50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint James Roman Catholic Church

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Saint James Roman Catholic Church located at 32 James Street between St. James Place and Madison Street in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, is the second oldest Roman Catholic building in the city, built in 1835–1837 of fieldstone, with a pair of Doric columns flanking the entrance. The building was once topped by a domed cupola.

The neo-classical church is modeled on the published designs by Minard Lefever, and is sometimes attributed to him, there is no hard evidence of this being true.

The parish was established by Bishop John Dubois in order to relieve the overcrowding at St. Peter’s on Barclay Street. He purchased an Episcopal church building on Ann Street, retaining the name of Christ Church, and asked Father Félix Varela to organize a congregation. Varela also established a free school.

In October 1833, it was discovered that nearby excavation had rendered Christ Church unsound. Pending the completion of a new building on James Street, premises were rented at 33 Ann Street. However, some members of the congregation found this too far uptown, and instead purchased the Reformed Presbyterian Church on Chambers Street. This would become the parish of the Transfiguration.

The first Mass was said in the basement of the James St. church on September 18, 1836.

The church was ordered to be closed by New York City officials in 1983, because of the danger of its roof collapsing. It was scheduled to be torn down in 1986, but was saved by the efforts of the community, especially the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the first branch of which was organized in the church in 1836. The building suffered significant damage in a fire on January 11, 2011. In 2007, St. James Parish merged with the nearby Parish of St. Joseph. The combined Parish of St. Joseph/St. James was merged again with the Church of the Transfiguration in 2015.

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

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St. George’s Episcopal Church is a historic church located at 209 East 16th Street at Rutherford Place, on Stuyvesant Square in Manhattan, New York City. It is considered “one of the first and most significant examples of Early Romanesque Revival church architecture in America”, the church exterior was designed by Charles Otto Blesch and the interior by Leopold Eidlitz. It is one of the two sanctuaries of the Calvary-St. George’s Parish.

The original St. George’s was a chapel built in 1752 by Trinity Church on Chapel Street (now Beekman Street) in Lower Manhattan.

In 1811 the congregation became independent, and in 1846–1856 they built this new church uptown, in fashionable Stuyvesant Square. One New Yorker described the location in his diary in 1848 “a howling wilderness.” The spires on each tower of the church were completed almost a decade after the remainder of the building. These masterful, lacy stone spires were deemed unsafe in 1888 and taken down in 1889.

The church was gutted by fire in 1865, everything in the in the interior was lost. The church was rebuilt within the next two years under the supervision of Leopold Eidlitz.

By 1880, the Episcopal church sat in the middle of a neighborhood filled with immigrants, who were largely Catholic and Jewish. The church decided to to downplay doctrinal matters, abolish pew rentals, and offer secular social services programs aimed at helping the poor, including an industrial school, sewing classes, soup kitchens, health programs, boys’ and girls’ clubs, and other educational and recreational initiatives.

In 1976, the parish merged with two others, Calvary Church, which was founded in 1832 and moved to the Gramercy Park area in 1842, and the Church of the Holy Communion, built on Sixth Avenue in 1844—to form the Calvary-St George’s Parish. Calvary Church is still operating, but the Church of the Holy Communion was deconsecrated and sold to pay down the debts of the new combined parish. It was adapted as the Limelight disco. It then operated as a marketplace and from 2017 as a gym.

Saint George’s was among the first of the new Landmarks Preservations Commissions designations, in 1967. The facade received a well-deserved restoration in 1980.

50 Oldest Church of NYC: John Street United Methodist Church

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The John Street United Methodist Church, also known as Old John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, is located at 44 John Street between Nassau and William Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. It was built in 1841 in the Georgian style, with the design attributed to William Hurry and or Philip Embury.

The story of the John Street Church actually begins in Ireland, where Philip Embury, his wife, Barbara Ruckle Heck (Embury’s cousin), and her husband were converted to Methodism. Philip Embury became one of Wesley’s local preachers. In 1760, a number of Irish Methodists, including the Emburys and the Hecks, immigrated to New York City.

