Prior to the establishment of the Parish of St. Margaret of Cortona, the Catholic faithful of Riverdale attended Mass at either St. Mary's in Yonkers or St. John's in Kingsbridge which was a mission of St. Elizabeth's in Manhattan. On 9th November 1889, the Archbishop of New York, Michael Corrigan, wrote a handwritten letter establishing the historical beginning of St. Margaret of Cortona as a new parish with the territorial boundary from Broadway to the Hudson River, and from the Engine House on Riverdale Avenue to Ludlow Street in Yonkers. 

Within weeks of Archbishop Corrigan's decree, the Holy Mass was finally available to the people of Riverdale in their own neighborhood. Through the kindness of the Sisters of Charity of New York who established the University of Mount St. Vincent in the neighborhood in 1847, the first pastor, Fr. James F. Kiely, was able to celebrate Mass for His flock at Louise Le Gras Hall, located on the southeast corner of the sister's property, facing Cuthbert Lane (now 261st Street).

Masses for the new parish were celebrated for the first time on 24th November 1889, at 7:00 and 10:30am. The following Sunday, 1st December 1889, saw 183 persons present. The total collection on that day amounted to $21.87.

Fr. Kiely did not delay in planning for a permanent church. With his new assignment came also the problems and anxieties that always attend the establishment of a new parish. His parishioners were not wealthy, being for the most part domestics employed by the nearby large estates. They were hardworking Irish people who earned their daily bread by the sweat of their brow. Land had to be acquired; plans had to be gathered to finance the construction of the new church. Our deepest gratitude must go to those intrepid folks, priests and people alike, for the results they achieved have served this parish to the present time.

A non-Catholic couple donated land to the parish for a church to be built on its current site at Riverdale Avenue and 260th Street. Ground was broken for the new church edifice on 15th August 1890, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Archbishop Corrigan laid the cornerstone on the same date one year later in 1891 with 3,5000 people present. The church was built in the old English style of uncut millstone with red granite trimmings. The first three Masses were celebrated on Christmas Day, at 5:00am with 84 adults attending, at 8:00am with 99 adults attending, and at 10:30am with 52 adults attending. The total collection for the three Masses was %15.24. The 183 were in attendance who donated a total of $21.87 to the collection.

In 1908 a rectory was built next to the church.

                                                           Old St. Margaret's Church and Rectory

In 1912, the cornerstone of the parochial school was laid. This building was used at first, by the New York City public schooling system from 1915-1926. In 1926, the parish began using this building for its own parochial school. It was staffed by the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Vincent. A new wing of classrooms was added in 1930 and an auditorium in 1955.

In 1927, the family of John F. Kennedy, the future president of the United States, moved from Brookline, Massachusetts to Riverdale. The ten-year old's father had expanding business interests in New York and needed to be close to the City. The Kennedys resided for two years at a sprawling 20-room and 3-storey home in the stucco style, that sits to this day on a 1.2-acre plot at 252nd Street and Independence Avenue. The family patriarch was not content, however, and when the opportunity came two years later to move into a more opulent residence in the nearby village of Bronxville, he took it. Though the Kennedys left Riverdale after two years, John continued his studies at the Riverdale Country Day School for one more year. He was enrolled there from the 5th to the 7th grade overall.

While in Riverdale, the Kennedy family worshiped at St. Margaret's regularly. The Parish Monthly printed the individual contributions of its parishioners to the monthly and special holiday collections and the Kennedy family was regularly listed among the largest contributors.  

The future president and first Catholic Christian to hold the highest office in our land, was sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation on 27th April 1928, taking "Francis" as his name and patron saint.

The seminal thought for the new church to serve the Parish of St. Margaret of Cortona, germinated in the heart and mind of Msgr. Joseph T. Doyle, pastor from 4th July 1925, until Easter Sunday 1962. The development of Riverdale as a residential community and its change from a rural to an urban area had put some strain on the facilities of the original church, and with the building of additional homes and the construction of large apartment buildings, more and more families became members of the St. Margaret's; urgency became the order of the day.

Families with children predominated among those coming to live in Riverdale, and the influx soon caused the parish school to become overtaxed. The necessity of providing additional classroom space naturally took precedence over any other construction project. Consequently, in 1955 eight more classrooms were added to the existing school building and the prospects for a new church were dimmed for a time.

More time passed and ill health forced Msgr. Doyle into retirement. Plans for a new church were developed under the new pastor, Fr. James E. Richardson and ground was broken again on the Feast of the Assumption, 15th August 1963, with auxiliary bishop, John J. Maguire, presiding. The overgrown empty lot on Riverdale Avenue and 260th Street extending to the next block and Delafield Avenue, would be filled with construction activity for the next two years.

In late September 1964, 1,000 a thousand people stood on Riverdale Avenue to watch the spire of the new church lifted into place. The cornerstone was dedicated on Saturday, 14th November 1964, by Bishop Maguire. The cornerstone was hollowed out to receive a capsule containing religious medals, a relic and picture of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton who had recently been beatified, newspaper articles explaining the significance of the recently liturgical changes in light of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, a relic of St. Margaret, a memorial of Msgr. Doyle, a Kennedy half-dollar, and commemorative medals of Pope Sts. John XXIII and Paul VI.

The last Mass in the old church was offered on Saturday 6th February 1965. It once stood in the current school parking lot before its demolition.

