50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton

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After the Civil War, Irish author Charlotte Grace O’Brien bought the James Watson House to be the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary, which served as a way station for young immigrant girls. The parish was established in 1884 as a mission and raised to parish status in 1886 when Cardinal John McCloskey directed that Lower Manhattan and the Harbor Islands be separated from Saint Peter’s Parish and constitute the Parish of Our Lady of the Rosary.

The Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton is located in the Church of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, a Roman Catholic parish church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York at 7 State Street, between Pearl and Water Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City.

Elizabeth Ann Seton lived at 8 State Street with her husband William Seton, after the bankruptcy of his business forced them to give up the Seton family home at 61 Stone Street. They stayed here from 1801 to 1803 before sailing to Italy for William’s health. In 1840 the site held the offices of a number of transportation companies, such as the New York and Hammondsport Lake Line Boats, the New York and Ithaca Line, and the New York and Seneca Falls Line Lake Boats. It also served as the “Eight South Street Hotel”.

Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first native-born citizen of the United States to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. She was received into the Roman Catholic faith at Saint Peter’s Church, Barclay Street in lower Manhattan, March 14, 1805. Elizabeth went to Maryland in 1808 and opened a school next to the chapel of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. Samuel Sutherland Cooper, a wealthy convert and seminarian, purchased 269 acres of land for an establishment for the sisterhood near Emmitsburg in the countryside of Frederick County, Maryland. According to tradition, Elizabeth named the area Saint Joseph’s Valley. In June 1809 she established the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. During the Civil War at least 270 sisters served as nurses and were called “angels of the battlefield” by both Union and Confederate soldiers.

The Georgian Revival, Colonial Revival brick church was built in 1964-5 at 22 Barclay Street, next to the Seton home, was designed by the firm of Shanley & Sturges.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Birlystoker Synagogue

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The Bialystoker Synagogue is at 7–11 Bialystoker Place, formerly Willett Street, between Grand and Broome Streets in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

The building with it’s Federal architecture was constructed in 1826 as the Willett Street Methodist Episcopal Church; the synagogue purchased the building in 1905.

The building is made of Manhattan schist from a quarry on nearby Pitt Street. As the synagogue is home to an Orthodox Jewish congregation, a balcony section was constructed to accommodate female congregants. In the corner of the women’s gallery there is a small hidden door in the wall that leads to a ladder going up to an attic, which is illuminated by two windows. When it was first opened, the building was a rest stop for the Underground Railroad movement; runaway slaves found sanctuary in this attic.

The Bialystoker Synagogue was first organized in 1865 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side as the Chevra Anshei Chesed of Bialystok, founded by a group of Jews who came from the town of Białystok, at that time located in the Russian Empire, but now in Poland. The congregation was begun in a building on Hester Street, it later moved to Orchard Street, and ultimately to its present location 7–11 Bialystoker Place on the Lower East Side.

During the Great Depression a decision was made to beautify the main sanctuary, to provide a sense of hope and inspiration to the community.

The synagogue was designated a New York City Landmark in 1966. It is one of only four early-19th century fieldstone religious buildings surviving from the late Federal period in Lower Manhattan, and is the oldest building used as a synagogue in New York City. It was added to National Register of Historic Places on April 26, 1972

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Augustine’s Episcopal Church

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Saint Augustine’s Episcopal Church is located at 290 Henry Street between Montgomery and Jackson Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City.

The church began in 1819 as a mission near the old Grand Street Ferry run by students of the General Theological Seminary. Led by former mayor, Marinus Willett, the mission grew. It was organized as a parish in 1824, and construction began on All Saints’ Free Church (“Free” meaning free of pew rent), around 1827. It was built of Manhattan schist. Around this time “Mount Pitt” (also known as Jones Hill), near Pitt and Grand Streets, was being leveled, and some of field stone used was taken from there.

