Brazen thieves stole a 650-pound bronze bell from a Queens church - and parishioners fear the antique will be sold off as scrap metal.The bell, crafted in 1888 for the Blessed Virgin Mary's Help of Christians Church in Woodside, was on display outside the house of worship while the parish prepared to move it to a garden.
"People are so upset over it," the Rev. Brendan Duggan told the Daily News. "I contacted all the scrap yards around."
Bronze sells for roughly $1.90 a pound at city scrap yards - giving the bell a street value of nearly $1,250.
It's worth far more to worshipers in Woodside.
"It's part of our heritage," said Duggan, 61.
Thieves steal 650-pound bronze bell from Woodside church
It seems to be a trend to steal bells from Queens churches. However, in the case of St. Saviour's, the bell was stolen by civil servants. Might want to check with your local firehouse.
13 comments:
When the thieve are caught.....
tie that bell around their balls
and give it the drop!
You'd be amazed athow some property winds up at the firehouse...By the way, how come I had a fire in the kitchen on the ground floor and fireman were checking my bedroom bureau on the second floor...And just how did the jewelry wind up missing?
... and no one saw this picked up and moved ?!?!?
Why do you think firefighters have those very large coats and mighty large boots? Ask friends you have who worked at ground zero (not NYPD who aren't much better) I'm talking about construction people and heavy machinary operators. The things we saw the FDNY doing as they were working the pile made us sicker than the poisons we were inhaling.
I remember when a Civil War (I think) cannon was stolen from the lawn of the Richmond Hill library about a decade ago. They had to lift it over a 3 foot brick wall to remove it from the premises. Hardly seems worth it for the effort.
Shady "firemen"
have long thought that
the rights of pilferage
belonged to them as some kind of bonus for their "services" rendered.
Brigands with axes
like in the "Gangs of New York" film!
First St. Saviour's bell
mysteriously vanishes,
and now St. Mary's bell.
The FDNY
sure has the hots for bells!
It took heavy equipment
to move 600 pounds of bronze!
Though many firemen are crooks I think we should look the other way and not get on their case about it. They risk their lives saving us, giving them the right to rip us off, on occasion, so long as they don't get carried away with it, e.g. not only stealing jewelry, but our wives too. Then they'd be asking for it!
I can only hope this last post about looking the other way is totally in jest. I'm sure it is. I'm a little slow to get a joke sometimes.
Yep, a jest.
Do have some mixed feelings though. Firemen put their lives on the line for us. This doesn't excuse them stealing, of course, but it does make one reluctant to call them outright SOB's for it, which may be why thefts by them go unprosecuted, unless they completly go over the line like the ones who turned their firehouse into a house of ill repute.
This has nothing to do with firemen.
The problem is with the churches themselves. Who would be stupid enough to put something like this outside with no protection.
I recall several years ago when a syagogue put a cornerstone on the sidewalk because they could not think of what to do with it.
Churches, by and large, reflect the cultural brain-dead landscape of the borough. The distruction of these buildings, and the lack of iniative to make them vibrant institutions is reflected only by the moribund political landscape of the borough.
When you try to talk sense to parishiners, they get glassy eyed and say 'God will provide.'
'Yes,' I respond, 'He will. He gave you a brain - now use it!'
A firefighter in my distant family partially furnished his "play pad"
with loot he scored while on the job!
A crook is a crook....period!
No quarter is given here buddy....
not even to my own!
"The problem is with the churches themselves. Who would be stupid enough to put something like this outside with no protection."
Really... who would be stupid enough to leave a quarter ton + relic of relatively little monetary value outside of a community building without expecting it to be stolen.
Blame the victim.
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