Churches That Once Stood On Broadway

Of the many churches that formerly stood on lower Broadway, the three already described Trinity, St. Paul's, and Grace are all that remain. When Grace Church left Rector Street, the corner lot there was sold for $65,000. The following is a list of the churches that once stood on Broadway:

(1823) St. Thomas Episcopal, Houston Street, removed in 1870 to Fifth Avenue.
(1817) Broadway Congregational, corner of Anthony Street, dissolved.
(1845) Unitarian Church of the Divine Unity, between Prince and Houston Streets.
(1839 to 1865) Church of the Messiah, Unitarian, near Waverly Place. (1825) Scotch Baptist in a hall corner of Reade Street, and after several removals, again in Broadway near Bleecker Street.

Swedenborgian, near Rector Street, removed in 1816 near to Duane Street, and the Anglo-American Church of St. George the Martyr at Number 563; this last congregation, notwithstanding that it was assisted by Trinity, finally perished.

The Broadway Tabernacle

The Broadway Tabernacle, Congregational, stood for many years between Worth Street and Catherine Lane on the east side of Broadway. It was the scene of the May meetings, where William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and the gentle Quaker, Lucretia Mott, used to hold forth upon the iniquities of slavery and advocate its abolition. The Sacred Music Society, founded in 1823, gave oratorios and concerts in the Tabernacle, as did later musical organizations. In 1856, a great gathering of citizens was held in the Tabernacle to express their indignation at the assault on Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks while Sumner was at his seat in the United States Senate Chamber. The hall is said to have been the most convenient for
public meetings and entertainments, as well as for religious observances, of any in the city. In the same year as the Sumner meeting, the Tabernacle was sold by its congregation, which moved to the corner of Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street, and which has since migrated to Broadway and Fifty-sixth Street. In closing these paragraphs on the Broadway churches, it may be well to repeat the remark of an old writer, who said that the churches in general kept clear of the noise and bustle of Broadway and sought their sites in quieter localities.

The Grace Episcopal church

As we have come up Broadway from the Bowling Green, our course has been in a straight line; but after we have passed Canal Street, ever before our eyes and growing larger as we get farther north is a beautiful church steeple, rising apparently in the middle of the thoroughfare. We find the reason at Tenth Street, where Broadway changes its course and where stands Grace Episcopal Church, which was built here in 1846, after the removal of the congregation from Rector Street. By the plan of the commissioners of 1807, it was intended that the two main roads of the island, the Bowery and Broadway, should meet at the "Tulip tree," which was located in the present Union Square abreast of Sixteenth Street. It was found, however, that if Broadway were continued in its previous straight course, the meeting of the two roads would be below Fourteenth Street: and the line of the Middle Road was therefore changed at this point. Many suggestions have been made to cut Eleventh Street through the Grace Church property, but these have been unsuccessful, as the members of the congregation represent too much wealth and influence. Tweed told the church boldly that he was going to do it, and the church authorities told him to go ahead; but the street is not yet cut through. The church has been the scene of many fashionable weddings, and at several of these there have been scenes of crowding, spoilation of decorations, and exhibitions of bad manners which have made the New Yorker blush for the reputation of American women; for it has been the sensation-loving and uninvited women who have been the chief offenders.

Bloomingdale Reformed Dutch Church

The Bloomingdale Reformed Dutch Church at Sixty-eighth Street and Broadway is the successor of the original church established near the same site in 1805. It probably owed its birth to the prevalence of yellow fever in the city and the desire of those who fled to this locality to have church services. In 1813, Andrew Hopper, of whom we have already spoken, was married here a second time. Some generous elder of the church society gave to it a large plot of ground for a parsonage, and its increment in value saved the church from extinction. When the Boulevard was opened, the old church edifice was in its path and had to be removed; but the immense value to which the parsonage lot attained enabled the church society to erect the present beautiful structure.

