Saint Mary’s Roman Catholic Church is located at 438 Grand Street, between Pitt and Attorney Streets in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was established in 1826 to serve Irish immigrants living in the neighborhood, it is the third oldest Catholic parish in New York.
The church itself was built in 1832–33, and was then enlarged and had its facade replaced in 1871 by the prolific church architect Patrick Charles Keely. The original portion is the second oldest Roman Catholic structure in the city, after Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral, which was built in 1815.
Before this sanctuary was built, services were held in a former Presbyterian church on Sheriff Street. Reverand Hatton Walsh was named pastor. On November 9, 1831, a lone person broke into St. Mary’s Church and set a fire. Although the church diplomatically blamed “a burglar,” The Evening World later pointed at the Irish Protestants. The pastor, Reverend Luke Berry, fought the blaze valiantly. Injured and exhausted, he died on December 7, 1931.
The church purchased the present site, the highest elevation in Lower Manhattan, from the former mayor of New York, Stephen Allen. In 1832 the cornerstone was laid for the present building, which was dedicated in June 1833. While the edifice rose, the priests of St. Mary’s turned their attention to the cholera epidemic that broke out that summer. The Catholic Church in the United States of America noted “the severity of the labors of the priests in attending the dying may be imagined from the statement of a parishioner that said he saw five coffins carried out from one house in one morning.”
Reverend William J. Quarter, curate at Saint Peter’s on Barclay Street, was named pastor. Quarter would later become the first bishop of Chicago. The new red brick facade designed by Patrick Charles Keely in 1864 was in the Romanesque style and featured twin spires. Other changes were made by Lawrence O’Connor in 1871.
The influx of Irish immigrants exploded the population of the area and continued to tax the physical limits of the church building. In 1861 the parish was split and Saint Teresa’s parish was formed to handle the overflow. Only seven years later another split resulted in the parish of Saint Rose. The neighborhood was seeing another flood of immigrants of the Jewish faith. In February 1919 Reverend James M. Byrnes struck out at bigotry. “I wish to state that it is a shame and an outrage to have to read so often the uncalled for remarks in regard to the Jewish people living on the East Side. As a rule, I am certain that the ones who make these assertions are highbrows, and scarcely know, or rather never have been on, the East Side.”
The neighborhood around St. Mary’s Church continues to change. Building go up and come down. Today the parish is largely Hispanic. But the church building, for decades changed and changed again, survives much as it was in 1871.