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Four days after robbers snatched a historic church bell, leaders at the Woodside parish wondered if they would ever see the 120-year-old bronze artifact again.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back,” said Reverend Brendan Duggan, the Associate Pastor of St. Mary’s (Winfield) Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians in Woodside.
Police believe that thieves made away with the 650-pound bell, which had been cast in 1888, sometime during the evening hours of Saturday, March 29 and the early morning hours of Sunday, March 30.
Although the first Mass on Sundays is at 8 a.m., Duggan said he didn’t realize the bell was gone until a parishioner noticed its empty spot at 11:30 a.m. Duggan guessed that a crew of at least two people would have been needed to carry the two-foot-tall bell.
“It’s like what if you ask, ‘What’s the value of the Liberty Bell?’ It may be $500 in scrap metal … You can’t put a value on your heritage,” Duggan added.
Duggan said he has called all of the area junkyards but fears that the antique may have been taken out of state. In addition, he posted information about the bell on a web site that lists junkyard items up for grabs and pleaded that anyone with information call St. Mary’s.
“In value, it’s probably worth $1,000 in the scrap, but it is the fact that this is 100 years old. It is the heritage value,” Duggan said, later adding, “If you are poor, a scrap worth maybe $1,000 is a lot of money.”
To make matters worse, at the time of the robbery, St. Mary’s Pastor Reverend Noel Moynihan was in Ireland visiting his sick brother. Duggan had to call Moynihan, who was expected to return to the United States on Thursday, April 3, and tell him of the theft.
At the time of the robbery, the bell had been outdoors, tucked in between piles of furniture and scraps.
“It was fairly well hidden,” Duggan said of the spot alongside a memorial garden, where church leaders had hoped to place the bell this summer. The garden was planned to commemorate the church’s long history.
St. Mary’s parish was founded in 1854, but the first church burnt down. The bell was created to toll in the new building.
After the bronze chimer was taken down in the 1960s, the bell had been placed in front of St. Mary’s School, which has since been shuttered, Duggan said. Recently, the bell was carried nearby to the garden, started about six months ago.
“We were hoping to make this bell a highlight of the garden,” Duggan said, pointing to the place where the bell would have been situated, next to dozens of daffodils in bloom.
This wasn’t the first time that bold thieves tried to get away with the bell. About four years ago, neighbors spotted robbers hauling it away, jotted down the crooks’ license plate number and called the police, who were able to locate the bell the same day.
However, after four days, Duggan said that he is worried this time may be a different story.
“I suppose it is covered by insurance, but it isn’t like when someone steals a computer,” he said. “It’s a treasure. It’s priceless.”
To contact St. Mary’s with any tips or information, call 718-672-4848.
