Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, West 14th Street
The first church in New York where mass was said in Spanish, and the parish of Little Spain.
The church of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe on West 14th Street was, in the nineteenth century, the first church in New York where mass was said in Spanish. For the Spanish families of Little Spain it was simply the parish.
Mass was said there in Spanish. Children were baptised in Spanish, made their first communion in Spanish, and were married in Spanish. The processions went out from it — above all the procession of Santiago Apóstol, which the church celebrated jointly with La Nacional in the years the Society counted nine thousand members.
The church and the Society
Little Spain had two centres and they worked in parallel. La Nacional, at 239 West 14th Street, handled what the living needed: food, shelter, medical care, burial, and somewhere to go. Guadalupe handled the sacraments and the calendar. Casa Moneo, a few doors along at number 210, handled the table.
Between them, a Spaniard arriving in New York could live an entire life in Spanish inside one block.
What became of it
The Spanish-American Roman Catholic church of 14th Street is gone from the life of the neighbourhood. The congregation it served dispersed with the rest of Little Spain, and the losses were counted together: Casa Moneo, La Iberia, the processions, the parish.
The documentary recorded the church, the parish and the feast while there were still people who could describe them from memory.