Painful portrait of the changing face of New York City

The unused convent at St. Margaret Mary that a Muslim group wished to buy earlier this year.

As the battle over the “Ground Zero mosque” reached a boiling point over the summer, a similar debate raged on a much more quiet patch of New York City real estate.

Though it didn’t get nearly as much attention, the way this story unfolded probably tells us more about the future of New York City than the more sensationalistic saga in downtown Manhattan.

This painful story began in the summer, but it returned to the headlines this week when the New York Archdiocese announced that still more Catholic schools and churches will be closing or consolidated.
One of the schools slated for closure was St. Margaret Mary elementary school on Staten Island.

St. Margaret Mary parish is nestled in the seaside neighborhood of Midland Beach. The streets are lined with trees, bungalows and single-family homes, located not far from a sandy stretch of beach and boardwalk which once attracted the city’s elite.

These days, St. Margaret Mary parish is a solid middle class neighborhood, filled with the cops, firefighters, teachers and other city workers you can find in many outer borough white ethnic neighborhoods.

Not surprisingly, the corner on which the church is located is named in honor of an Irish American former resident and hero of 9/11, FDNY captain Martin J. Egan.

So, it’s not exactly a surprise that many parish residents objected when the Muslim American Society struck a deal with St. Margaret Mary parish pastor Father Keith Fennesy to purchase an unused convent for almost $1 million. The proceeds from the sale would reportedly have gone to the parish itself.

June and July were filled with debates and protests focused on whether or not the Muslim American Society should be setting up a mosque and school in the neighborhood.

New York Archdiocese spokesman Joe Zwilling said local Catholics should not have objected to the deal.
“I’ve not heard anything that says this is a terrorist organization,” Zwilling was quoted as saying in the Staten Island Advance newspaper.

“So I would hate to even use a word like that when that word only serves to inflame people’s emotions.”
Still, this wasn’t merely bigotry or lingering 9/11 anger. The Muslim American Society did have questionable links to groups which support violence.

Locals also grumbled that the deal was struck without community input. In the end, the deal was nullified.
Fast forward to this week, when it was announced that St. Margaret Mary elementary school was targeted for closure. Published reports indicate that the K-8 school has only 74 students.

How Catholic parishes can survive in the 21st century is too complex to get into here. One thing that is clear is that St. Margaret Mary certainly could have used that million bucks.

What’s also clear is that St. Margaret Mary parish -- with new immigrants coming in, and with school enrollment dropping among the second and third generation Irish and Italians -- is changing.

Parish residents who were angry about Muslims setting up shop in their neighborhood may have -- if you can excuse the metaphor -- won the battle.

But there is a longer-term issue at work here. New York City is changing rapidly, and the only consolation is that New York has been in a constant state of flux pretty much since the 1600s. That’s true even in quiet, outer borough enclaves such as Midland Beach. No one welcomed the Irish -- or the Italians or the Jews
or any other group -- with open arms. This did not keep them from coming.

The same is surely going to be true for Muslim immigrants from the Middle East.

If you want proof of that, take the 10 minute drive from Midland Beach, along Father Capodanno Boulevard, over the Verrazano Bridge into Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

The onetime Irish and Norwegian stronghold now has a large Muslim presence. You don’t have to like the new Bay Ridge, though it must be added the neighborhood didn’t fall apart when Muslims moved in.

Irish Catholics weren’t exactly embraced in every corner of the city. The city, of course, survived that momentous change, too.

It is a blessing and a curse that New York City changes so relentlessly. This is what gives the city its energy and vitality.

It is also what makes this such an unsettling, downright scary, place to live sometimes.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Christmas comes early on west side

Christmas came a little early this year for Tom Dwyer.

In fact, to numerous Irish business owners on the West Side of Manhattan, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie suddenly looks a lot like Santa Claus, and not just because the Garden State leader could stand to lose a few pounds.

Tom Dwyer is the owner of the Blarney Rock pub on West 33rd Street.  Dwyer, whose parents were Irish immigrants, had spent the last several years facing his own demise. 

