Humble Beginnings

At the turn of the nineteenth century Italian immigrants and their families arrived in America, some skilled; others carpenters or stone masons or just laborers. Attracted by opportunities for work in the suburbs many of the immigrants settled in Port Chester, largely in the Washington Park section. These Italian immigrants had a problem. There was no Catholic Church in that hilly area. The eventual church was literally built by these people who gave freely of work and time in lieu of the money they did not have.

The year 1912 saw the humble beginnings of what was to develop into the Corpus Christi Parish. A Salesian priest from Holy Rosary Church was appointed to offer Holy Mass on Sundays for the people of Washington Park. The small congregation first gathered for Sunday Mass in the homes of parishioners in the area. In the late summer of 1914 a basement chapel was inaugurated on South Regent Street where the school is now located. For more than 10 years it was the center of Catholic life in Washington Park. "The Priests' Lot," as the people called it, were soon added, and young Salesian scholars came on weekends to help entertain and instruct the children.

Corpus Christi Church is believed to be the only church of its size in the metropolitan area of New York entirely built by the manual labor of its parishioners. Back in 1925, they quarried, carted and cut the stone, which slowly was molded in the church. Thousands of free hours of skilled work were given by the parishioners, guided by the example of their pastor at that time, Father Peter Mayerhofer, who donned overalls and worked hand in hand with his people.