The Mysterious Blackwell Island Lighthouse

In 1828 New York City faced the problem of a smallpox epidemic as well as a lack of facilities for the mentally ill, convicts and debtors. The city fathers purchased the East River island on which James Blackwell ran his farm. For $32,500 they acquired adequate land to erect a smallpox hospital, an insane asylum, a debtors house and a prison.


Seven years after he had designed the breath-taking Grace Church on Broadway, James Renwick, Jr. was given the commission for the Smallpox Hospital, completed in 1850, the Workhouse, and the City Hospital. In 1872 he was consulted again, this time for a lighthouse on the northern point of the island.

Renwick designed a 50-foot tall Gothic structure using the same gray gneiss use for the other city-owned structures. The stone was quarried on site by the prisoners, greatly reducing the costs of the buildings. The octagonal lighthouse used rough-cut stones to imitate a centuries-old building; its entrance sheltered by a modest Gothic arch.

At this point the myth and the history of the Blackwell Island Lighthouse become blurred.

Two years before construction began, in 1870, the warden’s report of the Lunatic Asylum clearly indicated that an "industrious bur eccentric” inmate had constructed a well-built seawall which reclaimed marsh land. The warden commented that the patient “is very assiduous, and seems proud of his work, and he has reason to be, for it is a fine structure, strong and well built.”

Some legends contend that instead of a seawall the inmate, who feared a British invasion, built a fortress.

Whichever (if either) story is correct, the structure had to come down to make way for the lighthouse.

Traditional folklore on Roosevelt Island (the last name given to Blackwell Island) goes on to say that the inmate, John McCarthy, was bribed or paid to destruct his own fortress; and then he was given the allowance to build Renwick’s lighthouse.

The legend becomes more muddled when the name Thomas Maxey, Esq. is added to the mix. Both Maxey and McCarthy are named as the builder (Maxey was apparently also an inmate); and there is the possibility that both are the same man.

An inscription in stone at the lighthouse reads:

This is the work

Was done by

John McCarthy

Who built the Light

House from the bottom to the

Top All ye who do pass by may

Pray for his soul when he dies.

Whoever built the Blackwell Island Lighthouse did a professional job. Additionally, the concept of a single man building such a structure is difficult to accept. Nevertheless, there is no surviving documentation to confirm or refute the legend.

The lighthouse was in use (although occasionally not working) until around 1940. In the 1970s, when most of Roosevelt Island’s historic buildings were falling into disrepair, a modest restoration was done using private donations. A complete restoration was initiated in 1998 through an anonymous donation of $120,000, making the light functional again.

The mysterious lighthouse was designated a New York City Landmark in 1975, at which time the Landmarks Preservation Commission said “The rock-faced stone and the sparing uses of boldly scaled ornamental detail give the lighthouse the strength and character of a medieval fortification. In its isolated setting the lighthouse is a prominent and dramatic feature of Roosevelt Island.”

The Lost 1868 Dept of Public Charities & Correction -- No. 66 3rd Ave

NYPL Collection

By 1860 New York City was floundering in a disconnected tangle of public agencies.    Then on March 1 of that year The New York Timesreported on the formation of the Department of Public Charities and Correction—a title with a seemingly incongruous authority.

The new Department would consolidate and oversee the workings of numerous institutions:  The Colored Home, the Colored Orphan Asylum, the Lunatic Asylum, the Nursery Hospital, the Smallpox Hospital, the Work House, and the Penitentiary among them.  Despite the dizzying collection of responsibilities, the bill specifically excluded from its supervision “the House of Refuge, Juvenile Delinquent Asylum, the House of Detention for Witnesses, and the County and Sheriff’s Jail.”

Three Commissioners were appointed to run the new Department, each earning a comfortable $3,000 per year—about $63,000 today—and they were expected to run their organizations with proper Victorian rigor.    There was, for instance, a long list of rules regarding vagrants and paupers in the workhouse.  They were permitted to work alongside only those committed for intoxication or assault and battery.   An account was set up for each pauper, charging him for board and crediting him for his completed work.  Unruly inmates of the workhouse were fed only bread and water.

Children who were under the care of the Department for more than three months were to be “indentured.”   Because inmates worked for free, the Department’s regulations forbade “the employment of any hired help for cultivating the grounds beyond one professional gardener.  All the money which accrued from the sale of vegetables raised on the land under the control of the Department, is to be deposited with the City Chamberlain.”

And so it went.

On May 3, 1860 the Commissioners reported on the progress.   There were at the time 7,382 inmates in the various institutions and the Commissioners had set about cleaning house.  Ten of the keepers of the Penitentiary were fired and replaced,  and the same action was done in the Workhouse where six keepers lost their jobs.  The Warden of the City Prison was earning $1,750 per year and the Clerk there was earning $1,500.  The Commissioners reduced their salaries to $250.

If anyone thought that the new Commissioners of the Department of Public Charities and Correction were not serious about reforming the institutions, they were quickly corrected.