As with dozens of other businesses on the West Side of Manhattan, the Blarney Rock was in the bull’s eye of a massive transportation project which was designed to ease the flow of commuter traffic into New York City from New Jersey.

By and large, everyone from unions to politicians to suburbanites are in favor of such massive projects.  They create jobs, improve commuting time and give elected officials an opportunity to claim they have done something.

There’s just one problem. Businesses which have been around for decades have to be torn down to make way for this kind of progress.

The Blarney Rock, as well as another Irish bar on the block, Hickey’s, were just such businesses.
“I didn’t think we had a chance,” said Dwyer.

Under a messy process called eminent domain, local governments can essentially seize private property in the name of municipal improvements, such as tunnels designed to link two states.

The property owners are generally reimbursed, at market rate, for their losses.  The problem is, often, this does not change the fact that the property owners did not want to give up their homes or businesses.

Dwyer was one such business owner.  So when officials announced the New York and New Jersey tunnel, Dwyer fought back.

“I gave it my best shot.  I figured, if I was going to go down, that’s how I wanted to go down,” said Dwyer, whose Sligo-born father opened up the Blarney Rock in 1969.

Dwyer and many other Irish-born, Irish American and other immigrant business owners attended community board meetings and made their case that the New York/New Jersey tunnel should not be built.  Some, however, eventually threw in the towel. 

They chose not to renew leases, figuring there was no point.  The process of razing certain structures eventually began, all in the name of getting this massive construction project started.

Did Dwyer ever think he had a chance of winning this battle?

“No,” Dwyer admitted.  “I was resigned to it.”

And that’s when Christie -- Governor Santa Claus, at least to certain West Side business owners -- stepped in.

In late October, Christie announced that he was scrapping New Jersey’s participation in the tunnel project.  The fiscally conservative Christie -- whose confrontational image has already earned him whispers as a GOP presidential candidate for 2012 -- cited potential cost overruns.

But this initial joy was short-lived.

Though Christie earned plaudits from some corners, others were critical of the governor for being short-sighted.

Such critics included members of the Obama administration, who met with Christie in an attempt to get him to change his mind. 

Christie even stated that he would be willing to reconsider the project, which put West Side businesses owners back into the line of fire.

In the end, however, it appears that the Blarney Rock and Hickey’s and numerous other Irish businesses in the Madison Square Garden area are here to stay.

“We’re alive and well and we’re gonna live forever,” said Dwyer.

This is only fitting.  These Irish pubs survived 40 years of change in New York, from shifting neighborhoods to violent crime to skyrocketing real estate costs.  Would it have been fair to survive all that only to be felled by eminent domain?

In the end, Manhattan needs joints like the Blarney Rock, if only because the latest gaudy, trendsetting watering holes tend to attract vapid patrons willing to spend $12 on a pint -- if the place offers pints at all.

When asked for the secret to the Blarney Rock’s success, Dwyer says, “We always leave the customer with a smile on his face.”

Of course, given Christie’s announcement, it is Dwyer and many other Irish business owners on the West Side who are smiling these days.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

A spy left out in the cold: Irish immigrant who worked for Colin Powell accused of being a Russian spy

When you think of Russian spies you don’t necessarily think of twentysomething girls in bikinis -- or for that matter Irish immigrants.

But these days, when it seems as if the Cold War is back with a vengeance, that’s what you get when you hear about Russian spy scandals.

Perhaps this craze for the Cold War is just nostalgia, a longing for the days when the Soviets and Americans would engage in all sorts of skullduggery, but in the end, no one would get hurt.  These days, in the back of our minds, we seem to know that any day can turn out to be as tragic as that one back in September of 2001.

First came the saga of Anna Chapman, whose naked body seemed to be shown every day last summer somewhere inside the New York Post.  Chapman was one of 10 Russians living in New York and New Jersey who were recently deported, having been accused of spying on the U.S.

This past week, yet another bikini-clad Russian, Kristina Svechinskaya, was in the newspapers.  She was part of a cyber-hacking ring which earned her the name “the next Anna Chapman” in certain circles.

