Sex, Drugs and Violence: The Stories Behind 10 Brooklyn Streetnames
Okay, so this isn’t a street but it still has a pretty twisted story. Maryknoll Bishop Francis Xavier Ford packed his mitre and sceptre after living in Brooklyn for 26 years and headed to China as a missionary priest. Things were great for a while and Ford doubled his flock from 9,000 to 20,000 followers, building churches, schools, and hostels. In 1950, after having done good for 32 years in Southern China, the Communists accused Ford and his secretary, Sister Joan Marie Ryan, of espionage and put them under house arrest. Ford was publicly paraded, beaten, and tortured. To humiliate them both, he was forced to undress in front of Sister Joan Marie. Ford died in prison in 1952, the first American Roman Catholic Bishop to have died at the hands of Chinese Communists. Though yet to be canonized, he’s got this Park Slope high school as a memorial.