The design, a Georgian structure with Gothic windows, is credited to John Heath. The church was consecrated in 1828 by Bishop John Henry Hobart. Edgar Allan Poe used to attend on occasion during the church’s early years.
St. Augustine’s is one of the few remaining churches in the country to retain its “slave galleries,” small, hidden rooms at the back of the church designed in the 1820’s as seating for enslaved African Americans. It was there that enslaved people were placed sit out of sight of the white congregation during church services.
The churches wooden steeple with slate tiles was lost some time after 1934. In 1949, the congregation merged with St. Augustine’s Chapel of Trinity Church, then located at 107 East Houston Street, and the new combined congregation used the building on Henry Street. The parish became independent of Trinity in 1976.
It was added to National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1980.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Trinity Church Wall Street

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Trinity Church Wall Street is an active Episcopal Parish that has been an integral part of New York City’s history for more than 300 years. In 1696, a small group of Anglicans (members of the Church of England) petitioned the Royal Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York, then a mercantile colony, for a charter granting the church legal status. Fletcher granted the charter in 1697 and the first Trinity Church was erected at the head of Wall Street facing the Hudson River.

To ensure the church’s success, Governor Fletcher granted Trinity a six-year lease on a tract of land north of Trinity known as the King’s Farm. In 1705, Queen Anne made this land grant permanent by giving 215 acres, which Trinity has used over the years to support the mission and ministry of Trinity and Anglican Church. My 10th great grandmother Anneke Jans, was the original owner of the land granted to Trinity.

The first Trinity Church building was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1776 during the Revolutionary War. After the war Trinity, and all Anglican churches in the former colonies, legally separated from the Church of England and became the Episcopal Church.

in 1790, the second Trinity Church was completed. This church faced Wall Street and was both longer and wider than the first. The new steeple soared to a height of 200 feet. President George Washington and members of his government were regular worshipers in the new Trinity building during the brief period New York City was the capital of the United States.

In 1838, the support beams of the second Trinity Church buckled. An architect named Richard Upjohn was hired to repair the building, but recommended demolishing the structure and constructing a new church. Upjohn, a fan of Anglo-Catholic liturgical style and English Gothic architecture, designed a church that looked like a 14th-century English parish church. The new Trinity Church was  consecrated on Ascension Day 1846. It is considered one of the finest examples of Neo-Gothic architecture in the United States. With a 281-foot high steeple, Trinity was the tallest building in New York City until 1890.Today it is dwarfed on all sides by office buildings.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Voorlezer’s House

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Voorlezer is a Dutch word that can be translated as “fore-reader” or as “one who reads (to others)”. A Voorlezer or Voorleser was the title given to a highly responsible citizen in New Netherland and later Dutch settlements in North America, who had semi-official duties in local law, education and religion. The title was predominantly used from the mid-17th century to the late 18th century in the small colonial villages. A Voorlezer could be an assistant to a pastor or, in the absence of a pastor, hold religious services and read scriptures, or run a school.

The Voorlezer’s House on Arthur Kill Rd, Center Street, Staten Island, N.Y., is a historic clapboard frame house in Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island, New York. It is widely believed to be the oldest known schoolhouse in America, although the sole inhabitant to hold the title of voorlezer, Hendrick Kroesen, only lived on the property from 1696 until 1701.

The present structure became a private residence for more than a century and is now owned and operated by the Staten Island Historical Society. It is likely to have been constructed in the mid-eighteenth century, probably in the 1760s by Jacob Rezeau, whose family came into possession of the property in 1705.

In 1697, the Dutch Reformed Congregation acquired a parcel of approximately 271 square feet of the then 80 acre parcel of land from James Hance Dye and James Fitchett, on which to build the house. While never officially consecrated as a place of worship, a now-lost structure near the Voorlezer’s House (possibly the original schoolhouse) was used as a meeting place for members of the Dutch Reformed Congregation.

The first floor contains a small room used as living quarters and a large room for church services. The second floor has a small bedchamber, and a large room that is believed to be the one used for the school. The extra set of floor beams indicate that the room was designed to accommodate a large number of persons. The floors in the house are of white pine boards, 14–16 inches wide.

Though well-maintained for many years, by 1936 the building had fallen into disrepair and was threatened with demolition. It was acquired by the museum in 1939 and then restored to how it was believed to have appeared around the turn of the eighteenth century. It was first opened to the public on April 14, 1942, and then again, after its second restoration, on June 27, 1985. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and was added to National Register of Historic Places when that registry was created in 1966.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: The Mariner’s Temple

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The Mariner’s Temple Baptist Church located at 3 Henry Street, in the Two Bridges section of Manhattan, New York City, began as a mission for European seamen who docked at the nearby East River.

