Saint Joseph Evangelical Lutheran Church at 81 Christopher Street, is in the West Village which runs from Sixth Avenue to the Hudson River, between W 14th Street and W Houston Street. Almost all of the neighborhood is protected by landmark status, preserving centuries of history. As the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission noted:
“Greenwich Village is one of the oldest sections of Manhattan which was laid out for development in the years following the American Revolution. Today, it contains the greatest concentration of early New York residential architecture to be found anywhere within the five Boroughs of the City.
The church was built in 1821, on Christopher Street, between West Fourth and Bleecker Streets. The name of the architect has been lost, but the sophisticated design was worthy of the best of the period’s architects. The octagonal belfry above the triangular pediment was a near-match to the one found on the Newgate State Prison, that once stood four blocks away near the river, designed in 1796 by Joseph-Francois Mangin.
It was built by built by the Eighth Presbyterian Church, organized in 1819. The group worshiped in its dignified, Federal-style structure until April 1842, when they sold it to the trustees of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. Manhattan churches often closed during the hot summer months when their more affluent congregants left the city for country homes. On October 25, 1846 a newspaper notice announced its reopening, saying “St. Matthew’s Church, in Christopher street, is open for Divine worship on the evening of every Sunday, and will so continue through the ensuing winter.” In 1858 the trustees sold it to St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church for $13,000.
In 1868, the Parsonage was constructed next door, at No. 79 Christopher Street, designed by John M. Foster. Rev. Held lived here, and remained pastor of St. John’s until ill health prompted him to step down in 1879.In 1886, the congregation hired architects Berg & Clark to remodel the Parish House, giving it a new Romanesque Revival brick facade, and to touch up the church itself. A plaque within the pediments that announced Deutsche Evangelish-Lutherische St. Johannes Kirche. The broad-ranged congregation of the German-language church included tenement-dwelling immigrants and wealthy businessmen.