Sunday Religion News — Doing the first-ever religious census in Washington Heights/Inwood

A detail from the painting “The Holy Family” by Brother Michael Moran, who teaches art classes in Inwood at the northern branch of Presbyterian Hospital.

We have gone down every street, every alleyway, and shopping mall to map the visible religion sites in Washington Heights/Inwood. Here, we have found two hundred and thirty religious sites generating spiritual warmth, innovations, and social services.

We counted every distinctive manifestation of religion as seen on the streets. We visited the churches, synagogues, mosque, and other sites that had a distinctly religious character. We didn’t count kosher-approved or halal-approved food stores unless they manifested their faith-orientation in some ostentatious way like having a photo of Jerusalem with a religious slogan in their store window. Most of the religious sites are congregations, religious schools, and faith-based social service institutions.

At a selection of the religious sites we gave out a survey in English or Spanish. The survey asked various questions about religious activities and social service activities. If the survey was not completed at the time of visit or mailed in, then one of our staffers attempted to do a phone interview. We also conducted longer journalistic interviews at a selection of the religious congregations and ministries.

A religious census like the one we conducted brings all the groups without exception or prejudice to the public square so that they can practice sympathetic objectivity toward each other: appreciating how each contributes innovations, compassion, and ideas that can be shared even while acknowledging and cherishing the right to disagree and be different. Hopefully, we cast light on groups and places that are largely unknown and unappreciated while not missing the big players that have great impact.

It takes a village to do a religious census. Google, official governmental and denominational records, and word-of-mouth provide hit-or-miss statistics.

We compared a street-by-street religious census of the South Bronx to a large national religious census database and found that the street-by-street census found 35-45% more religious sites.

So, we assembled a village to do the first complete religious census ever done in Community District 12 which consists of Washington Heights/Inwood covering over four zip codes (10032, 10033, 10034, 10040 plus a small section of 10039).

Our group included reporters, photographers, religious experts, a designer, and a bright group of student volunteers. We had a young grad from the Harvard Crimson writers, a particularly large contingent early on from Colgate University’s religion department, volunteers, a few professors, and our own Journey core team.

We did the census in all seasons and weather. We thank Colgate University for providing a bus to pick up and drop of our student reporters. We have gone back several times to visit congregations, keeping our eye open for new start-ups, deceased congregations, and those that have moved out of the neighborhood.

We interviewed religious leaders hanging out of second story windows, in their worship halls, or sat down over a meal at Malecon Restaurant. We recorded numerous services and music performances. We are very thankful that Marjorie Eliot shared her home and religious vision for her jazz events. We thank the Black Israelite rabbi who spent an afternoon teaching us their theology. How much can we thank the house synagogue leaders for welcoming and guiding our reporter, a secular Jew, into their mainly Orthodox world. Thanks to the pastor who told his story while playing impromptu keyboard arrangements to go with it. There was so much joy to visit the students at religious schools. Thanks to shopkeepers, auto body repair people and other business leaders for sharing their knowledge about faith-based businesses and graffiti artists. Thanks especially to the Catholic and Protestant church leaders that laid their lives open to share their hearts.

Still, we were doomed to miss some religious sites and their peoples. Some religious leaders were unavailable. For right now, this is the best we can do, but we are continuing to refine our findings. We would love to hear from you savvy local knowledge about things that we missed.

As a former resident of Washington Heights on a street with six religious sites, I miss the vitality and joy of my block and its people. Once in awhile ain’t enough.