Well, there are no bikini-clad lasses in the saga of an Irish immigrant who has been accused of spying for Russia.  Perhaps that’s why many people haven’t yet heard of the case.

Nevertheless, the saga of John C. Dullahan is strange trip back in time to the hottest days of the Cold War, when “Russian handlers” and polygraph tests gave people the cold sweats, the way the phrase “ties to Al Qaeda” does today.

Dullahan was born in Ireland and joined the U.S. Army in the late 1960s.  He served in Vietnam and became a U.S. citizen.  He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring.

Later, however, he became an officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency.  Dullahan eventually became a trusted aide to Colin Powell, the revered former general and head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Dullahan’s beat was Eastern Europe, where his job was to advise military leaders about the state of affairs in that former bloc of Soviet-run nations.

Trouble began to arise for Dullahan last year, when, following an investigation, Dullahan failed a polygraph exam -- the infamous “lie detector test” seen in thousands of smoke-filled rooms in tense scenes from thriller flicks.

“The polygraph examiner accused Dullahan of meeting ‘Soviet handlers’ when he had visited -- 20 years earlier -- East Germany in the early 1980s, during his UN assignment in Syria, and on his numerous official trips to Europe while on the Joint Staff, including trips with General Powell,” said Dullahan’s complaint, which was first filed in January of 2009.

The Washington Post “Spy Talk” blog, written in August by Jeff Stein, added, “The examiners accused Dullahan, whose job as Powell’s political-military adviser for Eastern Europe required him to be in contact with counterparts from former communist countries, of having been under the control of Soviet intelligence.”
Dullahan denied all the charges and has since filed a lawsuit.

“The fundamental questions, among others presented in this lawsuit…,” Dullahan’s attorney was quoted in the Post as saying, “are whether the Executive Branch can lawfully act to strip an American citizen of his security clearance or employment without affording that individual any semblance of due process, and to what extent those separate actions can be reviewed by the Judicial Branch.”

The Post added, “Dullahan, like others before him, faces an uphill fight.”

The Supreme Court noted has ruled that lie detector tests are too unreliable to be used in court.  However, the court has also said that “no one has a ‘right’ to a security clearance.”

For now, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of all of this is that, two decades after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, we are still waging the Cold War.

Perhaps if Dullahan wore a bikini his case would get the kind of coverage it deserves.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net)

What’s next for Commissioner of the New York City Police Department, Ray Kelly?

Almost 13 million viewers tuned in to see Tom Selleck’s return to a network TV drama last Friday. The CBS show Blue Bloods features Selleck as the Irish American police commissioner of New York City.

Selleck, thus far, has received solid reviews for his commanding performance, though some folks noted that he has been seen wearing the blues of the NYPD uniform. This even though actual New York police commissioners -- such as the current Irish American one, Ray Kelly -- prefer snazzy suit jackets and ties.

This, of course, is only a small detail. Especially when there is a much bigger question to be asked when it comes to police commissioners who may or may not be seen on TV a lot in the near future.

More and more people are starting to wonder not about what Ray Kelly happens to be wearing, but where he will be wearing it.

The big question is this -- is Kelly going to try and become the first New York City mayor with an Irish name since Bill O’Dwyer back in the 1950s?

Just this week, The New York Observer, which fancies itself the ultimate insider chronicler of New York, ran a long profile of one of Kelly’s most trusted advisors, NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Public Affairs Paul Browne.

Browne, as the article notes, “grew up in a small apartment in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx, one of four children of Irish immigrants.”

Browne, the article also notes, “is a former newspaper reporter who has become…a loyal friend and an adviser to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. If you compare their resumes side by side, you will find that for most of the past two decades, wherever Mr. Kelly has gone, Mr. Browne has sat in the seat right behind him, if not next to him.”

In short, it seems as if Kelly does decide to make a run for City Hall in 2013, he will have a fellow Irishman by his side.

However, even though one longtime friend of Kelly notes that the top cop is an “attractive candidate,” there are some obstacles.

“I don’t think New York City will ever be able to say thank you enough to Ray Kelly for the job he’s done,” says Tom Kelly (no relation), who, aside from being a friend of the commish’s, also happens to be a writer and co-producer on Blue Bloods.