The new church was built in the "mid-century modern" style. The most positive aspect of the church's design is in the unity of materials used as well as the symmetry in every architectural line of the building. It was completed along with the rectory in June 1965. The Archbishop of New York, Francis Cardinal Spellman, came to consecrate the new church on the feast of Pentecost, 6th June 1965 for a crowd of one thousand parishioners. 

The story of St. Gabriel's does not begin in South Riverdale, but rather in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan's East Side. There, a church dedicated to the Archangel Gabriel stood since 1859. City officials had long desired to build a tunnel connecting midtown Manhattan with Queens, and the site of the church on 37th Street and 2nd Avenue was chosen for the entrance into what would be the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. The church was lost to eminent domain and razed to the ground in 1939. So went life in a changing and growing city in those days; and so it goes now.

In his sermon at the closing Mass, Fr. Thaddeus Tierney, said the following:

"The old bells that rang the Angelus will no longer ring out the praises of God's Holy Mother. The tones of the bell will give way to the rasp of the wrecker's wrench...But Saint Gabriel's will ever live in the hearts of its children, wherever they may be. And may we hope that in God's good time, another Saint Gabriel's will raise its spires to the sky to carry on the faith, loyalty, devotion, and traditions of the Saint Gabriel's of old."

Fr. Thaddeus' words would prove to be prophetic.

What the Queens-Midtown Tunnel did to Manhattan's East Side, the building of the Henry Hudson Bridge over the Harlem River did to the Spuyten Duyvil / South Riverdale area. This neighborhood of the Bronx was now easily accessible to Manhattan and vice versa, as well as the emerging highway system to the north, northwest, and the northeast. The bridge had opened in 1937 and its influence was immediate. Large apartment buildings began to spring up. Riverdale was once a quaint, old-fashioned town that felt more like the country than the city. No more.

As many Catholics began moving to this growing neighborhood, a new parish was needed to accommodate them. Francis Cardinal Spellman became the Archbishop of New York in April, 1939. One of his first decisions was to establish a new parish in South Riverdale / Spuyten Duyvil  which would be named for after the former St. Gabriel's Church in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. A total of 28 lots were purchased on the south side of West 235th Street between Arlington and Netherland avenues to house the new church, school, and rectory.

Fr. Francis Walsh, pastor of the Church of the Assumption in Peekskill, New York, and president of the College of New Rochelle, was named pastor. He used the Manhattan College chapel as a temporary church until the auditorium/church of the school was completed in October 1941.

As was common for the time, the parochial school was built first. On 14th July 1940, ground was broken for the foundation of St. Gabriel's School in a ceremony presided over by auxiliary bishop Bonaventure Broderick, and within months an invitation was extended to the Sisters of Charity of Mount St. Vincent to staff the school. Cardinal Spellman dedicated the school upon the building's completion on 23rd November 1941.

The rectory was completed in 1952 while the building of the church was delayed until a better judgement could be made about the development of the area, its demography, and the ability of a relatively small congregation to maintain the large church that had been planned.

During this time, the school's auditorium on the first floor was laboriously transformed each weekend into a "makeshift" church for Sunday Mass while the daily Mass was celebrated in a smaller chapel. It was finally decided that a new church would not be built for the parish but instead, the auditorium would have to be made into a more permanent worship space. When this work was completed, Terrence Cardinal Cooke came for the dedication on 9th December 1979.

This history explains why the St. Gabriel's Church retains an ad hoc flavor. To enter, you have to walk down a few steps. The altar sits at the crux of an L-shaped sanctuary and faces a set of large sliding doors that open up into the gym. Statues of the Sacred Heart, the Holy Virgin Mary, and St. Joseph, which still remain in the church, are from the original St. Gabriel's in Manhattan.

In light of "radical changes and shifts in demographics...including a move away from the urban center and into the suburbs" the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, issued a decree on 2nd November 2014 announcing the merger of St. Margaret's and St. Gabriel's into one new parish shepherded by the same pastor.

The merger and erection of the new parish took effect on 1st August 2015.

At the end of the academic year of 2023, a similar merger took place with the two parochial schools. Classes are no longer held at the St. Gabriel's but only at St. Margaret's in what is now the St. Margaret of Cortona - St. Gabriel School.

Both churches of St. Margaret's and St. Gabriel's remain active with a daily schedule of Masses and other parochial functions.

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This history was compiled, adapted, and edited by Fr. Seán Connolly, almost word-for-word from the following sources:

Saint Margaret of Cortona Riverdale, New York: 1887-1987, 15-16, 22-25.

--program for the parish's 100th anniversary

Church of St. Margaret of Cortona: New York City 1965 (South Hackensack, New Jersey: Custombook, Inc., 1965), 5, 8, 11, 13.

--program for the parish's 75th anniversary and erection of the new church

Thomas J. Shelley, The Bicentennial History of the Archdiocese of New York: 1808-2008 (Strasbourg, France: Editions du Signe, 2007), 298; 487.

Peter Ostrander and John T. Doherty, The Journal: Church of Saint Gabriel Fiftieth Anniversary 1939-1989, 7-10, 22-23.

--program for the parish's 50th anniversary

Maurice Timothy Reidy, "My Catholic grammar school is closing. Is our church dying or being reborn?," America, June 21, 2023. Retrieved from My Catholic grammar school is closing. Is our church dying or being reborn? | America Magazine