50 Oldest Churches of NYC: New Lots Reformed Dutch Church

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New Lots Reformed Dutch Church and Cemetery located at 630 New Lots Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn, New York was built in 1823–1824 and is a small, rectangular wood-frame building sheathed in clapboard. It has a pitched gable roof and sits on a rough stone foundation. Adjacent to the church is the cemetery divided into two sections. The older section dates to the 17th century and includes burials of Revolutionary War soldiers and slaves. The present cemetery was established in 1841. The cemetery is one of only a handful of private cemeteries left in the entire city.

At the time the church was built, New Lots was a small community surrounded by farms. It was part of Flatbush, and got its name from being the location of the new lots of land available for settlement. This was not a town of wealthy merchants; these were farmers, without a lot of money. A hurricane, which knocked down a great number of oak trees provided the wood for the church. Parishioners  harvested the trees, and then allowed them to season for almost two years, before  cutting the lumber into boards in preparation to build a new church.

In May of 1823, people from near and far came to build the new church in a massive barn raising. These volunteers worked tirelessly to build the church building, which was put up by their efforts alone, and is reported to have cost only $35.00. The entire building is built with notched and joined timber, using wooden pegs to secure the wood, not nails. That craftsmanship has lasted in its original form for almost two hundred years.

The only structural changes to the building occurred in 1990, when the building finally began to lean. A large truss beam cracked causing the building to be declared unusable until it was fixed. The congregation raised the money to fix the damage, and the church was back in use in 1991.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Michael’s Chapel

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In 1859, a “Gingerbread Gothic” Chancery Office Building was built at 266 Mulberry Street, just north of the St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral sanctuary, designed by James Renwick Jr. and William Rodrigue, who would go on to design the new cathedral.  The building would later become St. Michael’s Chapel, then St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Byzantine Church, and, from 1936 until 2019, St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite. St. Michael’s is the last Russian Catholic church in New York City, and was one of only four remaining such sanctuaries in the United States. Services are now held at the Church of St. Catherine of Siena, 411 East 68th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Fryer Andrew Rogosh arrived in New York at Christmas of 1935 in order to establish an apostolate to serve the needs of the émigré Russian Catholics who had made their way to the New York metropolitan area after the tragic upheavals in their homeland. In the following months of 1936, he began the work of establishing a chapel. Soon thereafter, St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Chapel opened its doors at 266 Mulberry Street in Manhattan in order to serve their needs. It is the only Russian-Byzantine Catholic Church in the eastern continental United States.

Underneath the basilica are catacombs which currently consist of 35 family crypts and 5 clerical vaults, and which have reopened to new interments. The basilica has also opened the catacombs to walking tours led by “Tommy’s New York”. Among the notable interments are the first resident Bishop of New York John Connolly, General Thomas Eckert, several members of the Delmonico restaurant family, Countess Annie Leary, and Congressman John Kelly.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Brotherhood Synagogue

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In 1859, an early Quaker group, 20th Street Meeting House, expanded beyond the capacity of its home on Orchard Street, and acquired four lots on Gramercy Park South for $24,000. They commissioned the architectural firm of King & Kellum to construct the new space.

The original Quaker group had to obtain special permission to build a non-residential structure on Gramercy Park. The building was built using an innovative combination of heavy timber and iron post and beam. The exterior materials included light brick and a Dorchester Olive stone façade facing Gramercy Park. The design, created with the help of members, was considered unusual as it was “less severe” than most other Quaker buildings.

While the Quakers were traditionally pacifists, members of the 20th Street Meeting House took an active role in the Abolitionist movement during the Civil War era. Some members traveled South to open trade schools for freed slaves. Even more significantly, historical records indicate that members of the 20th Street Meeting House sheltered fugitive slaves on the second floor of the building, a stop on the Underground Railroad. A tunnel underneath the building that was used as an escape route for runaway slaves is still visible and accessible today.

In 1958, the Quakers moved out of 28 Gramercy Park South. Not long after, the newly created Landmarks Preservation Commission rushed to designate the structure. Unfortunately, landmark status in 1965 did not actually guarantee its preservation as a house of worship. In 1964, the 106-year old building had been sold to a developer for $500,000, who intended to turn the building into apartments. Following public outcry at the impending loss of the meeting house, it was purchased from the developer by a foundation hoping to convert it to a performing arts center. This venture failed. It was then sold to the United Federation of Teachers, which intended to use it for offices and meeting space. This, too, failed.