Rutgers Riverside Presbyterian Church

Rutgers Riverside Presbyterian Church is at Seventy-third Street. It was first organized in 1796 under the name of Rutgers Presbyterian Church and had its origin in the desire of expansion on the part of the New York Presbytery after the recovery of the city by the Americans from the British. A lot was donated by Henry Rutgers of the Reformed, or Dutch Church upon his property at the corner of Rutgers and Henry Streets; and a frame edifice was built and opened on May 13, 1798. By 1841, the congregation had so increased that a stone church was built upon the same site; twenty years later, the neighborhood had so changed and the congregation had grown so small that the property passed to St. Teresa's Roman Catholic Church, which still occupies the same site. Rutgers formed a union with the Madison Avenue Church of that time at the corner of Madison Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street, which had been opened for public worship in 1844. In 1875, a new and larger structure was erected; but by 1881 the same conditions of change in population were met as in Henry Street, and the church was closed, to reopen six months later for a period of three years during which the church lost steadily. At the end of 1884, it was determined to close the historic church and dissolve the society, but another attempt to revive it was made in 1886. At the end of two years, it was seen that this effort also was fruitless, and it was determined to build west of Central Park. The church on Madison Avenue was sold to the Masons of the Ancient Scottish Rite; and the new chapel at the Boulevard and Seventy-third Street, under the name of Rutgers Riverside, was opened September 23, 1888, to be followed later by the present fine edifice, which was opened January 19, 1890.

Christ Protestant Episcopal Church

Christ Protestant Episcopal Church is also an historic church. It was organized in 1793 and was first placed on a site on Ann Street, which it vacated in 1823 to occupy a newly consecrated edifice in Anthony Street which had formerly been occupied by a theatre. The building in Ann Street was sold in 1827 to the Roman Catholics, then poor in wealth and population, and was long used by them as a church. The church in Anthony Street was completely destroyed by fire, July 30, 1847, but it was rebuilt and reoccupied until 1854, when the society moved to West Eighteenth Street, remaining there until 1859, when a new church was erected at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street. When this last edifice was burned in 1891, the society moved to its present location on the Boulevard. The original Ann Street structure was destroyed by fire in 1834.

All Saints Church and Slave Gallery

There is an old church in New York where still may be seen the "Slave gallery", a not uncommon appurtenance to churches of the early days. Very few New Yorkers even know that such things ever existed, so far have we traveled from these dark ages, but there, in the old church at Henry and Scammel Streets, All Saints' Church, is the tangible and visible evidence of this fact. It was the custom of some slave holders to send their human chattels to church for instruction in humility and obedience and in this gallery they were gathered together, entirely separated from their white masters. This is the only remaining slave gallery in this part of the country.

There are other antiquities in the old church which are interesting and historic, the only remaining "three decker chancel," consisting of reading desk for clerk, high pulpit for clergyman, and the small old altar behind; the original organ and the only remaining Colonial window in New York. There is also a collection of Dutch antiquities and manuscripts from 1624. The Netherlands Art Museum of the church, containing much interesting material, is under the direction of the vicar, the Rev. Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie.

Saint Paul's Chapel, 1766-1916

St. Paul's Chapel was one hundred and fifty years old October 30, 1916, and held an appropriate celebration on the occasion. Mayor Mitchell headed a procession consisting of the Sons of the Revolution, and the Society of the Cincinnati, which met in Fraunces Tavern and marched from the historic landmark to the famous old church which has filled so large a place in the history of our city and is held in such high esteem and affection by the people. President Wilson was represented by Col. E.M. House, and Gov. Whitman by Col. Lorillard Spencer. The pew Washington occupied when he worshipped here was decorated with American flags.

