Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto

Rising about thirty feet in a residential part of Rosebank on Staten Island, this grotto is a serpentine concrete, stone and brick structure decorated with pebbles, shells, glass marbles and bicycle reflectors. Italian immigrant members of the Society of Our Lady of Mount Carmel began building it in October 1937 on land the society owned, with most of the present appearance dating from 1937-38. The grounds also hold a c. 1920 frame meeting hall, a war memorial, pebble-encrusted shrines, a fountain, a brick walk, and sheds and booths used for the annual July festival. The property matters as an example of religious folk art created by lay immigrants rather than by the Catholic Church, reflecting southern Italian building traditions and the thrift of its makers. The meeting hall is one of the few surviving freestanding halls of an Italian immigrant mutual aid society in New York City. Members still use the site for worship, processions, feasts and social gatherings.