Historic church re-opens after generous gift

EAST VILLAGE (WABC) -- St. Brigid Church is standing tall and glorious Sunday night as the sun shines on the Catholic Church on Avenue B and East 8th Street.

Parishioners have plenty of reasons to celebrate - like 20 million reasons.

In 2001, the New York Archdiocese closed the church with plans to knock it down. It was in such a state of disrepair, that the Archdiocese said it was too expensive to fix. However, the congregation never gave up. They started praying and suing.

Then, someone anonymously donated $20 million to fix the windows, walls and anything else falling apart. Flash forward to years of renovations and there was a new building, a new parish and a new name. St. Brigid is now St. Bridgid and St. Emeric. Cardinal Dolan led the procession on Sunday.

The church has a lot of history - it was built in the late 1800s by survivors of the Irish Potato famine. It has now survived the wrecking ball as well.

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new york city, east village, catholic church, religion, new york news, lucy yang

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