Photo of the Day: Our Lady of Sorrows Church, Corona, Queens

When asked about his religious views, Louis Armstrong was fond of saying he was raised Baptist, wore a Star of David around his neck, and was a friend of the Pope. In the last case, however much the pontiff may have been charmed by meeting him, it couldn’t have hurt that the great jazzman’s wife was a devout Catholic who attended Mass four blocks from their home in Corona, Queens.

Our Lady of Sorrows was the church that Lucille Armstrong attended. In the 1950s and 1960s, she may well have seen at services another faithful Catholic—and wife of a fun-loving jazz trumpeter—Lorraine Gillespie, who, with husband Dizzy, lived around the corner from the Armstrongs.

Lucille Armstrong and Lorraine Gillespie were two of the more unusual members of this parish that, since the church was built in 1872, has served successive waves of working-class immigrants. When the Armstrongs moved to Corona in 1943, most of the neighborhood traced their roots back to Italian, German and Irish ancestors. In the 1950s, more African-Americans populated the area. Now the parish is largely Hispanic—Dominican, Ecuadoran, and more recently, Mexican, with more than half being recently arrived immigrants from Latin America. 

I took this shot of the church (originally wooden, then converted to brick) when I was in the neighborhood a few days ago. The beautiful exterior you see here is a tribute to the intense rebuilding effort following a fire in January 2015. The parish used the next 21 months on the venerable church’s renovation, which included a new roof, floors, wall murals and statues; extensive electrical work; fresh paint and better lighting; lightened pews; and a reconciliation room to replace the dark confessional.