A Short & Beautiful History of Saint Mark’s

Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City

Prelude

Saint Mark’s, how did you come to be?   

In 2020, The New York Times called Jackson Heights, “the world’s most diverse neighborhood.”  This bustling pocket of Queens now contains 162 languages in a four-block by twenty-block radius.  Within the Historic District, a few blocks up from the hubbub of Roosevelt Avenue and the 7 train, Saint Mark’s rests. Saint Mark’s waits.  Saint Mark’s waits patiently.  Graced by a sacred garden with copper beech trees, red doors, and an iron gate, inside you can hear hymns and organ music with chimes.  How did this old English country church plunk down in Jackson Heights? You could be in Oxfordshire. 

What is your story, St. Mark’s? 

Cue The Gospel of Mark: this gospel abounds with the words “and” and “immediately” and is told very rapidly. The shortest gospel is thought to be the oldest.  The whirlwind biography of Christ is conveyed through jagged prose: reading Mark feels like watching the life of Jesus unfold through a hand-held camera.  The way this gospel is told mirrors the tale we now tell of Saint Mark’s.   

Early in 1923 (no one knows the exact date), a couple of concerned Episcopalians met in the home of Mr. Edward A. MacDougall, President of the Queensboro Corporation, to discuss the formation of an Episcopal Church. By this time, there was no longer any property available to be donated for a church site.  This proved no deterrent. Spurred on by 80-year-old Mrs. Mary Dick Sayer, the group went to the Bishop of Long Island, at the time the Right Reverend Frederick W. Burgess, to seek his guidance and assistance in founding a church. Reader, as you know, you can’t stop a church when 80-year-old women get involved.   

With the Diocese guaranteeing the rent (which they never had to pay) this little group of loyal Episcopalians rented a store on Polk Avenue (37th Avenue). They were now St. Mark’s Mission. Archdeacon Duffield conducted Sunday services.  On November 11th, 1923, Saint Mark’s began.  

Our first baptism took place on December 23rd, 1923: Archdeacon Duffield baptized Janet MacDougall. The Archdeacon presented the first confirmation class to Bishop Burgess on June 25th, 1924. Shortly after Raymond Lee Scofield arrived and moved into Apartment #1 in Elm Court; a first rectory was born. Now St. Mark’s Mission acquired not only a full-time priest, but the first clergy salary: Archdeacon Duffield’s services to the new mission were a part of his duties as Archdeacon and he was not paid. The church was in the position of Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when she asks the Cheshire Cat: “Where should I go?"  "That depends on where you want to end up," said the cat.

Intermezzo

In October of 1924, Bishop Stires was fond of Mr. Scofield and he said, “You’ll break your heart there. My advice is against it.” Nevertheless Raymond Leeds Scofield took the job. So from our start we had a reputation for pluck.  The Scofields first Sunday in Jackson Heights didn’t start well. Dr. Knowlton, a member of the Executive Committee, had invited them to dinner. Mrs. Knowlton hadn’t made it to church that day, and when she heard the door open, called out cheerily “That you, Will? How did you like that one?” Scofield and his wife stood frozen in embarrassment. The doctor recovered quickly with “I liked him fine, and they are right here.” The first priest of the Parish was still in his thirties, he was married and had two children. He had the opportunity to build a parish.  He tirelessly poured into it all his energy. He was determined to have a choir of men and boys, feeling that this was the proper vocal accompaniment for the Episcopal service and that it was good training for boys. “We are going to build a church!” – he kept drumming it into the ears of the parish, and, after a while, St. Mark’s had enough money to buy a building site. The vestry had tensions.  Some liked the storefront.  Some wanted alternative locations.  Of note, the church at the time was “low” in terms of liturgy and Scofield was always referred to as “Mr. Scofield” not “father” or “reverend.”  At one point the treasurer told Mr. Scofield he was crazy and quit.

What was to be the name of the new church and congregation Bishop Burgess had named the Mission “St. Mark’s” because there was no church of that name in the area and because of the importance of St. Mark. However, some of the parish said that they wanted a name to include “of the” or “in the” in its form. An article in one of the church papers of the period suggested that “St. Vitus in the Vale” be considered as a name.   Naming the church after the patron saint of dancing was a non-starter.

Ground broke on September 1926 on our current site.  The parish pitched in to work hard and raise the needed money. There were big fund-raising dinners and theatre benefits. There were box luncheon parties and a Strawberry Festivals and song and dance Reviews. So hard and fast did these Episcopalians work that they were able to start building within months. It took courage- at one time, before collections started coming in on pledges. The cornerstone ceremony was held on Sunday June 17, 1927. Sealed in a lead box in the cornerstone was the names of the architect, contractor and all the artisans who worked on the church. Most of the stones were hauled from the East River stone yards. The timbers in the church had been fashioned from shoring used in the construction of subway tunnels. Our building was made from the grit of New York City.  The first service in the building was held Christmas Eve, 1927.

