CARROLL GARDENS — Whenever Carmine Balsamo strolls through his neighborhood and walks by the corner of Court Street and Third Place, he is passing a piece of his family’s history.
On that street corner is a shrine to St. Lucy, the patron saint of the blind and people with eye trouble.
Protected by an iron gate, the shrine contains a statue of the saint, set amid trimmed hedges, inside a white trellis. There is a white pathway leading from the entrance to the statue, allowing visitors to approach it to say a prayer, leave flowers, or just spend a few quiet moments in the hustle and bustle of Brooklyn life.
“The gate is never locked. It’s always open, so anyone can come in and say a prayer,” Balsamo said.
Balsamo has a personal connection to the shrine. It was built by his father, Salvatore “Tuddy” Balsamo, in 1969 and has stood in this spot for the past 56 years.
“It’s still here after all these years. That’s really something,” Balsamo said.
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The shrine pays tribute to Salvatore’s devotion. Both the gate and the trellis are adorned with a plaque reading, “In Memory of Tuddy Balsamo.”
Salvatore died of a heart attack in 1981, and Balsamo and his brother Dominick have inherited the role of caretakers of the shrine.
The brothers, both retired Department of Sanitation workers and still living in Carroll Gardens, stop by the shrine a couple of times a week to sweep away litter, make sure the statue is in good shape, and arrange to trim the hedges and black the fence when necessary.
Their devotion to the shrine and to their father’s memory matches their dad’s devotion to St. Lucy, which is what led him to erect the shrine in the first place.
Salvatore, who owned a fish store located down the street from where the shrine now stands, developed eye trouble in the late 1960s and was in danger of going blind.
He underwent eye surgery in 1969. But before Salvatore, a parishioner of Sacred Hearts and St. Stephen Church in Carroll Gardens, went into the hospital, he asked for St. Lucy’s intercession.
More than that, he made a promise to his favorite saint. He vowed that if his operation were successful, he would have a shrine built to St. Lucy.
The surgery went well, and in gratitude, Salvatore erected the shrine at the corner of the same block where Balsamo Fish Store had been located.
Balsamo, who was a teenager at the time, recalled that people from the neighborhood stepped in to help, offering their services free of charge.
“Somebody brought the statue from Italy. People made cement. Everything was free. People wanted to do it for the saint,” he explained.
Salvatore took pride in the shrine, his son recalled, especially on the feast of St. Lucy on Dec. 13, when priests would visit the site to lead prayer services.
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Devotion to St. Lucy was common to Italian Americans in Carroll-Gardens, according to Deacon John Heyer of Sacred Hearts and St. Stephen.
St. Lucy, who was martyred in 304, hailed from Syracuse in Sicily. Because she lived and died there, the people of Syracuse developed a deep love and devotion to her, Deacon Heyer explained. “From the 1880s all the way to the 1960s, there was a large migration of Italian immigrants here to Carroll Gardens, specifically from Sicily and the town of Syracuse. Those people who came from the town brought their devotion to St. Lucy here with them,” he said.
The shrine is a touchstone for locals, Deacon Heyer said.
“I would say that 50% or 60% of the Catholic funerals in the community, after they leave church, the funeral procession will come by and leave a bouquet of flowers before going to the cemetery,” he said.
Balsamo said it doesn’t take much work to maintain the shrine, crediting its pristine condition to the respect that residents of Carroll Gardens have for the site.
“You don’t want to mess with a saint!” he said.