The congregation is the oldest Methodist congregation in North America, founded on October 12, 1766 as the Wesleyan Society in America. The Society built its first church, a blue stucco barn called the Wesley Chapel, on this site in 1768; its design was attributed to Barbara Heck.

The second church on this site was built in 1817-18, and the extravagance of the building provoked a secession from the congregation by Rev. William Stillwell. The third church, the current one, was necessitated by the widening of John Street.

The church was designated a New York City Landmark in 1965 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

 

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Church of the Tranfiguration

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The Church of the Transfiguration is a Roman Catholic parish located at 25 Mott Street on the northwest corner of Mosco Street in the Chinatown neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.

The neighborhood around Mott Street in 1800 was had little to offer. The 48-acre Collect Pond, once a bucolic picnic spot was a dumping ground for the waste from nearby tanneries, breweries and slaughterhouses; creating in effect an open, rancid sewer. Despite this, a group of English Lutherans opted to build their new church in 1801 at a cost of $15.000 in the Georgian style of architecture for the “English Lutheran Church Zion.“.

On March 22, 1810, the Church was consecrated according to the rites and ceremonies of the Protestant Episcopal Church by the Reverend Benjamin Moore and renamed “Zion Protestant Episcopal Church.”

On August 31, 1815 a catastrophic fire swept through the area, destroying 35 homes and essentially gutting the church. The attempts to rebuild made by the rector, Reverend Ralph Willston, were so financially crippling that he was forced to resign in 1817 and the property was sold under foreclosure at public auction at the Tontine Coffee House on Wall Street.

Peter Lorillard purchased the building and reassured the concerned parishioners that he “would retain the property until some friends of the church would stipulate to finish rebuilding, and then restore it to its former ecclesiastical organization.” Six congregants stepped up with sizable donations, aided by a $10,000 loan from Trinity Church.

The renovated structure was completed in 1818, dedicated by Bishop Hobart on November 16.

The arrival of countless immigrant ships carrying Europe’s poor made the area around Zion Church a cesspool. Charles Dickens in 1841 thus described its horrors: “near the Tombs; Worth, Baxter, and Park Streets came together making five corners or points of varying sharpness, hence the name “Five Points.” It was an unwholesome district supplied with a few rickety buildings, and thickly populated with human beings of every age, color and condition.”

On January 28th, 1853, Zion Protestant Episcopal Church was sold to the Reverend John Hughes, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of New York. The church continued to serve the Irish, Italian and the Chinese immigrant populations in New York. It therefor became known as the “Church of Immigrants.”

In 1868, Henry Engelbert designed additions to the church, including the tower. In 1966, the building was designated by the New York City Landmarks Commission, who noted that it was one of four Georgian-Gothic landmark churches of locally quarried Manhattan schist on the Lower East Side.

 

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral

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The Basilica of Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral, sometimes shortened to St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral or simply Old St. Patrick’s, is a Catholic parish church, basilica, and the former cathedral of the Archdiocese of New York, located on Milberry and Prince in the Nolita neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City.

The cathedral was designed by the same architect who designed New York City Hall, Joseph Francois Mangin. When completed in 1815, it was the largest Catholic church in the United States.

On April 23, 1861 there was a blessing of the colors of the “Fighting” 69th “Irish Brigade” regiment by Archbishop Hughes before the regiment set off for active duty in the Civil War. My 2nd Great Grandfather John Hickey served in the 69th and fought in the battle of Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg and .

A fire destroyed the interior of the Old Cathedral on October 6, 1866; it was rebuilt and re-opened on St. Patrick’s Day in 1868

On March 17, 1885, the debt of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral was finally paid off, and the church was consecrated.

The Old Cathedral and associated buildings are among the first sites to be designated as New York City landmarks in1966. Campus complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Church of the Holy Apostles

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The Church of the Holy Apostles is located at 296 Ninth Avenue at 28th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Its historic church building was built from 1845 to 1848, and was designed by New York architect Minard Lafever. The geometric stained-glass windows were designed by William Jay Bolton.