Those who know history know what happened next.  With the 1929 crash, the world and Saint Mark’s fell on hard times.  Stores closed.  People lost their investments and some jumped from their office windows.  They were rough years, but Saint Mark’s weathered. To paraphrase Langston Hughes, dreams were deferred.  The church was unfinished, the west end has never been built; the parish house was very small-it would have to wait until after the Word War II. But the work of the church went on and the parish held on to what it had gained — a lovely building, fine grounds, and most important of all—a core of a loving community.

The west wall is a “temporary” wall. The original design calls for the building to go out to 81st Street and to have a bell tower.  World War II came to an end.  St. Mark’s started out on a building campaign. “There is a need …building for youth is costly but not so costly as losing youth.” Gil Blackford, who prepared the mailing brochure, took the words from one of Mr. Scofield’s sermons, and they were words that were heard. Committees were formed, mailings started and a dinner was planned. Once again Rev. Scofield was coping with blueprints and architects drawings. By 1949 the expansion was finished and the Parish House reached almost to 82nd Street. They didn’t build all they had planned, but what they did build was solid.

Around this time, as more residential space was taken up in Jackson Heights, St. Mark’s Garden Club started. A chain reaction began -- men started slapping each other on the back with “congratulations, you’ve been elected to membership in St. Mark’s Garden Club. You do have a child in the Sunday School, don’t you?” And the electees sought out other volunteers. The vestry began to get requisitions for such items as mattocks, axes, wheelbarrows. Then such piles of ripped-out old shrubs accumulated that a carting company had to be hired to take them away periodically. Teen-agers were enlisted as auxiliaries and assigned to the muscle-cracking jobs such as digging out roots and distributing ten tons of top soil. The Saturday atmosphere of the Parish House began to resemble that of a country husking bee.  And more beautifully, those who first knelt in the garden of St. Mark’s eventually knelt at the altar.

The Parish Hall was finished. It was not as big as we had dreamed, but bigger by far than what we had had, and it was put to work, not only with the School and its activities but with all of the activities of the Church School and Choir and young people made possible by the joint work of the rector, his curates, and the lay people of the parish. The iron fence was donated on honor of Scofield.  More stained-glassed windows were donated.

Mr. Scofield reached retirement age. A special issue of the “St. Mark’s Newsletter,” dated June 21, 1959. With various other words and acts the members of the parish did what they could to express thanks and identify the debt owed by St. Mark’s to the priest whose good taste had given them a gem of a building, whose outreach to people had led to many of them to St. Mark’s in the first place,

On the first of September 1960 the second rector of St. Mark’s arrived. The Reverend L. Roper Shamhart came to St. Mark’s from the Church of the Heavenly Rest where he had been a curate for three years. Father Shamhart had been born in Tennessee and raised in New York. His college education at Washington and Lee University was interrupted by service in the U.S. Army Air Corps at the end of the Second World War. After graduating from College in 1948 he went on to the Virginia Theological Seminary at Alexandria from which he graduated in 1951.

In 1973, the mortgage was paid off.  Father Shamhart remarked on the occasion that the burning of the mortgage was “a symbolic act making possible the gift of God to this parish church.”  Shamhart’s tenure was long and harmonious.  The church became more Anglo-Catholic with incense and bells and the rector now being called “Father.”  In 1990, another milestone was reached with the addition of a Spanish language mass.  Father Shamhart started this service.  In 1987 he was elected Archdeacon of Queens with a special focus on multicultural ministries.  Concluding 30 years of service in January of 1991, Father Shamhart retired.  From 1991 to 1992 the church was served by a supply priest named Father Wiley Merryman.  He was an older gentleman and was very congenial and loving in a time of transition.

In 1992, St Mark’s welcomed Father Bernard Poppe as the third rector of Saint Mark’s.  In 1992, St Mark’s welcomed its first female clergy, Rev. Martha Anderson as a curate.  She was bilingual and took over the Spanish services.  In 1997 Anderson accepted another call and Poppe took over the Spanish services, delivering his sermons in a language he began to learn.  Poppe began a day-care center in the church in 1996, a counseling service to help with the growing AIDS crisis and art classes for adults and children.  Poppe is remembered for his enthusiasm, his charisma and his handsomeness and keeping vigil over this community during AIDS and during the 911 crisis.  Dot Sherlock, a long-term member, said he established many traditions, including having each parishioner hold a nail during Good Friday to remind them of Christ’s suffering.  On Mother’s Day flowers were given out.  In 2002, Father Poppe accepted another call after ten triumphant years at Saint Mark’s.  For the next two years, Father Clark W. Trafton, an interim priest which St. Mark’s selected.  Trafton was known for his quiet, steady hand.  He was low-key and left in 2004.  A Spanish priest came to fill in for the Spanish congregation.