Built in 1795, the first church on the Henry and Oliver Street site was called the Oliver Street Meeting House. It was built due to to the generosity of landholder and philanthropist Henry Rutgers. Henry was the descendant of Dutch immigrants who settled in New York City in 1636 and he prospered as a brewer. Rutgers graduated from Kings College in 1766, was a colonel during the American Revolution, and later became politically active. He gave lands and funds to his own Dutch Reformed Church, to Presbyterian and Baptist churches, and to schools for children of the poor.

In 1843, the Oliver Street Meeting House burned down in a fire that left it in ashes. It was rebuilt over the next two years. The present Greek Revival building was inaugurated in 1845. Accounts differ on the lead architect behind the new church; 1844 church minutes indicate a little-known architect named Issac Lucas was behind the design, while the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission attributes the design to the experienced and respected architect Minard Lafever, adding that Lucas was project superintendent.

The community that surrounded the church went through changes. By 1850, the densely populated Five Points neighborhood was notorious for crime, poverty, and disease. The church maintained a mission-driven presence in the community, focusing heavily on reaching out to troubled youths, reforming alcoholics, and trying to deter impoverished residents from a life of crime.

In 1859, a swanky, modern competitor called the Madison Avenue Baptist Church was built on Madison Avenue and 35th Street, it was described by the New York Sun as a “large and expensive church.” It cost $122,000 to build, or about $3.7 million today, and thus landed the church’s congregation in deep financial debt. Madison Avenue Baptist Church turned to the Oliver Street church for help, and its congregants agreed to give it. They contributed almost $80,000 towards their debt and agreed to merge with Madison Avenue Church. Mariners’ Temple purchased the Oliver Street building. The Sun reported that Oliver Street requested the deed to the other church’s property, to which Madison Avenue brought “a suit of ejectment against the Oliver street church folks.” A bitter court battle ensued. Judge Theodore Sedgwick eventually ended the church duel and ruled in favor of the Oliver Street Baptist Church. His decision prompted the full congregation’s return to their old home, now Mariners’ Temple on Oliver Street

Mariners’ stands on the oldest site for continuous Baptist worship in Manhattan.  It was designated a New York City Landmark on February 1, 1966. It was added to the U. S. Register of Historic places on April 16, 1980.

Stealth Omicron Special Operation

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COVID-19 is re-grouping in the North East for a renewed campaign of it’s “Special Operation.” The so-called Stealth Omicron (BA.2) variant is now the dominant COVID-19 strain in the United States, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

American however have let their guard down and turned their back on the enemy allowing for a full unchecked frontal attack.

A Trump appointed Federal Judge in Florida blocked the CDC’s masking guidelines on airlines. The CDC itself re-evaluated it’s guidance for the maps that shows where outbreaks are occurring. On top of that people are no longer using COVID testing sites instead relying on less accurate at home tests. Americans will simply not see this next wave coming. America has again decided to remain blind in fighting an enemy that can not be seen.

The Biden White House requested 22.5 Billion dollars to fight COVID-19 but that was cut down to 10 Billion allowing for no intentional aid. As long as the virus is anywhere in the world, it is everywhere in the world. This is a simple idea that legislators do not seem to understand. Of course all this aid will come too   late as the BA.2 variant begins it’s exponential growth in America in the coming weeks.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Paul’s Church Yard

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Built in 1766, Saint Paul’s Church  is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan, and one of the nation’s finest examples of Late Georgian church architecture.

The main entrance to the church faced west toward the large churchyard and the Hudson River beyond what is now One World Trade Center.

Notable individuals buried in the church yard include, General Richard Montgomery, Revolutionary War hero ho is buried beneath the east porch of St. Paul’s.

John Bailey, who forged the George Washington battle sword in Fishkill, NY, while the Continental Army was encamped there. The sword is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution.

John Holt, a patriotic printer and editor of The New York Gazette, New York’s first newspaper founded by William Bradford, and The New York Journal.

George Frederick Cooke, a renowned British character actor. He played Richard III at the Park Lane Theatre to an audience of 2,000 on November 21, 1810.

