Transfiguration School Excels: A Catholic Education in Chinatown

There’s a remarkable school with an especially apt old Chinatown. It’s called Transfiguration School, and it’s the educational arm of Roman Catholic Church of Transfiguration on Mott Street between Mosco and Bayard Streets. To call this location historic would be an understatement.

Not that the school rests on this legacy. Heaven forbid! To the contrary, Transfiguration is a recent Blue Ribbon school winner, earning that vaunted sash of excellence in September 2023.

“EXCITING NEWS!!!” exclaimed the Transfiguration Facebook page, above a photo of smiling students standing in front of the school’s then principal, Michael Lenahan.

That would be the last national Blue Ribbon award Transfiguration could ever win, for the program was canceled, under the orders of President Donald Trump, in August 2025.

Why the announcement was so long in coming is unclear and unfortunate, as the 2025 Blue Ribbon timeline began in October 2024—i.e. before the election— with various key dates falling before and soon after Trump’s inauguaration.

There are abundant ironies in this, as the Blue Ribbon program was launched in 1982 under another Republican President, Ronald Reagan, and his Secretary of Education, Terrel H. Bell.

Interestingly, even as it faced decimination, the Education Department acknowledged the Blue Ribbon concept’s value. “State leaders are best positioned to recognize excellence in local schools,” wrote Madi Biedermann, principal deputy assistant secretary for communications and outreach, “based on educational achievements that align with their communities’ priorities for academic accomplishment and improvement.”

Although numerous states subequently announced their own Blue Ribbon-like programs, including Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and North Carolina, the Empire State wasn’t among them, nor is there any known proposal for New York state to initiate such a program. So much for “Excelsior.”

Catholicism in Chinatown

As for Principal Linne, he was so successful, he got poached, announcing in July 2025 that he’d accepted a position as Manhattan Regional Superintendent of Schools in the Archdiocese of New York. So he’s still there, in spirit and body, just not at Transfiguration every day. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, if you see him, say hello!

Happily, his sucessor, also Joseph G. Mille cuts an impressive figure. Among Transfiguration’s other top staff, Helena (Lena) Ingersoll, remains Director of Early Childhood Education and School Development (the pre-K campus is located Confucius Plaza just south of the Manhattan Bridge) and Transfiguration’s pastor is the energetic Reverend Roger Kwan.

What Transifguration calls its Lower Campus, for Grades 1-5, and its main school office, is adjacent the parish on Mott Street. The Upper Campus, for grades 6-8, home is 37 St. James Place, south of Chatham Square and steps from the 17th century Shearith Israel Cemetery.

This evocative layering highlights remarkable Tranfiguration’s story is. Founded in 1827 after the Cuban-born Revrend Felix Varel (1788-1853) purchased a former Episcopal chuch on Ann Street, Transfiguration was fourth Catholic parish established in Manhattan. In 1833 Transfiguration opened its first (free) school and four years later, the congregation moved to a former Presbyterian church on Chambers Street

In 1853, Transifiguration relocated to its present location on Mott Street, taking over an edifice that was first English Lutheran, then Episcopal. A historical marker, including a striking portrait of the bespectacled Varela, is stands outside Transfiguration today and, along a memorial plaque, is a must see for any Chinatown sightseer.

Meanwhile, in the years Transifguration was moving uptown, it found itself within what had developed into the notorious Five Points slum, the dense and roiling poverty and vice district with wooden, near-shanty towns around today’s Columbus Park including the Mulberry Bend. Charles Dickens wrote about in 1841 on a visit to America, as did reformer and photographer Jacob Riis in the 1890s.

By then, the area’s Irish once dominant Irish had been supplanted by Italians, with services conducted in their mother tongue

Concurrent with the Irish to Italian transition, Chinatown was born and slowly growing literally outside Transfiguration’s doors on Mott, Bayard, Pell and Doyers Streets.

While Transfiguration happily accepts children of all faiths, the sight of so many happy young Chinese students might surprise some people. It shouldn’t. Transfiguration regularly conducts mass in Mandarin, Cantonese and English.

It’s estimated that after World War Two, China was 1% Catholic. Following the 1949 Chinese Revolution, Pope Pius forbidding Catholics to join the Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China severing diplomatic ties with the Holy See, the Chinese Catholics saga was considerably complicated.

Welcoming the New Archbishop

This fraught history makes a recent Transfiguration School art project, which saw students making a paper flower welcoming boquets to Archbishop Ronald Hicks, that much resonant.

“Dear God, Bless Ronald Hicks with piece, strength and protection, Amen.” read one note.

“Prayer for Archbishop” began another. “Our servant be a shephard of our flock. We will give you spirit, courage and right judgement. A spirit of knowledge and love. May you be blessed by God and your people. Amen.”

Pope Pius forbade Catholics to join the Communist Party and