199 York Street, 1923. Following the opening of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1801, the Irish Catholic population of Brooklyn boomed. In that period, Brooklyn Catholics were required to travel to Manhattan to attend church. Given the inconvenience, the community began requesting that a priest come to Brooklyn to perform mass. At an unknown date circa 1820, Father Philip Larisey traveled to the home of William Purcel, on the corner of Gold and York Streets, to say mass for the nascent community. This was the first Catholic mass celebrated in Brooklyn. On January 7, 1822 a committee was organized in the same home to formally ask the consent of the Bishop for the establishment of a Brooklyn Church. In April of the same year, the plot for a church building was purchased on the corner of Jay and Chapel Streets. St. James Church was dedicated in August 1823, the first Catholic Church on Long Island.