Then, in 1974 Rabbi Block, after a schism split his own congregation, came upon 28 Gramercy Park South. The deal to purchase the building was not finalized until 1975, but progress quickly took hold. Architect James Stewart Polshek, then Dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, took notice of the sale and was so impressed by the space that he offered his design services pro bono in order to renovate and reconstruct the building as a synagogue. Brotherhood Synagogue was born.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Theresa’s Roman Catholic Church

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Saint Teresa’s Roman Catholic Church at 16-18 Rutgers Street at Henry Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is under the authority of the Archdiocese of New York.

There has been a church at the present site since 1798 when Colonel Henry Rutgers deeded out land for development as New York City continued to expand beyond its old boundary at Wall Street. The Rutgers Presbyterian Church was established, and after several years of growth, it built the current structure in 1841 to 1842. It was  erected in the Gothic Revival style, and it is said to have oldest public clock in New York City. At that time the neighborhood was well established, and moderately prosperous, with the East River docks just a few blocks south. With its new building, Rutgers Presbyterian Church was there to stay.

In the 1840s the first waves of Irish immigrants began arriving because of the potato famine. They flooded the neighborhood, changing what was a middle class protestant enclave into an Irish Catholic slum. The residents of the Lower East Side began to move, and with it them, the congregation of Rutgers Presbyterian, eventually settling at 73rd and Broadway.

In 1863 the Church of St. Teresa’s was established. The patroness of the parish is Teresa of Avila, the child of Jewish converts, Teresa was born in Spain in 1515. Throughout its history, St Teresa’s has reflected the character of its neighborhood. At first it was a parish of Irish immigrants, who only had to walk the few blocks from the piers on the East River to find help and support from the parish. The neighborhood would soon see wave after wave of immigrants; Germans, and Slavs, in the 20th century, Latinos and most recently, Asians. The mix of cultures and languages gives to St. Teresa’s a multi-cultural flavor, with mass being celebrated every Sunday in English, Chinese and Spanish.

St. Teresa’s had always been a poor parish, worshiping in an old building for which there had never been sufficient funds for proper maintenance. As a result, in 1995 the interior vaulted ceiling of the church collapsed, and 60,000 pounds of plaster fell, breaking through the floor into the basement parish hall. The future looked bleak. There was no money to repair the main church, and many argued that St. Teresa’s should be closed. However, the pastor at the time, Father Dennis Sullivan, and his parishioners were determined that St. Teresa’s would not close.

After the school had been condemned and closed in 1942, it had been torn down and eventually become a parking lot, used by the church and neighborhood residents. By selling the parking lot and adjacent air rights, the parish began extensive renovation of the church, including a new roof, new interior appointments salvaged from what was left from the old, and as the crowning glory of the church the restoration of three murals painted in the 1880s, depicting St. Patrick teaching the pagan kings of Ireland, St. Teresa teaching her sisters, and the crucifixion. The church was reopened in the early winter of 2002.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Old New Dorp Moravian Church

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Old New Dorp Moravian Church at Richmond Road and Todt Hill Road in Staten Island New York, was built as the first Moravian church of Staten Island in 1763, this structure of Dutch Colonial style served as combined church and parsonage until 1845 when the new church was constructed. It has since been used as a church school and a cemetery office.

The Moravian Cemetery is the largest and oldest active cemetery on Staten Island, having opened in 1740. The cemetery encompasses 113 acres (46 hectares) and is the property of the local Moravian Church congregation of Staten Island.

In what was a purely farming community, the cemetery was originally made available as a free cemetery for the public in order to discourage families from using farm burial plots. The Moravian Cemetery is the burial place for a number of famous Staten Islanders, including members of the Vanderbilt family.

After the closure in the 1880s of the South Reformed Dutch Church in Richmondtown the graves of that church’s graveyard were re-interred at Moravian.

A monument to Robert Gould Shaw, a Union soldier who led the first all-black regiment in the American Civil War and died in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, was erected here by his family. The director Martin Scorsese also has a burial plot here.

In the 19th century, Cornelius Vanderbilt gave the Moravian Church 45 acres. Later, his son William Henry Vanderbilt gave a further 4 acres and constructed the residence for the cemetery superintendent. The Vanderbilt Mausoleum, designed by Richard Morris Hunt and constructed in 1885–1886, is part of the family’s privately owned cemetery. The Vanderbilt Mausoleum is a replica of a Romanesque church in Arles, France. The Vanderbilt Cemetery landscape was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The cemetery is not open to the public. The Vanderbilt Mausoleum and portions of the cemetery were designated a New York City designated landmark in 2016.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: French Evangelical Church

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The small brick church building at 126 West 16th Street in New York City, had been built around 1835 when the Chelsea neighborhood was just developing. It first housed the Catholic Apostolic Church, an offshoot of the Catholic Church founded in the 1820s. Among the sect’s strong beliefs was that the Second Coming was imminent—precisely it would happen in 1835.  As it turned out, 1835 came and went and the date of the Second Coming was pushed off.