The Holy Apostles congregation was founded in 1844 as the result of an outreach by Trinity Church to immigrants who worked on the Hudson River waterfront west of the Church’s location in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

Lafever enlarged the building by 25 feet by adding a chancel in 1853–54. In 1858 the congregation needed to expand, so architect Charles Babcock of the firm of Richard Upjohn & Son enlarged the building into a cross-shaped sanctuary with the addition of transepts.

The church, is the only one that Lafever designed which remains standing in Manhattan. It is also one of the very few of Italianate design on the island.

It is rumored that the church was a stop on the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War.

In the 1970s, the church was instrumental in the foundation of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, a synagogue for gays and lesbians begun by Jacob Gubbay. It hosted the congregation from 1973 to 1975, and again from December 1998 until it found a permanent home in April 2016.

In that same decade, Holy Apostles hosted the ordination of the first woman priest (and openly lesbian) in the New York diocese, Rev. Ellen Barrett.

In 1959, builders of Penn South, a housing cooperative that surrounded the church,  considered demolishing the church to make way for development.  Ultimately, four churches on the site, including the Church of the Holy Apostles, were saved. The sanctuary was badly damaged in 1990 by a fire, in which some of the stained-glass windows were lost. A restoration began almost immediately, and was completed in 1994 under the supervision of Ed Kamper, without interruption of the social services the church provides.

The Church of the Holy Apostles was designated a New York City landmark in 1966, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

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: Grace Church

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Grace Church was initially organized in 1808 at Broadway and Rector Street, on the current site of the Empire State Building. Under rector Thomas House Taylor, who began service at the church in 1834, the decision was made to move the church uptown with the city’s expanding population. A site was chosen and property was purchased in what was then an apple orchard owned by Henry Brevoort, Jr. at Broadway between Tenth and Eleventh Streets.

James Renwick, Jr. who designed the new church building had no experience designing churches, instead instead he had a family background full of talent and influence, and family members on the church’s Vestry.

The rector, toured Europe extensively looking at church designs around the continent. He returned energized and adamant that the new church would be in the Gothic style. Renwick poured himself into the project and delivered. The new building was consecrated on March 7, 1846.

The windows were of the original building were of lightly tinted glass, not the majestic stained glass windows of today. The original steeple was made of wood, not marble; a marble steeple was eventually added in 1883. In 1879, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe donated funds for the building of the Chantry, a small chapel to be used as a Sunday School; she also provided the funds for the parish house situated between the Church and the Rectory. Her greatest gift was the Te Deum window, a soaring stained glass masterpiece that replaced the original East Window. It was her generosity that inspired other parishioners to follow; within ten years, 36 of the 46 stained glass windows were given.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Reformed Dutch Church of Newton

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Reformed Dutch Church of Newton is a historic Reformed church in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens in New York City. The neighborhood had been established in 1652 by the Dutch as Middenburgh, a village suburb of New Amsterdam (today it is New York City).

In 1664, the village was renamed New Town, later simplified to Newtown. When Newtown was renamed Elmhurst in the late 1890s, the church retained its original name.

The church was first established by Dutch immigrants in 1731. The original Federal-Greek Revival style building, completed in 1735, had survived the struggles of the colonial days and the disruptions of the American Revolutionary War (during which the British seized it for use as an armory).

It was replaced in 1832 by the present Georgian-style sanctuary. It has been designated a New York City landmark. The cornerstone of the original building can still be seen in the foundation of its present structure. The bell tower contains the bell from the original 1731 church building. Adjoining the Church building to the north is a small cemetery filled with simple tombstones dating from the early years of the church’s history.

The sanctuary and adjoining fellowship hall are, as noted by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, “one of the few all wood church groups remaining in the City.”The Reformed Church of Newtown Complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. The originally Dutch church now had services in English, Taiwanese, Tamil and Mandarin Chinese.