Memories of Washington, Lafayette and other heroes which cluster around this historic old church were revived and it was recalled that in the days when Washington worshipped in St. Paul's he used to walk from his residence in Cherry Street to the church and mingle among the people like any other good citizen. St. Paul's was then tree embowered and looked out on the sparkling waters of the Hudson, unobstructed by high buildings and undisturbed by the noises of modern street traffic. Great indeed have been the changes witnessed by this old church, but St. Paul's itself remains unchanged and preserves for us, amid the fast shifting scenes of the years something of the flavor of an age that is dear to old New Yorkers for its quaint simplicity and yet severe and unyielding rectitude.

The text from which Bishop David H. Greer preached on the Sunday of the celebration epitomizes better than anything that could be written the feelings of New Yorkers toward this old church. It was the same from which Dr. Samuel Auchmuty preached on the dedication of the chapel October 30, 1766: "Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."


Other Churches In The Area

The other churches in this vicinity south of Ninety-sixth Street are all of more recent organization. They are: Manhattan Congregational at Seventy-sixth Street, organized 1896; Roman Catholic Church of the Blessed Sacrament at the southeast corner of Seventy-first Street, organized 1887; the First Baptist Church at the northwest corner of Seventy-ninth Street, organized in 1891; and the Evangelical Lutheran church at the northeast corner of Ninety-fourth Street, organized 1897.

There are over 800 churches in Manhattan and the Bronx, ranging in seating capacity from 200 to 2,000. The Dutch Reformed Church (32 societies) has the oldest church organization in New York. The finest of its churches is the Third Collegiate, at Fifth Avenue and Forty-eighth Street, which owes its ample endowment to fortunate real estate investments. Other handsome
buildings of this denomination are the Bloomingdale Church, at Broadway and Sixty-eighth Street, and the Marble Church, at Fifth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street. Next in antiquity is the Protestant Episcopal Church (94 parishes). Something has already been said of the parent church, Trinity, of the new cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and of Grace Church. This denomination possesses a number of notable buildings, several of which are chapels of Trinity, built and supported out of its endowment.

Saint George's, the Transfiguration ( in Twenty-ninth Street near Madison Avenue). Saint Thomas's, and Saint Bartholomew's are all fine examples of ecclesiastical architecture. The most noted Presbyterian church (71 churches) is that known as the Fifth Avenue, at Fifty-fifth Street. The Madison Square Church and the Brick Church, at Fifth Avenue and Thirty-seventh Street, are among the strongest organizations of the denomination. The John Street Methodist Episcopal Church (62 Methodist Episcopal churches) occupies the site of the first of this denomination in America, and is known as the cradle of American Methodism. The most noted Baptist Church (49 churches) is that at Fifth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street.

Among the Congregational churches is the Tabernacle, whose trustees, having sold the old church building at Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street, are now building at Broadway and Fifty-sixth Street . All Souls', at Fourth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, is the oldest of the Unitarian churches, while the Divine Paternity, at Central Park West and Seventy-sixth Street, holds a similar position among the Universalist churches. There are 114 parishes of the Roman Catholic faith, the Cathedral of Saint Patrick, at Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth Street, being one of the finest church buildings of the city. The oldest of its churches is Saint Peter's, in Barclay Street, which stands upon the site of a chapel built in 1786. The first Jewish synagogue of the city (136 societies) was the Shearith Israel , founded about 1675, and now possessing a beautiful temple at Central Park West and Seventieth Street.

The Temple Emanu-El, at Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street, the Beth-El, at Fifth Avenue and Seventy-sixth Street, and the Temple Israel, in Harlem, are all fine buildings. Also noteworthy are the temples of the First Church of Christ (Scientist), Central Park West and Ninety-sixth Street, and of the Second Church, Central Park West and Sixty-eighth Street. The Young Men's Christian Association, which for 30 years had its headquarters at Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, has now finished a new house on the same street, west of Seventh Avenue. The association has fifteen branch buildings. That at Madison Avenue and Forty-fifth Street, for railroad employees, was erected by the late Cornelius Vanderbilt. The Young Women's Christian Association has a beautiful home at 7 East Fifteenth Street.