.  The French Evangelical Church was a Presbyterian congregation founded in 1846 by the Belgium-born Antoine Frederick Twyeffort. The French Evangelical Church was a Presbyterian congregation founded in 1846 by the Belgium-born Antoine Frederick Twyeffort.  The 16th Street church was sold to the French Evangelical Church in 1885

The French Evangelical Church commissioned Alfred D. F. Hamlin to remodel the out-of-style church.  The architect redid the interiors and updated the façade in the German version of Romanesque Revival called Rundbogenstil.  The result was a chunky mass with a central arch outlined in dentil brickwork.  Well above the sidewalk, arched entrance doors on either side carried on the rhythm of the collection of arches in the main structure.

Then, after 125 years in its brick home, the church made new plans.  In August 2010 it sought proposals from developers to gut the building, renovate the cellar, first and second floors for church use, and build an 11-story residential tower above it. As the building began rising in 2013, residents complained.  The resulting sore thumb would not only diminish the important 1835 church next door, but successfully obliterate the charm of the block.

In 2022 the church is enveloped in the glass and cement sky rise residential structure. It is listed at the Ephesians Mennonite Church. A central doorway was added to the ground floor of the brick structure and 11 stories of apartments loom overhead.

South Carolina

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We took an extended weekend road trip to South Carolina to visit one of my sisters who lives there. As soon as my virtual 3pm class ended on Friday, we were out the door and into the already packed car. I brought along my laptop and iPad since I would be teaching from the Air B&B in South Carolina. Pan drove straight through and we were settled in before midnight. Torrential rain and fog made the last leg of the trip an adventure.

The Air B&B unfortunately was downwind of a paper mill which gave off an acrid stench. Indoors the small was less overwhelming. The place was pet friendly, so Donkey and Sprout were along for the ride. The living room had the largest TV I have ever seen on top pf a home made crate made from two by fours and plywood. We never once turned it on.

The next day Pam and out house guest explored Charleston, South Carolina while I taught virtually all day. For most students this was their last class, so they finished up paintings and drawing that had been in the works for some time. With the animation student I executed a walk which is a more complex assignment and I was pleased that he caught every nuance of what I was explaining through my sketches.

After my classes were over, I was picked up and we went to downtown Charleston for some ice cream and a ghost tour. The ice cream parlor was packed and we were the only people wearing masks. The streets as well were jam packed with people from wedding parties and pub crawls. As the evening wore on, belligerent drunks became the norm. I was almost attacked as a “Biden lover” for daring to wear a mask.

The painting above was done on our last day in Charleston. Before we left, we went on a Geo-cache outing. Geo-caches are tiny canisters hidden at geo-coordinates. Apparently inside are little trinkets and a note pad. I helped search for the first one at a busy interaction but we never found it. After that I decided to settle in under a tree and just sketch the park entrance to a development. It was getting hot and sketching seemed preferable to the search.

Time was limited so I sketched quickly. They found about three Geo-caches while I worked on this. Charleston is a gorgeous city to sketch with all it’s historic architecture but we were in and out for this quick weekend trip. My sister has sketches I had done on a previous Charleston trip hug in her living room. They were decent sketches and they made me yearn to do more. It is probably better to sketch in the fall and or winter when it isn’t over 90 degrees every day.

My visit with my sister was amazing. We discussed family history and she has so much research which verifies and expands on the research I have been doing. I am certain we only scratched the surface, but we are in contact all the time via Facebook and messenger. The important thing is we can now view my research on line so she can see info I might have that she hasn’t seen yet. I was going to contact a church in NYC to try and locate some baptism and marriage records for a family. The churches web site said that it cost $50 for them to try and find a record. I knew there would be records found so I was considering the option. It turns out my sister had done all this research years ago, she had a folder full of the exact records I was hoping to find. I counted 23 records. Multiply that by $50 each, and she had $1,150 worth of records which they gave away back in the day. Figuring out the branches with thousands of names became a bit overwhelming, but now we can narrow conversations down to one question at a time.