Kelly adds that it is “literally unprecedented” for an Irish American top cop to have such high approval ratings not just across the five boroughs, but also in African American neighborhoods where tension between residents and law enforcement can run high.

However, Kelly also notes that the commish would have to raise a lot of money at a time when many millionaires and even billionaires (Mike Bloomberg anyone?) can fund their own campaigns. In addition, the minefield of mayoral politics may simply not interest Kelly.

There is also the matter of whether or not the commissioner would run as a Republican or Democrat. The latter field, as always, is very crowded.

This summer, New York Daily News political analyst Joshua Greenman sized the race up this way: “Look at the lineup of likely (mayoral) contenders: Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate; John Liu, the controller; Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker; Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president; Anthony Weiner, a U.S. representative. Some have talent…but they've got one glaring thing in common. All served in the City Council.”

Some feel this makes these possible candidates tired and compromised in the public eye. Kelly, on the other hand, “is an obvious heir to the three-term mayor and beloved as the driver of the most far-reaching transformation of city life in the last decade -- the continued, miraculous decline in crime, an especially impressive accomplishment given declining personnel and the ongoing terror threat. Plus, the guy seems to have innate charm.”

There is always the private sector where Kelly could make plenty of money. Some have said he might go to Washington to run the FBI.

There is, of course, one other option. Kelly, who is 70 years old, could sit back and let someone else take over City Hall, and wait to be offered the job of top cop yet again.

“They would be a half-wit not to offer him the job,” Tom Kelly concluded.

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Boardwalk Empire: Fighting the ‘empire’ of demon drink

That great philosopher Homer -- Simpson, that is -- once had this to say about Prohibition: “They tried that in the movies and it didn’t work.”

Well, now they are trying it on cable TV. On Sunday, Boardwalk Empire, the new mini-series from America’s greatest director Martin Scorsese, will make its debut on HBO.

Dubbed the “best TV show” of the season by many critics, Boardwalk Empire is about the creation of gambling Mecca Atlantic City -- which happened to come at roughly the same time as alcohol was banned in America.

In fact, a central character in Boardwalk Empire is an Irish immigrant who -- saints preserve us! -- supports prohibition.

Scottish actress Kelly McDonald plays Margaret, a member of a temperance organization who is also in an unhappy marriage. Margaret is befriend by “Nucky” Johnson (Steve Buscemi). Why this powerful, shadowy gangster-type is assisting such a lonely lass is one question that will surely be answered as the show unfolds.

Is there any historical truth here? After all, bad stereotypes aside, it’s a well-established fact that most American supporters of the alcohol ban were small-town or rural Protestants who (to be generous) were suspicious of the Irish and other ethnic groups huddled in big cities.

But as it turns out, Scorsese and the Boardwalk Empire crew have history on their side. There was indeed a vibrant Irish American temperance movement. As Ripley might say, believe it or not.

Now, let’s be clear. The temperance movement was led mainly by WASPs who were suspicious of America’s move towards a more diverse, urban society in the 1920s.

In fact, even the Ku Klux Klan “supported prohibition as a weapon against immigrants,” Daniel Okrent notes in his new best-selling book Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.

In fact, Okrent also notes that some “dry” Americans (as the prohibition forces were known) faced a problem when their anti-Catholic feelings ran up against their anti-alcohol impulses.

When New York’s own Al Smith ran for president in 1928 -- with his thick New York accent, Tammany Hall background and Irish roots -- he was the first Catholic to make a serious run for the White House.

This did not sit well with the likes of Rev. Bob Jones, who said, “I would rather see a saloon on every corner than a Catholic in the White House.”

Jones even said that, rather than a Catholic, he’d prefer a black president, though he used a word much more offensive than “black.”

That all being said, Boardwalk Empire’s Margaret has several historical ancestors -- which is to say, Irish American women who sought to end the pernicious influence of “the demon rum.”

There was even a Catholic Prohibition League of America, though its membership rolls were never exactly flush.