George Eacker, a New York lawyer, who mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton’s son Philip in a duel. Alexander Hamilton is buried at Trinity Church in NYC.

In 1960, the chapel was named a National Historic Landmark; it was also made a New York City Landmark and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Trinity Churchyard Memorial

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The Trinity Churchyard at 74 Trinity Place, near Wall Street and Broadway, includes tombstones and memorials dating back as far as 1681.  One of the largest monuments in the churchyard is the Soldiers’ Monument in honor of Revolutionary War soldiers held in captivity in the old Sugar House in New York City and thought to be buried at Trinity. The inscription said, “In memory of the officers and soldiers of the revolution ho died in British captivity in the city of New York, many of whom are buried in the North Part of Trinity Church yard  opposite Pine Street.

The claim those prisoners are buried in Trinity Churchyard is disputed by Charles I. Bushnell, who argued in 1863 that Trinity Church would not have accepted them because it supported Great Britain. The controversy was related to a proposal to build a public street through the churchyard.

Although his actual burial site is unknown, a bronze plaque commemorates Francis Lewis, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He is the only signer buried in Manhattan.

The restored epitaph for the founder of New York’s first newspaper, William Bradford, is one of the most interesting in the churchyard: “Being quite worn out with Old age and labor he left this mortal State in the lively Hopes of a better Immortality. Reader reflect how soon you’ll quit the Stage…”

One of the churchyard’s most popular sites is Alexander Hamilton‘s tomb. In addition to being the namesake and main character of the Broadway hit Hamilton, he was the first Secretary of the Treasury, founded The Bank of New York and the U.S. Mint, and was the youngest framer of the Constitution. Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton lies next to Alexander’s grave. Alexander Hamilton’s sister-in-law, Angelica Schuyler Church, is buried in the Livingston Family Vault. Her maternal grandmother was born a Livingston.

 

 

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Paul’s Church

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Built in 1766, Saint Paul’s Chapel  is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan. It is a chapel building of Trinity Church, an episcopal parish, built on land granted by Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Saint Paul’s is located at 209 Broadway, between Fulton Street and Vesey Street, in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

Built of Manhattan mica-schist, St. Paul’s has a classical portico, boxy proportions and domestic details that are characteristic of Georgian churches.  The church’s octagonal spire rises from a square base.

The church has historically been attributed to Thomas McBean, a Scottish architect. Recent documentation published by historian John Fitzhugh Millar suggests architect Peter Harrison may have instead been responsible for the structure’s design.

Upon completion in 1766, the church was the tallest building in New York City. It stood in a field some distance from the growing port city to the south and was built as a “chapel-of-ease” for parishioners who thought the mother church inconvenient to access.

The Hearts of Oak, militia unit organized early in the American Revolutionary War, was composed in part of King’s College students, who would drill in the Chapel’s yard before classes nearby. Alexander Hamilton was an officer of this unit. The chapel survived the Great New York City Fire of 1776 when a quarter of New York City (then confined to the lower tip of Manhattan), including Trinity Church, burned following the British capture of the city after the Battle of Long Island during the American Revolutionary War.

George Washington, along with members of the United States Congress, worshiped at St. Paul’s Chapel on his Inauguration Day, April 30, 1789. Washington also attended services at St. Paul’s during the two years New York City was the country’s capital. Above Washington’s pew is an 18th-century oil painting of the Great Seal of the United States, adopted in 1782.

The rear of St. Paul’s Chapel faces Church Street, opposite the east side of the World Trade Center site. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, which led to the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, St. Paul’s Chapel served as a place of rest and refuge for recovery workers at the WTC site. For eight months, hundreds of volunteers worked 12-hour shifts around the clock, serving meals, making beds, counseling and praying with fire fighters, construction workers, police and others. Massage therapists, chiropractors, podiatrists and musicians also tended to their needs. The church survived without even a broken window. Church history declares it was spared by a miracle sycamore tree on the northwest corner of the property that was hit by falling debris. The tree’s root has been preserved in a bronze memorial by sculptor Steve Tobin.

In 1960, the chapel was named a National Historic Landmark; it was also made a New York City Landmark and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. When St. Paul’s Chapel remained standing after the September 11, 2001, attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center behind it, the chapel was subsequently nicknamed “The Little Chapel That Stood”.