Although German Protestants were a minority in contrast to their Catholic co-ethnics, German Lutheranism had earlier roots in New York, dating back to the colonial era. Saint Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church was built in 1857 in a Greek Revival style. It exists today as the Sixth Street Community Synagogue/Max D. Raiskin Center after thirteen Jewish women purchased the building in 1940.
This former Lutheran Church is part of one of the most tragic events in New York history. On June 15, 1904, the St. Mark’s congregation sponsored a boat excursion on the General Slocum steamer which caught fire on the East River. With over 1,300 victims, this maritime catastrophe remained the deadliest single-day event in New York City’s history until September 11th, 2001. In 1906, on the northern side of Tompkins Square Park, a memorial fountain was dedicated to the victims of this catastrophe.
The General Slocum was a side wheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. This was the worst maritime disaster in the city’s history, and the second worst maritime disaster on United States waterways. The events surrounding the General Slocum fire have been explored in a number of books, plays, and movies.
The building stood empty for years until it was brought back to life by a group of Jewish visionaries in November, 1940. The Community Synagogue has been a hub for intellectual, religious and social activity. The synagogue originally served a bustling, immigrant population within New York’s Yiddish theater district.