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It sounds like something out of Dickens: A wealthy private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side wants to build a multimillion-dollar athletic facility that will shroud the remnants of a 19th-century orphanage that was uncovered during demolition. The only thing standing in its way is the local priest — the same man whose accusations led to a cardinal’s being defrocked by the pope.

At the end of a recent Sunday Mass, the Rev. Boniface Ramsey reminded his congregation of this latest crusade. “I just want to talk to you all again for a moment about the wall of St. Joseph’s Orphan Asylum,” Father Ramsey said. “The wall is now in danger of being obscured again by the Spence School. This is a big deal for our parish because there was a relationship between that orphanage and our parish all those years ago.”

As his congregants at St. Joseph’s Church were aware, the neighborhood drama started after a parking garage on East 90th Street was demolished to reveal a forgotten artifact: an eight-story neoclassical facade that was part an orphanage that cared for thousands of children over a century ago.