What happens
Father Fitzgibbon, the aging pastor of St. Dominic's, a struggling church on a shabby New York East Side street, finds his new assistant, Father O'Malley, arriving in a soaking sweatshirt after a ball-playing mishap. Fitzgibbon has been told to hand the parish over to O'Malley, and a mortgage threatens to turn the church into a parking lot. Old friend Father O'Dowd visits, a young singer named Carol James seeks work and lodging, and a group of neighborhood boys, led by Tony, becomes entangled with the priests. This is Act One and Act Two of the Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Going My Way, broadcast May 3, 1954, with Barry Fitzgerald recreating his Academy Award-winning role as Father Fitzgibbon and William Lundigan as Father O'Malley.
St. Dominic's church and rectory on a shabby side street on New York's East Side
Characters: Father Fitzgibbon, Father O'Malley, Father O'Dowd, Carol James, Tony Scalponi, Mrs. Carmody, Officer Patrick McCarthy, Ted Haines
Listen for: The exchanges between Father Fitzgibbon and Father O'Malley as their rivalry and friendship develop, and Fitzgibbon's wry humour in the rectory.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.