Thieves stole a 650-pound bronze metal bell from Blessed Virgin Mary Help of Christians, Woodside, on Saturday, March 29. Parishioners fear the antique will be sold off as scrap metal.

The bell was crafted in 1889 for the parish, one of the oldest in Queens. It was on display outside the church, while the parish prepared to move it to a memorial garden.

It had been sitting near an outdoor garage on the cornerstones of the previous church structure, which burned down in 1888. The congregation is preparing to open a new memorial garden where a convent once stood, and the bell was going to be installed in an iron frame as the centerpiece of the area.

The bell hung in the church for decades until an electronic system replaced it. It was later placed in front of St. Mary’s School, where it stood on a pedestal.

“When you walked down 70th St. (off Queens Blvd.), you would see the bell. For years it stood there,” said Father Brendan Duggan, CSSp, parochial vicar at St. Mary’s.

The bell disappeared sometime between Saturday night, March 29, and early Sunday morning, March 30, before parish Masses.

“We noticed it was missing on Sunday, and contacted police right away,” he said. Police are currently investigating. Father Duggan said that he has contacted all the scrap yards in the area.

Bronze sells for about $1.90 a pound at city scrap yards, giving the bell a street value of nearly $1,250.

The bell has been a part of the parish for 120 years.
“You can’t put a monetary value on such a bell. It’s part of our heritage,” said Father Duggan. “The bell is important because it goes back to almost the beginning of our parish. It is a symbol of our parish…. Like the Liberty Bell is important to America, the bell was important to us. We know that one person couldn’t walk away with this, it was wheeled away.”

There was an inscription on the bell that read in four lines:

“McShane Bell Foundry
Henry McShane and Company
Baltimore, MD
Trademark 1888”

Stolen Once Before

This is not the first time that thieves have stolen the bell. Several years ago, two men put it on a dolly and hoisted it into the back of a truck. The men told people they were taking the bell to get it refurbished.

Neighbors, thinking quickly, took down the license plate and gave it to cops. Within hours it was traced to a neighborhood scrap yard and the bell was returned.

Father Duggan hopes whoever stole the bell this time will come to their senses and return it. “I’m hoping that someone will read about it in the paper and contact us,” he said.

The same thieves who stole the bell from St. Mary’s apparently took two other bells from another church on the same night. A pair of 250-pound bronze bells were missing from St. John Chrysostom Church, a Greek Orthodox parish, only a few blocks away from St. Mary’s. Police were still investigating both incidents as of Monday morning, April 7.