The Department rented rooms at No. 1 Bond Street for several years before funds were set aside for a permanent headquarters in 1868.   The site chosen was at No. 66 3^rdAvenue at the corner of 11^th Street and architect James Renwick was commissioned to design the new structure.  It was neither the first nor the last of the public buildings Renwick would design.   Blackwell’s Island (now Roosevelt Island) would fill with Renwick buildings—the Workhouse, the Lighthouse, the Charity Hospital and the Smallpox Hospital among them.

The architect produced a chunky two-story building with and up-to-date mansard roof.   The French Second Empire style had recently been imported from Paris and the roof gave the structure a sophisticated, cosmopolitan touch.  But the squat proportions and the conflicting base provided ample fodder for criticism.    A writer for The New York Times felt the heavy mansard roof was cumbersome and the proportions resulted in “the costly looking barn one might mistake it for at first sight.”

Department workers entered on 3^rd Avenue while the public used the entrance on 11^th Street.   The ponderous workload of the Department went on from its new headquarters, assumedly with more comfortable surroundings (the walls were finished in black walnut.)

Shortly after moving in to the new headquarters the Commissioners met.  The minutes reflect the unwieldy scope of responsibilities.   Among the issues addressed were “That all Emigrants with Relapsing Fever be retained on Hart’s Island;” the problem of “boys not being at work at tailors shop” on Randall’s Island;  the night watchman of Hart’s Island, L. Van Buskirk, was absent without leave and had not returned his pistol (his dismissal was ordered); an additional nurse was needed at the Lunatic Asylum;  the Lunatic Asylum needed five new boilers; and a hospital was established “on the corner of Chambers and Centre streets, for the reception and medical treatment of persons Sun struck, or taken ill from excessive heat in the lower portion of the city.”

The report from the Apothecary of Bellevue Hospital necessarily included the “consumption of liquors for April.”   That month 81 gallons of whiskey, 66 gallons of port wine and 471 gallons of ale were consumed in the hospital.  The report, sadly, did not disclose who drank the liquor, other than “5-1/4 galls. Whisky and 55 pints ale given to mechanics, etc., by order of the Commissioners.”

The Department was in charge of the education of boys for the trades.   To prepare young sailors, the School Ship Mercury, was operated under the Department’s charge.    The boys did not necessarily choose a sea-faring vocation, however.

The Department issued a report to Mayor A. Oakey Hall regarding the Mercury on September 12, 1871 explaining the selection of the crew.   Some, it said, had been committed to the care of the Commissioners by the courts “for slight misdemeanors and vagrancy.  Others, and in large numbers, had been committed by their parents as incorrigible, or because of evil associates, who were leading them to ruin.”  The lawless boys, the Commissioners felt, “could not without a long probationship be recommended as apprentices, because of their wayward and reckless character, nor could they be discharged without the probability that they would again become vagrants, or fall into their former wicked associations.”  So they were loaded onto the Mercury to learn to be a sailor.

Incorrigible boys were sent off on the Mercury to learn sailing (copyright expired)

Boys put on the Mercury could not expect to see New York again for, sometimes, a year.  “The only effectual mode of instruction is the continuous handling of a ship at sea,” said the report, “and that the manifold duties of a thorough seaman can only be learned by actual service.”  The report outlined the cruise that had begun on December 20, 1870.   The boys took the ship to the Madeira Islands, then to the Canaries, then on to Sierra Leone.   From there they sailed to Barbados before returning to New York.

In 1880 the Commissioners Report reflected the struggle the Department had in keeping up with the burgeoning population and the resultant medical and charity cases.    The Pavilion for Insane was overcrowded and “we are obliged to place more than one patient in a room.  This is to be regretted, from the fact that this class of patients when admitted, become very much excited and often violent; such cases it is necessary to place under mild restraint, which, under the circumstances, cannot be avoided.”

The report noted that a separate pavilion for alcoholics was needed.  That year “the number of cases admitted suffering from alcoholism was 1,565, of which 45 died.”

Shortly after 1895 the Department left its 3^rdAvenue headquarters.  A separate Department of Corrections had been established, relieving the Department of an enormous work load.   Around this time orphaned and abandoned children were put under the care of the Out-Door Poor.   The Charity Organization Society of the City of New York approved of the move, but felt it did not fully address the problem.

“This was an improvement of course, on the former practice, since the children, while waiting, associated only with tramps, paupers and sick people, instead of with prostitutes and criminals but it was bad enough,” said the Society’s report in 1901. 

To address the situation, the Bureau of Dependent Children was established by Commissioner Keller in January 1899.  The Bureau took over the building at 3^rdAvenue and 11^th Street.   The organization realized early on that one of its most crucial tasks would be weeding out parents who tried to use the Bureau as a convenient dumping ground for unwanted babies.

Such was the case in April 1900 when jeweler Wilbur F. Hammond walked in with a two-month old baby.   The man told Superintendant Blair that he had gotten off the 23^rdStreet Ferry from Jersey City, walked about four feet and noticed the child lying against the wall.   After he waited approximately 45 minutes and no one came to claim the child, he took it to the New York Foundling Hospital.