Then came Father Amilcar Figueroa.  He was a New York City school teacher who was ordained later in life.  This was a second career for him.  He was bilingual and took over both of the services now running at the church.  He was very down to earth and kind and easy to approach. 

In 2005, the diocese of Long Island called Father Enrique Brown to be interim priest-in-charge, a three-year commitment.  He was from Panama and was bilingual.  The vestry voted to keep him here for another year until 2009, as the priest-in-charge, not choosing to call him as a rector.  St Mark’s was in a period of challenges, financially the endowment was gone and the church was becoming more dependent upon the diocese.  He introduced the community to Father Antonio Checo, who first came on board as a deacon in 2009.  During his four years he is remembered for keeping the lights on and shepherding and mentoring Father Antonio Checo. 

Father Antonio Checo was a social worker clinician at Mt. Sinai Queens hospital, one of his many jobs devoted to helping people.   Little did he know that just down the street his future lay.  He spent many of those years working full-time in the church and at the hospital, allowing the practical service of his social work to inform his ministry.  In 2009 when Father Brown left, the congregation had dwindled to about 20 members. From 2009 until 2015, Checo was a part-time deacon and then priest: he kept his regular job and began acting in many ways like a full-time rector without yet having that title.

In July 2018, he retired from his hospital job and he was named the fourth full-time rector with the support of the Diocese of Long Island. Many credit him with reviving the church, which grew to 180 people under his tenure. His parishioners included African-Americans, Latin-Americans, white people and immigrants from South America, the West Indies and the Philippines.  Father Checo enlarged the church’s food pantry, emphasizing staples like rice on which people in his neighborhood relied; conducted two Sunday services, one in English and one in Spanish; and did his best to ensure that his parishioners were able to navigate New York City’s bureaucracy to receive the help they needed.  Parishioner Ruby Martinez recalled that his compassion for the community was tremendous. He loved hospitality and he loved to cook.  “He was a very welcoming man,” said Henry Garner, senior warden.  About his ministry style, junior warden, Jorge Sanchez said, “Father Checo was very engaging and a master practicing empowerment, he empowered me first to be a vestry member and then a warden, but always understanding that any leadership position must be taken in the sense of being a server more than a leader.”

Antonio Checo was born in Santiago, the Dominican Republic, on May 6, 1952. He earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from a Catholic University there, then moved to New York City in 1982, where he earned a master’s in social work from Fordham University in the Bronx.  He worked for the New York Department of Social Services for 18 years, then joined the Red Cross Sept. 11 Recovery Program after the 2001 terrorist attacks. After joining Mt. Sinai in 2005, he earned a master’s degree in theology the next year from the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in Manhattan.  He was ordained a priest in 2007 and served in different capacities for the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island before he became priest in charge of St. Mark’s, which falls within the diocese, in 2009.  

In April 1st the COVID 19 pandemic began to overtake the world and will go down in history as the worst pandemic to reach our world.  As of this writing more have died in the pandemic than died in World War II.  One of the tragic fatalities from the pandemic happened on April 1st, 2020, when Father Checo succumbed to the virus and passed away.  He was survived by his husband, Starlin, and several sisters. The news was covered in the New York Times and on the national television news.  Father Jason Moskal, the deacon at St. Mark’s, said Father Checo had sometimes likened his faith to doctor’s orders for the soul. “That’s how he crossed over the medical with the faith,” Father Moskal said. “We have the prescription. Jesus taught us what the prescription was.”

St Mark’s remained shuttered for 8 months.  The neighborhood buckled down with masks and people stayed in their apartments and listened every night to the sound of sirens.  The sacred garden grew.  The doors stayed shut. All forms of gathering ceased. 

On Saint Francis Sunday, October 3rd, 2020, the Diocese of Long Island and the vestry of St. Mark’s, called Father Spencer Reece, at times called Padre Spencer, to be their next interim priest-in-charge at Saint Mark’s.  Among his many charges was to bring the vestry and parish along to the diocesan decision to develop the back lot that had been bought under Mr. Scoffield’s ministry. The idea, first developed under Father Checo, was to develop the land in a way that could assist Saint Mark’s and help it to flourish.  The project is underway.  One of his first acts was to present a plaque on Easter Sunday of 2021 to the memory of Father Checo.  The vestry voted to name the parish hall after Checo.  The plaque was done in both Spanish and English and quoted Checo’s favorite phrase:   "At the end ... what really matters is: the relationship one has with God." Or in Spanish: “Al final...lo que realmente importa es: la relación que uno tenga con Dios.” 

Postlude

Our future is bright.  Our camino wide.  Saint Mark’s has had as many ups and downs as Jesus had in Mark’s gospel.  We close with the words of Mark, our guide: “And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.  Amen.”