A history of the Catholic Total Abstinence League, meanwhile, was published in 1951, entitled The Hibernian Crusade, though good luck finding a copy of that tome (by Joan Bland) these days.
Leonora Barry, for example, was born in Cork and came to America and is best known as a trailblazing union organizer, most notably with the Knights of Labor.

But Barry was also a well-known proponent of prohibition. The same with Limerick native Charlotte Grace O’Brien.

These women, and many others, linked prohibition with the uplifting of the Irish race in America.
They also linked the anti-alcohol movement with labor organizing, Irish independence and other progressive causes.

This should not be surprising because, as scholar Deirdre M. Moloney has written, Irish American reformers were inspired by events in Ireland itself.

They “drew extensively from Father Theobold Matthew’s mid-19th century Irish temperance campaign in forming an American Catholic movement,” according to Moloney, who added that “temperance became an Irish issue.”

Not quite for everyone, of course. But give Boardwalk Empire credit for showing us another side of the Irish American experience.

However, to paraphrase Homer Simpson: “Temperance. Psh. They tried that in Ireland and it didn’t work.”

(Contact Sidewalks at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

The 9th Anniversary of 9/11: a million reasons to be hopeful

With the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks upon us, it’s hard to avoid the sense that there is an angry edge to what had, in the past, been a somber, solemn occasion.

Yes, a big part of this is the roiling debate over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. This debate shows no signs of going away any time soon.

Whatever you happen to believe about the mosque proposal, most decent folks agree that September 11 is a day to set aside such differences and remember the sacrifices made in lower Manhattan on that sad day.

Trouble is, it’s getting harder and harder to focus only on the acts of bravery and valiance.
You’ve got hate preachers such as Bill Keller traveling to Ground Zero to put on an ugly show.

You’ve got ailing first responders still suffering from the effects of the work they did at the pile.

And you’ve got all manner of conspiracy theorists still trying to figure out whether it was President Bush or the United Nations or some other evil genius who actually toppled the buildings that day, rather than al-Qaeda.

In short, it’s increasingly difficult to follow the noble example of service and sacrifice set on that terrible day nine years ago.

Thankfully, we have the Lynch family to remind us.

“We always knew we wanted to make something good out of evil,” Jack Lynch said in an interview this past weekend.

Lynch, a Kerry native, is the father of Michael Francis Lynch, a Bronx-born firefighter who had been assigned to a firehouse in his native borough. On September 11, 2001, however, Michael had been rotated to a Manhattan house. He was one of a dozen firefighters to die from that house when the towers fell.

“Even before we found Michael,” Jack Lynch added, “we knew we wanted to do something positive.”

It was not until March 2002 that Michael’s remains were identified, in part because of the green Celtic Cross on his shoulder. It was said that Michael’s remains were intertwined with that of another person, indicating he’d been assisting this person at the time of the collapse.

In the weeks and months which followed 9/11, the Lynch family -- Jack and his Sligo-born wife, Kathleen, raised 10 children -- decided to start a college scholarship fund in Michael’s name. To date, the Michael Lynch Memorial has granted well over $1 million in scholarship money to children of FDNY families, as well as victims of 9/11, or other fires or disasters.

“It’s actually closer to a million and a half now,” Lynch notes with understandable pride.

Kaitlyn Hurley, one of the recipients of a grant from the Michael Lynch Foundation, recently said, “My family and I are extremely grateful to receive this award. This grant will aid in the pursuit of my nursing education. I only hope that I can make a difference by helping others like Michael Lynch and the FDNY have.”

In this sense, despite the terrible loss they have endured, the Lynches have done something so many of us have been unable to do. They have risen above the day-to-day squabbles which inevitably distract us in this post-9/11 world and continued to set an example of service and dedication and sacrifice.

Indeed, the Michael Lynch Foundation (www.mlynch.org) is very much a family affair, with each of Mike’s brothers and sisters playing integral roles.

For example, the ninth annual Lynch Foundation golf outing will be held on September 17 at Pelham Bay Golf Course in the Bronx. That event, along with many others throughout the year, is organized by Michael’s brother Thomas.

Other family members handle the scholarship application process, the foundation’s legal business, its website and more.