The Hospital refused to accept the infant and sent Hammond to the Bureau.   Now, sitting before a suspicious Superintendent Blair, he was asked if he wouldn’t like to adopt the child.  No, he answered, “but he was willing to pay for his care,” reported The New York Times.

Hammond’s story began unraveling when cabbie Thomas McDonald came forth saying that a man and a woman (she “veiled and well dressed), disembarked from the 23^rd Street Ferry and asked to be taken to the Foundling Asylum.   The man got out of the cab with a baby and the woman was driven to the elevated railway at 67^thStreet and 3^rd Avenue.   There was only one baby brought into the Foundling Hospital that day; a fact that pointed to Hammond as the man.

Employees of the ferry terminal said Hammond’s story was “preposterous.”  Instead of the lonely station he described, the terminal teemed with “several hundred people.    Police became involved and Hammond faced a seven-year prison term for abandoning a child under six years of age.

The careful scrutiny of every case resulted in similar discoveries.  In 1908 10,519 children were brought to the Bureau.  Of them only 3,269 were accepted.

The city sold the building—now a half-century old—in 1917.  Automobiles crowded New York City streets and parking, as now, was a problem.   The old Department headquarters was unceremoniously converted to a garage and its mansard roof, controversial in 1868, was demolished.    Throughout the 20^th century the humiliation continued with glass brick replacing the window openings—no doubt with security in mind.

Yet amazingly the building survived until 1989 when Loew’s Theater Management leased the corner property.  Before long one of James Renwick’s surviving structures, already forgotten, was replaced by a cinema complex.

James Renwick's building was replaced by a concrete-and-glass theater complex -- photo by Alice Lum

The Lost Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum -- 5th Avenue and 51st Street

The Male Orphan Asylum sat on rocky, ungraded ground where today Cartier Jewelers and the Olympic Towers stand. -- sketch from the Archdioces of New York Archives.

When the immense Croton Reservoir was opened in June 1842 on Fifth Avenue at 42^nd Street it stood atop Murray Hill well north of the developed city.    Fifth Avenue was graded and improved up to this point, allowing carriages of well-dressed citizens to travel back and forth for Sunday promenades on the reservoir's broad rim.

But above 42^nd Street there was even less development.   A Potter’s Field was located just off Fifth Avenue, to the east, with irregular boundaries from about 48^th to 50^thStreets.  Years later when excavation of the land was done along Madison Avenue the remains of bodies, thrown without coffins into trenches were discovered.    John D. Crimmins would remember that “Hundreds of barrels of bones were removed from the field to Hart’s Island.”

The same year that the Croton Reservoir was opened, a little frame church—the Church of St. John the Evangelist—was erected on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 50^th Street.   Later the magnificent white marble St.Patrick’s Cathedral would take its place.  But for now the area was bucolic and sparsely populated.

Nearly thirty years earlier, in 1817, the Roman Catholic Benevolent Society was organized.   Run by the Sisters of Charity, it guaranteed that Catholic foundlings and orphans would not be lost to the faith by being taken in by a Protestant organization.   The first building, at Prince and Mulberry Streets, had accommodations for 30 “inmates.”   The influx of children was such that a new building was quickly acquired on Prince Street, which then had to be enlarged.

Finally, in 1845, Archbishop John Hughes approached the city for a more permanent solution.   The rural and rolling meadows around St. John the Evangelist offered fresh air and hilltop breezes.  That, coupled with the location’s remoteness and low property value, created the perfect spot for an orphanage.  The city gave Hughes a lease on the block of land from Fifth to Madison Avenue, between 51^st and 52^nd Streets.  The agreement, dated August 1, 1846, stipulated that the land would be used only to shelter orphans, and rent would be one dollar per year. 

Although construction of the four-story brick-and-stone edifice was completed before 1851, it was not immediately utilized.  According to the Catholic World later, in 1886, “But Archbishop Hughes would not allow it to be occupied until it was entirely free from debt, which was fortunately accomplished through a legacy of $25,000 under the will of Peter Harmony, a wealthy Spanish merchant.”

Based on its similarities to buildings he designed on Blackwell’s Island—like the Gothic-style Small-Pox Hospital—it is highly possible that the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum (originally called the Male Orphan Asylum) was designed by James Renwick, Jr.     When it opened in 1851 the facility had accommodations for 500 boys. 

The boys-only institution would quickly see the neighborhood start to change.  A year later Archbishop Hughes acquired most of the block directly to the south of the orphanage and in 1853 bought the corner belonging to the Church of St. John the Evangelist.  The gears were now engaged; grinding into motion the archbishop’s monumental dream of erecting the most lavish and costly church in the city—St. Patrick’s Cathedral—designed by Renwick.

While Hughes’s dramatic cathedral rose, the boys next door received instruction in all the areas of education that the public schools covered.    But the Asylum educated its boys within a military structure.   The orphans were taught military drills, officers were promoted among them, and rigid military discipline was expected.

The Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum depended mostly on private donations to operate.  In order to prove to its benefactors that their money was well-spent, the facility hosted an “Annual Exhibition” during which the boys’ education and progress were proudly put on display.    On June 24, 1859 the exhibition, deemed by The New York Times to be “a pleasant entertainment,” was presented to a host of wealthy citizens, politicians and clergy. 

The Times said “The boys, to the number of some five hundred—clean, smart, sharp, lively lads, all—went through their annual exhibition in presence of a large and distinguished audience.”  The boys performed their lessons in the large auditorium in front of some of New York’s wealthiest and most influential citizens.

“The boys were exceedingly prompt and accurate in their answers, and exhibited an extent of information, a correctness of deportment, and a discipline so thorough, that they surprised their warmest and most indulgent friends.  There were songs, recitations, dialogues, literary exercises, questions in orthography, parsing, geography, history, arithmetic, algebra,--an opening address and valedictories,--which were each and all very cleverly done and immensely applauded.”

The boys closed the display with a “scene from the Revolution.”  The orphans dressed in Continental Army costumes and acted out a little drama.  “The rear of the troop was brought up by four little urchins—none of them over three years of age—who toddled along in a most uncertain manner, and whose movements excited more attention, and occasioned more laughter, than any other event of the day,” reported The Times.

In his remarks to the children, Archbishop Hughes touched upon the Victorian prejudice against orphans.   He said that certain people “even in this Christian community, and with the hearts of men beating in their bosoms, have indicated a certain amount of low jealousy in your regards;” but he said should they had seen the boys that day, “if they ever had enmity against the orphan, they would go away today converted.”

In 1862, while work on the Cathedral was grinding to a stop because of the Civil War, a “violent storm,” as described by The New York Times, savaged New York City on February 25.   The gale hit the harbor with the strength of a hurricane, sinking or damaging ships.   In the city chimneys and signboards were blown down and buildings were damaged—one five story building recently completed on Avenue A was demolished by the winds, burying a worker inside.  On Fifth Avenue the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum “was unroofed.”

The roof was replaced in time for the annual exhibition.   The political mood of the day due to the War of Aggression raging in the South, was reflected in the boys’ offerings.  “A speech called ‘Union’ and also one entitled ‘Taxes,’ met with the most demonstrative appreciation from the loyal audience,” reported The Times.  The boys’ band, consisting of 60 pieces of brass and stringed instruments, led off “by playing some patriotic aims, and afterward accompanying the vocalization.”

The auditorium was patriotically-decorated in the height of mid-Victorian taste.  “The large exhibition hall was tastefully draped in hangings of red, white and blue, of light and tissue-like fabric.  The stage had heavier emblems of silk and gold, with stars and stripes unblemished by division.”  At the back was a heavy foliage of evergreens, against which were placed in vivid contrast, the field and garden flowers of the season.  About the hall were placed hot-house blooms and rarer growths, which made the atmosphere redolent with perfume.”

The newspaper commented on the condition of the facility.  “The Asylum is in a healthful condition, not overcrowded or at present subjected to any embarrassment in funds.”

In 1865 the Asylum received a large endowment in the will of Peter Boland for the establishment and maintenance of a farm/industrial school.  The Boland Farm was established near Peekskill under the operation of the Brothers of the Christian Schools where the orphaned boys learned trades that would enable them to survive in the world once they left.

Meanwhile, the military schooling of the boys was evident in the annual exhibition of 1866.  “After the exhibition the boys, who were tastily dressed, many of them in military fashion…marched around the ground reviewed by a large number of friends, who crowded the balconies and piazzas of the building, and by the good ladies who were pleasant spectators of the pleasing proof, in their crowded rooms and grounds of the public appreciation of their devotion, to these lonely little ones.”

In 1875 wealthy families came together to support the Asylum when two performances were staged at the Academy of Music for its benefit.   The entertainments were “largely attended” and around $6,000 was collected—around $115,000 in today’s dollars.

Renwick & Sands was commissioned to design a Girls Asylum on the eastern end of the block, fronting Madison Avenue, which was opened in 1886.   Between the two hulking buildings was the grassy lot and drill field.  The Catholic World noted that “The asylum now includes the Male Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue, the Female Orphan Asylum on Madison Avenue, and the Boland Farm…Half-orphans as well as orphans are received in all three institutions.”   At the time there were a total of 964 inmates, “273 orphans and 691 half-orphans” being cared for.

Renwick & Sands designed the Madison Avenue-fronting Girls' Asylum -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW3HIBC&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=605

In 1889 $45,000 was spent in renovating the aging boys’ asylum.   The expensive repairs did not include vermin extermination, apparently, and on February 12, 1890 a rat busied itself “building a nest between the beams of the attic flooring and using matches in its construction,” according to Fire Department experts.  The result was a fire that broke out in the attic around 8:00 in the morning.

The military training of the boys proved valuable.  “In a few seconds nuns, servants, and children, thanks to instruction in fire drill and the drill of the cadet corps of 200 of the boys by gallant little “Colonel” Robert Johnson were doing precisely what they should do with the coolness and precision of automatons,” reported The New York Times.  The boys pushed beds and lugged bedding out of the building; while others helped the nuns in the chapel “completely dismantle the altar and carry all that could be moved from it to the rear of the parlor in the centre of the building."

