. St. Brigid’s which was another nearby Catholic school had closed in 2018. And Our Lady of Pompeii in Little Italy closed at the start of the pandemic.

”A lot of the parents are shell shocked,” said Carolyn Colon, a mom of a seventh grade son who also runs the parish Scouting program. She said it comes at a particularly difficult time because parents in seventh grade were starting to scout for high schools and getting ready to take the Catholic school high school admission test early in the 8th grade. “We’ll be losing the one person we thought could help us through the admission process,” she said, referring to 8th grade teacher Joan Wise.

Pastor Kevin Nelan, who has been in the job for 13 years said that pre-Covid he had gotten enrollment up to 275 students for the K through eighth grade school. “We could have survived if we had 250 students,” he said. But he said COVID created lots of problems. A weekly flea market that raised $100,000 was forced to close. In its place, homeless people began taking over the corner around First Ave and spilling east down E. 14th, selling all kinds of goods off of blankets such as jars of peanut butter, beans, used clothing, tools, and electronics. Father Nelan said janitors had to clean up the junk every morning and the parish had to hire security guards on weekends.

Some local residents dubbed the impromptu street fair “the thieves market. Council members Carlina Rivera and Keith Powers lobbied to get the NYPD to help clean it up.

“It was like Mogadishu on steroids,” said Father Nelan.

But even after occasional NYPD sweeps and arrests, the sidewalk vendors would be back–sometimes within hours. “Passengers getting off at the bus stop had a hard time, the sidewalk was so crowded with junk,” he said.

Finally in recent months, he said the block has been cleared regularly.

But the student population never rebounded after the COVID related falloff. And the parish, which was on sound footing had to bankroll the school. “We spent close to $400,000 on the school last year,” he said. “This year, he said he expected the loss from the school were probably “going to be close to $500,000.”

“I wanted to close the school down last year, but the Archdiocese wouldn’t let me,” he said. “I knew the school had to close, otherwise the parish would be bankrupt,” said Father Nelan

The parish and school has had its ups and down over the past 160 years. The initial church was across the street on E. 15th Street south of the fountain in the present day Stuyvesant Town but the school and church was one of three churches and schools that were bought out by Metropolitan Life when it was knocking down the tenements and evicting 11,000 people to make way for the Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town that opened in 1947.

That served as a boon to Immaculate Conception parish, which took over the abandoned Grace Episcopal Church on the south side of 14th St. The one time pediatric hospital was converted into a rectory and office space and the former hospital housing on the back side of the lot was demolished to build a new school building. For awhile, the parish population again surged as it claimed parishioners up to 18th St. in Stuyvesant Town. In recent decades more of the parishioners came from south of 14th Street as Immaculate Conception picked up parishioners from Mary Help of Christians and other parishes that were closing in the East Village. “The demographics changed dramatically,” said Father Nelan. He also said the rise of charter schools is hurting Catholic elementary schools. “They go for exactly the same demographics as we do,” he said. “If we could have converted to a charter school, we could have survived,” he said. But the charter schools are capped currently.

The next question is what will happen to the school building. “I’m sure some vultures will be coming around,” said Father Nelan. But he said since the school shares a lot of facilities with the church, it would be hard to separate. He said he could see renting out the gym to some groups like neighborhood pickleballers looking for space. But of the school building, he said, “We’d hope we can help the non-profits and stay in the religion business.”

In addition to Immaculate Conception and the four Manhattan schools, six others are closing in the Bronx including Holy Family–which counts Jennifer Lopez as an alum–another Immaculate Conception on Gun Hill Rd (not to be confused with Immaculate Conception on 151st in the Bronx which is now a public charter school operated by Partnership Schools), Santa Maria School, St. Angela Merici School, St. Brendan School, St. Margaret Mary School. Two other Bronx schools will merge into two, St. Francis Xavier will merge with St. Clare of Assisi and St. Gabriel School will merge with St. Margaret of Cortona. One school on Staten Island will also close, St. Christopher School.