All of this volunteer work is crucial, Jack Lynch notes, because running the memorial “is a lot work.”

But he also notes, “The other thing that I think is really important is that 98% of the money we receive goes directly to the students. I think that’s appealing to a lot of people.”

This September 11, we should not only remember the valiant sacrifices of Michael Lynch and his fallen comrades.

We should also strive to emulate the Lynch family, who remind us that the most noble thing we can do is simply try to make the world a better place.

(Contact at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Why Irish Catholics are no different from Muslims

Last Monday, George Marlin published an article in The New York Post entitled “Catholics' lessons for U.S. Muslims.”

Marlin is an interesting thinker who writes often about overlooked aspects of Irish American and Catholic American history.

“In earlier times,” Marlin wrote on Monday, “tens of millions who came through Ellis Island quickly embraced their new nation and what it stood for and refuted the charge that there was a conflict between their religious or ethnic loyalty and patriotism."

I have interviewed George Marlin in the past and found him to be genial and well-informed. So it is with respect that I disagree with his very charitable look back at the how the Irish and other Catholic immigrants assimilated.

In fact, it could be argued that Catholic efforts to assimilate into the American mainstream were more similar than different from current Muslim efforts.

I’d go so far as to say that the Irish took part in more so-called “un-American activities” than today’s immigrants. Imagine, for example, if 20,000 Middle Eastern immigrants congregated at Madison Square Garden to rally for the cause of, say, Palestinian independence.

Well, that’s just what many New York Irish Catholics did in 1916 after the Easter Rising in Dublin, which aimed to achieve Irish independence.

By 1917, America entered into World War I alongside the Brits, much to the chagrin of Irish nationalists in America such as John Devoy. Indeed, some factions in the Irish community were more than willing to undermine America’s allies (the Brits) and ponder alliances with America’s enemies (the Germans) in the name of a free Ireland.

This may have been a small slice of Irish America. But it is far too simplistic to suggest that Irish Americans in particular and immigrant Catholics in general came to the U.S. and forgot about their homelands. Not for nothing did President Woodrow Wilson lament “hyphenated Americans.” His comments may have been tinged with xenophobia, but Wilson was right on one thing: many ethnic Americans did have dual allegiances.

Even on the eve of World War II, Irish Catholic members of extremist groups such as the Christian Mobilizers found common ground with the Bund and other groups linked to Hitler’s Germany.

Then again, should we be so surprised? Seventy years before Devoy and so many Irish in America proved they were willing to negotiate with America’s enemies, Galway native John Patrick Riley and about 200 other Irish and Catholic immigrants fought against America itself in the Mexican-American war.

Back then they were executed as traitors loyal to Rome. Today, The Chieftains sing songs about the St. Patricio Brigade.

None of this changes the fact that a majority of Irish Catholics were willing to become patriotic Americans. Just as some immigrants were launching a crusade for Irish independence from U.S. soil, many others went off to fight alongside the Brits for their new nation.

As George Marlin notes: “During World War I, more than 1.1 million immigrant Catholics … joined the US Armed Forces. More than 20 percent of the troops who served in the war were Church members, and many served with distinction. Col. ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, who led the famed ‘Fighting Irish’ 69th Regiment from New York, was awarded the Medal of Honor.”

And yet, the very existence of a “Fighting Irish” regiment proves that ethnic allegiances were not set aside so easily. Imagine if today’s military allowed a “Fighting Dominican” or “Fighting Pakistani” brigade? And don’t give me this business that today’s immigrants don’t fight in the military. Check the names of those wounded and slain in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the end, I would argue that while the Irish and other Catholics did embrace America, they also changed America, for the better. It might have been smart for Famine immigrants to convert in the face of 19th Century anti-Catholicism. But the Irish held onto their beliefs and eventually convinced Americans to accept Catholicism and other minority religions.

Immigrant union leaders, meanwhile, changed the way Americans thought about working conditions and – yes – nationalists figured out a way to harness Irish American power to bring peace to the homeland.

The Irish were the first large-scale immigrant group to do this. Despite what some say, I suspect they will not be the last.