When the Fire Patrol had the flames under control, “’Col.’ Johnson called a retreat, mustered all the boys on the playground, and marched them to the Female Orphan Asylum, where they formed in order and remained until told to return to their classrooms.”

The neighborhood was now lined with opulent mansions and concerned socialites rushed to the scene.  The wealthy women “remained and helped the nuns until studies were resumed in the classrooms.”  Fire damage amounted to between $8,000 to $9,000 to the building and $3,000 to $4,000 in property.

The cathedral was completed when this photograph was taken.  Trees line the grounds of the orphanage.   The high main exterior staircase can be seen.  photo from the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York's 1915 pamphlet "Fifth Avenue-Glances at the Vicissitudes and Roman of a World-Renowned Thoroughfare" (copyright expired)

The complex would be enlarged once again when on October 2, 1892 the cornerstone was laid for the Boland Trade School, an extension of the boys’ orphanage, on the opposite side of Madison Avenue.   “In the laying of this cornerstone the Board of Managers of the orphan asylum see the solution of a problem which has long perplexed them.  That problem has been what to do with boys when it was time to send them out into the world to earn their own livings,” said The Times.

The new $175,000 building and trade school would include dormitories for 200 more boys.  “Only the larger boys will study in the trade school, the younger ones being taught in the regular classes now.”

When the Constitutional Convention’s Sub-Committee on Charities and Education visited the orphanage on June 13, 1894 there were 52 Sisters of Charity manning the institutions—26 each at the Girls’ and Boys’ asylums.   The women were currently caring for 895 children.

“The committeemen were soon fascinated by the details of the management of the asylum and its school system,” said The Times, “and noted the clean floors, thorough arrangements for supplying provender for the young folks, the system of ablutions by which each child, to avoid ophthamalia, has a numbered towel, and the ample accommodation for the sick.”

That year at Christmas the orphans were treated to the fruits of kindly donations.  “An enormous chicken pie at either end of the table, a half score of gigantic turkeys placed at intervals, more chicken pies, and red pools of cranberry sauce, and mountains of bread and mounds of butter, cased round eyes to brighten, cheeks to flush to a shade rivaling the blush of the cranberry sauce, and little hearts to beat with unusual palpitations of joy at the Roman Catholic orphan asylum for little girls at Fiftieth Street and Madison Avenue,” reported The Times.  “The little ones in the institution for male orphans, at Fiftieth Street and Fifth Avenue, had dinner with the girls, and had an equally good time.”

“Many friends of the little orphans prepared for the day by contributing thousands of toys, articles for wear, hats, hoods, handkerchiefs, etc…[The orphans’] unhappiness was forgotten in the joy of the day’ their parentless condition was lost sight of in the kindly care of the sisters who are intrusted [sic] with their bringing up, and the cold and hunger of many in the recent past was not thought of.”

In 1896 St. Luke’s Hospital was demolished.  Like the orphanage, it took up an entire Fifth Avenue blockfront between 54^th and 55^thStreets.   The now-valuable real estate was quickly snatched up by millionaires and the exclusive University Club, which set McKim, Mead & White to work designing its new clubhouse on the site.   The potentially-lucrative real estate under the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum did not go unnoticed as well.

On April 5, 1896 The New York Times ran the headline “Blots on Fifth Avenue” with the sub-headline “Insignificant Buildings on Very Valuable Ground.”  The article complained “The antiquated buildings of the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, on the block between Fifty-first and Fifty-second Streets, seem to be out of place after one has observed the stately proportions of the cathedral and the costly mansions of the Vanderbilts, near by, and most persons would have the impression that the children sheltered there would be happier on extensive grounds somewhere away from the noise and dust of the city.”

By now the Board of Managers of the asylum had acquired the land from the city; however the city’s consent was required before the property could be sold.   On March 16, 1897 the Board of Aldermen met to consider a petition for the consent of the city to sell the Asylum property.    John D. Crimmins, chairman of the committee in charge of dispensing of the land, told reporters “It is estimated that the block should bring $2,000,000.”

The drastic change in the neighborhood can be seen in this 1898 view taken from the Asylum's grounds.  Beyond the fence of the orphanage are seen the lavish mansions of the Vanderbilt families.  Note the elegant carriages passing by on Fifth Avenue -- photo by Byron Co., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW3HIBC&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=605

In January 1899 the trustees of the Orphan Asylum took title to property in Fordham Heights as the site of a new facility.   The news perked the attention of millionaires and developers alike.   But another incident at the orphanage grounds also caused a stir.

On March 29 that year a steer broke loose from one of the cattle transport boats docked at the piers around East 42^ndStreet.  The reddish-brown bull (“not any particular breed—just plain steer,” said The Times) ended up in the enclosed grounds between the Girls’ and Boys’ Asylums.  It resulted in an impromptu rodeo made up of policemen and “venturesome civilians” who tried to subdue the beast.

