50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Congregation Anshe Slonim

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Constructed in 1849-50, Congregation Anshe Slonim Synagogue, at 172 Norfolk St. on the Lower East Side, was commissioned for Congregation Anshe Chesed, the third Jewish congregation to be established in New York. This large and influential congregation was also the second group in New York to embrace the Jewish Reform movement.

The land the building stands on was once owned by peg leg Peter Stuyvesant, the Governor of New Amsterdam. He wanted to evict the Jews from the Dutch West India Company, saying, “The Jews who have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they—with their customary usury and deceitful trading with Christians—were very repugnant, and fearing that owing to their present indigence they might become a charge in the coming winter, we have deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart; praying most seriously that the deceitful race be not allowed further to infect and trouble this new colony.“His bigoted request was denied by the Dutch West India Company.

After his death the land went to his daughter Cornelia Stuyvesant. After she died the land ended up in the hands of Daniel Rhoades, who sold them to “The Trustees of the Congregation of Anshi Chesed,” on April 11, 1849.

Early members of the congregation were part of a wave of recent Ashkenazi—that is, European Jews—immigrants from Germany, Holland, and Poland, and were “of a low social and economic status” according to the preservation commission. It was once home to one of the city’s—and the country’s—largest Jewish congregations.

The neighborhood changed and the building faced neglect and disrepair over the years. In 1986 Spanish sculptor Angel Orensanz, who wandered by while looking for studio space fell in love with the then decrepit building. Every stained glass window was broken and vandals had caused severe damage. Regardless, he purchased the building for $500,000. He  installed water and electricity, replaced windows, and repaired the roof. He estimated that he poured $5 million into the restoration. He had a dream of converting the building into an artist colony, with living and studio space, but that never came to be. Instead in 1988  the Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts was officially inaugurated. Eventually it housed a studio for Orensanz and a gallery of his work. It is used as a arts, culture, and events center.

The building is a landmark of New York City Jewish history, its official Landmarks Preservation Commission status was bestowed in 1987. It no longer is home to a religious congregation but it is a home for those who worship the arts.

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.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Friends Meeting House

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In 1657 a “company of traveling ministers of the Society of Friends from England, first landed at New Amsterdam,” according to the February 1872 issue of The American Historical Record.  Their arrival did not sit well with Governor “Peg Leg” Peter Stuyvesant who passed an ordinance imposing a fine of 50 pounds on any person harboring a Quaker.  In 1892 The Sun’s Guide to New York added that Stuyvesant “used to banish their co-religions from New York after having them beaten and dragged at the tails of carts.”

By 1681 Quakers were openly worshiping and in 1734 they were granted the same civil rights as other British subjects. The Militia Act of 1755 exempted the pacifist group from serving in the military.

In an ironic twist that would have infuriated the governor, in 1860 the “Hicksite” Friends began construction of a three-story brick meeting house at 15 Rutherford Place and East 15th Street,  formerly part of Stuyvesant’s farm.   The building was completed in 1864, it was erected by congregation member Charles T. Bunting, a builder, and he is presumed to have been the architect as well.  The Greek Revival style was out of date by now, but the simple lines and unadorned lintels and sills spoke to the simplicity of the lifestyle of the Society.  A seminary building was erected next door..  It faces Stuyvesant Square, a four-acre section of the former farm which Peter Gerard Stuyvesant, the governor’s great-great-grandson, sold to the city for $5 in 1836 for use as a park.