Come Alive

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Encore presents Come Alive, in Steinmetz Hall in the Doctor Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Friday August 19th at 8 PM to Sunday Aug 21, 2022 at 11 PM. Tickets are $19. I went to sketch a rehearsal in Steinmetz Hall. It seemed to be their first time in the venue since much time was spent trying to arrange the seating for the hundreds of singers in the chorus. All of the singers could not fit on the second level, so twenty five volunteers went to an even higher level to sing. There are 135 singers in the chorus and 60 in the orchestra.

It’s time to celebrate 20 years of Encore. Come see Encore alumni from across the country collaborate with new talent to perform songs from some of their favorite movies and musicals. In this exciting concert, you’ll hear the highlights from Encore performances across the years and fantastic new selections from the stories that currently capture their hearts. Join Encore as they take a fond look back at the past and an enthusiastic leap into the future!

We walked back stage to get to our seats in the hall. This is a truly awesome venue and I hope to someday to have the chance to sketch the amazing structures we walked past back stage. One structure looked like a two story tall fire hose reel and I cant figure out what it might do. There is more to this hall than what first meets the eye.

There were so many powerhouse singers in the cast. The show moves from one musical number to the next in quick succession with each song more uplifting than the last. It was an inspiring evening. When the full chorus joins in on a number you can feel all the voices as they reverberate in your chest.

COVID-19 Warning: An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease that may result in personal injury, severe illness, and death. By visiting the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and or attending the Dr. Phillips Center shows, events, education programs, classes or other activities, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19. All visitors must follow the Center’s health and safety protocols. Please help keep each other safe.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: First Chinese Presbyterian Church

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The First Chinese Presbyterian Church on 61 Henry Street in New York City was built between 1817-19. The land for the church was donated by Revolutionary War patriot, Colonial Henry Rutgers. It first opened it’s doors in 1819 as the Market Street Dutch Reformed Church. In 1864, the Dutch Reformed Church disbanded. The church building was then bought by Hanson K. Corning in 1866 and it was transferred to the Trustees of New York Presbytery to be occupied by the Church of Sea and Land which served the seamen community in the area.

In 1868, mission work began within the Chinese community in New York City. On December 18, 1910, the First Chinese Presbyterian Church was incorporated at 223 East 31 Street. In 1951 the church moved to 61 Henry Street, sharing the historic church building with the Sea and Land Church. The Sea and Land Church was dissolved in June of 1972.

The church building has the distinction of being the second oldest in New York City. In 1966 the church building and the 1824 Erben pipe organ were designated as historic landmarks.

Pandemic Panera’s

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For the last Urban Sketching class, I had my students sketch in Panera’s. We had already covered how to sketch an interior by sketching the classroom and I gave a refresher on how to populate a scene with people. Myself and two of my students were wearing masks in the classroom. Hospitalizations for the BA5 variant had reached a peak and were hovering at about 40,000 COVID patients each day. 300 to 400 people continue to die each day from the virus, but despite this, most people are “done” with COVID though the pandemic is far from over.

I had just dodged a bullet since a house guest had contracted the virus and we isolated for 10 days. Somehow, even while living with the virus Pam and I managed to not get infected. We have taken every simple precaution since the start of the pandemic, masking, social distancing and hand washing.

One of my students had been infected. She had stayed clear of the virus for over two years, but her husband brought home the BA5 and they both got sick. My other masked student has managed to evade infection and wants to continue to do so.

Both of my masked students decided to sketch Panera’s from outside, and I applaud them for that choice. I ordered some food and ate it outside. Then I masked up with a KN-95 held in place by my well worn cloth mask. I was the only masked person inside Panera’s except the person who took my order.

One student asked me to sign my Urban Sketching book, which surprised me. Three other students arrived late after they ran across the note on the classroom door letting them know where we would be sketching. They missed all my introductory remarks, but I worked with each to bring them up to speed. They remained unmasked. This is the reason I have tended to hold off on sketching at indoor venues with students. I am unable to protect them from themselves.

A few days later the CDC lifted many of their suggestions for quarantining and social distancing. I know the reduced 5 day quarantining was instated by the CDC to be sure that health care workers could be available as the hospitals filling up with COVID patients. It was never intended to become a general policy for everyone. Now even the 5 day quarantine has been abandoned to keep people at work. Close contact no longer involves taking precautions.

People refuse to protect themselves against a virus they can not see. I will continue to take the precautions I have been taking since the start of the pandemic. I know full well that politics play a greater roll in deciding how COVID recommendations  are decided. I also know that any recommendations are ignored my most people regardless. You can choose your own COVID adventure.