The Village of Maybrook greets the new year on a somber note. While the global Catholic Church prepares to bury a Pope, the local church celebrates its final mass this Sunday in a parish established to serve its many Italian immigrant families more than a century ago.

The stone church on Homestead Avenue, built in 1913, predates the village itself, which was incorporated in 1925.

The Church provided a haven for the immigrants and the families of the workers who came to work in the Maybrook Railroad Yards, once a bustling hub of the northeast.

As we all know, both the church and the village have faced steep challenges in the past century. The church, riddled with a clergy scandal, a shortage of priests and declining attendance, has closed the doors of many of its churches over the past two decades. Many parishes have been consolidated, including Assumption Parish in Maybrook, which was formally merged with the Holy Name of Mary Parish in Montgomery. Similar closings and mergers can be found throughout the region, including Newburgh, Middletown, Port Jervis and Kingston. The reaction among the faithful has always been the same: anger, sorrow and bitterness. The local church can be a spiritual sanctuary. Losing it is like losing a member of the family.

A turning point in Maybrook’s history is traced to an incident in 1974 that occurred more than 20 miles away. That’s when fire struck the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge, destroying some 300 feet of the line. Freight trains were re-routed, by-passing the Maybrook Yards and the village was changed forever, turning its 20th-century way of life towards a slow death. In the ensuing years, the village would lose its local school, drive-in movie theater, drug store, grocery store, flea market and what little retail remained from the days prior to the completion of Interstate 84. Jobs left the village, bringing people to work along that interstate.

The highway also delivered new families into the village, including many who live here, but work elsewhere. Today’s Maybrook is decidedly less Italian-Catholic and more diverse than it once was.

Time marches on. Today’s Maybrook leaders are optimistic that the village will greet its second century with a new development of the former rail yards that will trigger a new renaissance. Commercial and industrial re-development will bring new jobs and new opportunities to the former railroad town,
Those of us with a fond remembrance of the past have little choice but to look ahead.