The gates to the Asylum grounds were closed “and the chase began, a sight to thrill the breasts of the romantic and recall the age of chivalry,” reported the newspaper.  “A crowd of many hundreds of people soon gathered outside the grounds and urged on the toreadors as madly as ever a Spanish crowd applauded their favorite bullfighter.”

The bull fought an admirable battle and several men were tossed off their feet.  “Whenever an unfortunate landed in the shrubbery and it was seen that he was not much hurt, the crowd was visibly amused.  Fortunately, the 550 orphan boys of the asylum were all in class at the rear rooms of the building and could not look on and add their voices to the chorus—‘Bully for the bull!’ on such occasions.  Indeed, they knew nothing of the tragedy in process of being enacted until the curtain had been rung down.”

The tragedy, at least for the bull, was the penalty of death for his escape from the cattle boat.  Although he, at first, was slated to become beef steaks for the orphans, police headquarters had the carcass held for its rightful claimant.

By October the orphanage trustees were being flooded with offers for the real estate.  “A matter of considerable interest to real estate men is the final disposition of the old Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum property at Fifth avenue and Fifty-first street,” noted The Sun on October 8.  “A number of offers have been made for the site, but the trustees have as yet accepted none of these.  The rumors which have been in circulation for several days regarding a sale of the property can be traced in all probability to a meeting of the trustees held yesterday afternoon when the offers so far received were discussed but not adopted.”

Finally as the 19^th century turned into the 20^th, the building plots were sold off.  The Vanderbilt family purchased the Fifth Avenue frontage, thereby ensuring their homes on the opposite side of the street would not be sullied by commercial structures.  Before long the elegant Morton Plant mansion would occupy the northern corner, the exclusive Union Club would rise on the southern end, and between them George W. Vanderbilt constructed two lavish white marble twin mansions.

Two mansions (at left), now converted for business, survive from the first period of construction following the demolition of the Asylum -- photo by Alice Lum

Today only the northern portion of the block survives from that early phase of construction.  The Morton Plant mansion houses Cartier jewelers and one of Vanderbilt’s marble twins remains as Versace’s flagship store.

St. Patrick's Cathedral -- 5th Avenue at 50th Street

The newly-finished, gleaming white marble Cathedral sat next to a yet-undeveloped plot.  Across Fifth Avenue is the lawn of a mansion -- photo Library of Congress

James Renwick, Jr. was 25-years old when he received the commission to design Grace Church in 1843.  An engineer, he had no training as an architect and had, to date, designed only a fountain in Bowling Green.  Renwick did not disappoint, however.   Completed in 1846, Grace Church was a masterpiece – the first major Gothic Revival structure in the U.S. 

Within the year he had designed the Smithsonian Institution Building, often referred to as the Renwick Castle.   The architect would, for the rest of his life, be a busy man.   But he would hold none of his designs in greater importance than the masterful St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The first Archbishop of New York, John Hughes, summoned Renwick in 1853 to start plans for a replacement to the Cathedral on Mott Street which had been completed in 1815.  Although the existing St. Patrick’s Cathedral was the largest church in the city, the Archbishop yearned for a more magnificent church.

The land Hughes had selected for the site, on 5^th Avenue between 50^th and 51^st Streets, was well north of the established city, resulting in skeptics calling it “Hughes’ Folly.”    Renwick went to work on the drawings which, according to Archbishop John Murphy Farley’s 1908 history of the Cathedral, “were changed several times until 1858, when they were definitely agreed upon.”

With the plans approved, the Archbishop presented Renwick and his assisting architect William Rodrique (who coincidentally or not married Hugh’s sister Margaret) with contracts.  Each would receive $2,500 a year for eight years and the Archbishop had the right to suspend or discontinue the building at will.  It was a highly unusual arrangement; although financially advantageous for Renwick.

The plans that were “definitely agreed upon” were for a soaring, white marble Gothic Revival structure that would compete with the great medieval structures of Europe.     The cost of construction was fixed with the Hall and Joyce Company, the builders, at $850,000 and a contract was signed on March 5, 1859 with the stipulation that the construction would be finished on or before January 1, 1867.

The cornerstone had been laid on August 15, 1858, half a year before the contracts were finalized.  The immense structure rose steadily filling the 5^th Avenue block towards Madison Avenue.  Then in 1861 the Civil War broke out.  As the conflict worsened more and more of the men of New York abandoned their jobs to fight for the Union.  Eventually work on the Cathedral stopped completed.

Archbishop Hughes would not live to see his magnificent Cathedral rise above 5^th Avenue.  He died in 1864, succeeded by Bishop John McCloskey who would take up the project as construction commenced again after the war.  Two decades after it was begun, St. Patrick’s Cathedral was dedicated on May 25, 1879. 

Harper's Weekly featured Archbishop Hughs' funeral in the unfinished Cathedral in 1864.

The new Cathedral had a seating capacity of 18,000 and every seat was filled at 10:00 when McCloskey, by now a Cardinal, and an entourage of bishops and priests processed up the aisle.  One hundred and twenty five policemen were positioned around the building to keep order.  A local newspaper described it as “the noblest temple ever raised in any land to the memory of Saint Patrick, and as the glory of Catholic America.”

