 A few months later, Cardinal John McCloskey, Archbishop of the Diocese of New York and the first American cardinal, granted permission to build a church, formalizing the parish.The new parish was able to raise $14,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) to buy a property on the north side of East 76th Street in 1882.By the end of the year Coadjutor Archbishop (later full Archbishop) Michael Corrigan had blessed the new building's cornerstone.