The Cathedral as depicted in an 1890 print -- Library of Congress

The white marble church stretched 332 feet to the east, sitting on a base course of Maine granite.    Although the Cathedral was officially opened, the soaring spires – rising 330 feet above the avenue -- would not be completed until October 1888. 

In 1900 construction was started on the glorious Lady Chapel.   Designed by Charles T. Mathews, it was completed in 1908 and a year later the first of the chapel’s stained glass windows was installed.  It would be 25 years before the windows were completed. 

The original estimate of construction fell sorely short.  The spires alone cost $200,000 and by the time the Lady Chapel was completed Archbishop Farley estimated the cost at $4 million.

Generally hailed as a masterpiece of design, the Cathedral was not adored by everyone.   Art and architecture critic Helen W. Henderson was known to be brutally frank in her sometimes snobbish opinions.   

 The 75 stained glass windows were created, for the most part, in the studios of Nicholas Lotin at Chartes and of Henry Ely at Nantes.  Henderson complained “The modern French and Roman windows, which to the eye of the later criticism, impair the beauty of the simple interior, were considered something most desirable in their day, and their completion was hastened in order that they might be shown at the Centennial Exhibition, of 1876, where they were a feature much admired.”

She admitted that the St. Patrick window – donated by Renwick – “has at least an antiquarian interest.”  In the lower panel of that window is a depiction of Renwick presenting the plans of the Cathedral to Cardinal McCloskey.   She found the priceless windows of the Lady Chapel the “only windows of aesthetic interest in the church.”

Potted trees line the sidewalk as a well-dressed crowd watches the procession into the Cathedral for its consecration in 1911 -- Library of Congress

The Cathedral was the scene of a major scare when, on St. Patrick’s Day 1918, a crowd of thousands was assembled awaiting the parade.   Everyone remembered the bomb that had been discovered in the church on March 2, 1915 and anarchism was a constant threat.  Suddenly the throng was panicked by an enormous chunk of a stone spire that broke loose.  The largest piece crashed through the roof, breaking through the organ loft inside.  Outside, large stone fragments showered down on the masses.

“The crash and roar of the big missile caused fear that the whole great structure had been dynamited and might topple into the street,” reported The New York Times.  As the dignitaries in the reviewing stand stampeded to get away, Congressman Thomas F. Smith suffered a broken wrist as he was knocked to the ground.

The 1915 bomb would not be the last of the threats to the Cathedral.    In January 1951 a letter was received announcing that a bomb would be set off at a Sunday mass.   And between December 1951 and July 1952 there would be five more bomb threats.   On July 12, a deep-voiced male voice ordered the Rev. Edward Connors “get them out,” referring to worshipers in the Cathedral.  Thirty minutes later he phoned again, warning “your beautiful cathedral will be blown up before midnight.”

St. Patrick’s Cathedral has always been a work in process.   In 1927 Cardinal Hayes initiated an ambitious $2 million renovation project that included an enlarged sanctuary, rebuilt choir gallery, new organs in the gallery and chancel, new nave flooring and pews and a new baptistery.  Two decades later Cardinal Spellman added new upper windows, a new high altar and a replacement altar in the Lady Chapel and extensive exterior stone restoration.

Hayes also commissioned the great bronze doors  which were felt to be more “in keeping with the rest of the building.”  Seventeen of the 19 altars as well as the Stations of the Cross were repaired, cleaned and repolished.  

The great bronze doors weigh over 20,000 pounds each; yet they are so balanced that they can be opened with a single hand.  Sculptures of saints and "blessed people" grace the panels. -- photo by St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Restoration of the entire interior was done in 1972, the exterior was restored in 1979 and in 1984 a six-year structural repair process was begun.  This included replacement of much of the roof, resetting of the exterior steps, refinishing the doors, restoring the bells and rebuilding the organs.

Throughout the years the Cathedral has been the focal point of protestors railing against the Viet Nam War, the discontinuance of the Latin mass and, of course, the annual protests of Gay Rights advocates to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Despite Helen Henderson’s criticisms of the great cathedral, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission said of it “St. Patrick’s Cathedral represents the epitome of the Gothic Revival in New York City” and called it “A marvel of architectural design for its day.”

Renwick's 1884 St. Mark's Memorial Chapel -- 288 East 10th Street

Peter Gerard Stuyvesant and his wife Hellen Rutherford Stuyvesant were childless. As Stuyvesant aged, he worried that the distinguished family name would die out. His sister, Judith Stuyvesant Winthrop, had one male great-grandson.  His name was Stuyvesant Rutherford.

In the boy, Stuyvesant – who was the great-great grandson of Petrus Stuyvesant, Director-General of the colony of New Netherland – recognized his last chance.  When he died in 1847, he left one-third of his imposing estate to the then 4-year old boy; on the condition that his name be changed to Rutherford Stuyvesant.

And so it was.

The Stuyvesant land covered much of what is now known as the East Village. During the 19th century what had been rolling farmland was developed with row houses, commercial buildings and tenements. After the Civil War, German immigrants crowded in, creating a lively and colorful neighborhood.

In the meantime, Rutherford Stuyvesant married Mary Rutherford Pierrepont on October 13, 1863. She was the daughter of the prestigious and wealthy Henry Evelyn and Anna Jay Pierrepont of Brooklyn. Their lives together were happy and loving; but then on New Year’s Eve 1879, the expectant Mary went into labor.  Neither Mary nor the infant survived.

In deep grief, Stuyvesant planned a monument to his wife. He arranged to build a memorial chapel connected with St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, the Episcopal church built by Peter Stuyvesant in 1795 on his farm land.

Stuyvesant chose a large plot of land at the corner of East 10th Street and Avenue A where a small St. Mark’s mission structure already stood. He hired the eminent architect James Renwick, Jr. who was already responsible for the magnificent Grace Episcopal Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Renwick worked with W. H. Russell in creating an edifice far removed from those lacy Gothic churches.

Begun in 1882, it was constructed of red-orange brick and abundant terra cotta trim of a nearly-matching hue. The building drew on several of the prevailing styles of the day: Romanesque, Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, Queen Anne and Eastlake.

The great mass facing Avenue A was broken by stepped dormers, a multi-level roofline and terra cotta courses separating the floors. A dramatic Gothic entrance separated the chapel from the school and administrative sections. A tall, impressive bell tower rose above the roof to a pyramidal cap.

The building was finished in 1884 at a cost of $200,000.  Three hundred and fifty worshipers could be seated on the main floor with another 100 in the gallery. The Avenue A side housed the library and reading room, a day school, kindergarten and day nursery and a Sunday school room that spanned the entire length of the building at the ground floor. The New York Times remarked that “it is a very cheerful and attractive place of worship.”

The Avenue A side housed the classrooms and library.

The chapel was immediately heavily involved in social and charitable works. It was home to the Guild of the Good Samaritan, which provided “physical air and medical attendance, etc., to the needy and sick poor in the neighborhood.” The Ladies’ Benevolent Society provided sewing for poor women, and the library with its 1,200 volumes provided free books. A Loan Relief Association was available when neighbors could not pay their rent, buy coal or medicine and other emergencies. Also here was the Parish Association that provided care and training of children, sought jobs for the unemployed and cared for the sick and aged.

In 1897 the forward-thinking Rev. Dr. J. H. Rylance was rector at St. Mark’s Memorial Chapel. He closed the parochial school which took up two full floors because it “was found to be competing with the public schools.” He initiated the eyebrow-raising “pleasant Sunday hour;” a meeting in the library every Sunday afternoon with literary and musical entertainment.

According to The Times, “The position of the Rev. Dr. Ryland on the Sunday question is well known. He is strongly in favor of making Sunday a day, as he expresses it, of ‘religion, rest, and recreation.’ The pleasant Sunday hour is therefore a practical experiment of the rector’s ideas.”

Ryland went on to introduce mothers’ meetings, boys’ and girls’ clubs, day nursery and a saving fund. The same year he had the chapel frescoed and painted and installed a modern heating system.

A grotesque face peers from amidst intricate terra cotta foliage below a plaque of a lion, the symbol of St. Mark.

The St. Mark’s Memorial Chapel would not enjoy the new paint job and heating system for long. By 1909 it had been taken over by the Holy Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church.

On a cold January 4th, 1921 200 unemployed men marched north from the Bowery at the Manhattan Bridge. They formed two groups of 100 men each and marched in military formation, tattered and unwashed, towards East 10th Street. When they were stopped by a police officer, they explained there were merely “going to church” and he allowed them proceed.

Upon arriving at the church, they found the chapel door open. The men marched into the main building and took up quarters in the gymnasium, reception hall and music room. With no jobs and no homes, they had no place to go.

The Rev. Dr. Guthrie of St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery was quick to give his opinion of the “problem.” While he admitted that the “use of a church for any except strictly religious uses is worse than a crime—it is a blunder, a violation of psychology,” he quickly added “could any Christian minister in his senses demand that they go forth into the night because the church is consecrated and unable to yield them emergency shelter? I hardly think so.”

And then he pointed the finger at city government. “Can a great, generous community like ours afford to have inadequate means for sheltering with self-respect the helpless and homeless? Should it merely regret the hard time and let the unemployed starve? Perish with cold? Build jails and asylums for the criminal and insane, hospitals for the sick, and have no provision for the non-criminal, sane, and well who cannot find work?”

In 1925 the newly-formed congregation of St. Nicholas of Myra Church rented the building. Part of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese, it made Rutherford Stuyvesant’s chapel its home, finally purchasing the building in 1937. Large copper Orthodox crosses were erected on three of the gable peaks.

The handsome church continues to be used by the Russian Orthodox congregation today. Immaculately maintained, it is a wonderful example of late Victorian religious architecture, deemed by the Landmarks Preservation Commission as “lively and picturesque.”

photographs taken by the author