The Lost Van den Heuvel Mansion -- Broadway at 78th Street

watercolor from the collection of the New York Public Library

Far from his homeland of Holland, Jan Cornelius Van den Heuvel was doing quite well for himself in Demerara until 1790.  He was the governor of that Dutch colony on the Demerara River in South America (Demerara would later become Georgetown and the colony British Guiana).   In addition to his governmental position, he owned two plantations and established himself as a Dutch West India merchant.   According to a historian over a century later, he had “made a fortune.”

But he made a life-changing decision in 1790 to leave Demerara.  The colony was being ravaged by a yellow fever epidemic and he sailed to New York City to wait out the danger.   Van den Heuvel brought with him his wife, son Jacob Adriaen, and two daughters, Charlotte and Margaret.  Another son, Isaac Guysbertus Herman van den Heuvel, still lived in the Hague. 

According to the New-York Tribune decades later “he intended to remain in New-York only a little while and return to his home, but he was charmed with the country” and stayed.  It was probably not merely the charm of the country that induced Van den Heuvel to remain in New York.  He quickly established himself as a major player in New York trade and finance.  The former governor purchased a home at No. 87 Liberty Street; then began scouting out property for a country estate—a must-have for New York’s wealthiest citizens.

In 1792 his wife, Justina Henrietta Baerle Van den Heuvel purchased 400 acres from James McEvers in the Bloomingdale area of upper Manhattan.  The rolling country was named by Dutch settlers “Bloemendael” and was dotted with the estates of the gentry as well as long-standing farms of the old Dutch families.

The Van den Heuvels’ closest neighbor was Charles Apthorpwho had sold the parcel in 1767.  Writers for decades would credit Van den Heuvel (he took on the Anglicized “John”) with erecting the fine mansion on the land.  But early documents point to the fact that the house was already there.

Around 1819 Charles Etienne Pierre Motte created the charming "Mr. Van Den Heuvel's Country Seat" -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWRER3BZ&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

When Apthorp had sold the parcel to McEvers on October 30, 1767, the deed listed “houses, outhouses, kitchens, barns and stables” on the property.  “Valentine’s Manual of the City of New York” would impress in 1918 that evidence suggested that the mansion “was built by Apthorp, instead of by Van den Heuvel as has been assumed.”

Whichever man was responsible for the house, it was a grand summer manor.  Two stories tall with a steep gabled roof it was constructed entirely of “solid stone.”  Black oak logs from the property were stripped of their bark and used as supporting beams beneath the structure.  To compensate for the natural tapered shape of the logs, wooden wedges were used to build up the narrower ends.

The builder imported the 9-inch-square bricks from Holland.   A writer described the care of construction and the costly interiors.  “All the laths used in the house are of the ‘split’ variety, none sawed, and the nails and hinges were all hand made.  There were fine fireplaces and handsomely carved mantels in many of the rooms.”   Fine carved paneling and delicate turned stairway balusters graced the interiors.  The maple flooring was constructed of boards 22 inches wide and two inches thick.

“The mansion was remarkable for its magnificence among the many beautiful places of Bloomingdale,” said "Valentine’s Manual of the City of New York” in 1918.  “The front stoop, which faced the Bloomingdale Road, was reached by four brown stone steps and at the porch entrance stood four white columns of white cedar hewn from logs of trees grown on the estate.”

“As one entered the house he was confronted with a wide graceful staircase, the steps of which were low and broad, with turned and carved balustrade of colonial type.  The main floor had a broad arched central hall 20 feet wide paved with marble slabs…A drawing room opened into this hallway on one side and opposite was located a lofty dining room.”

Upstairs were four large rooms and in the gable were bedrooms.  Around the fireplaces were tiles “composed of squares having on each a Scriptural subject.  The Dutch-type construction and architecture were reflected in the heavy window sashes, the solid indoor shutters and the window seats, and the small square panes in the windows."

The house had reportedly been used during the Revolutionary War by George Washington and his troops for one night.  Accounts say they quickly moved on as the British closed in behind them.  “They had hardly been encamped on the grounds when the British advanced, and the place was evacuated.”  The British then set up headquarters for a while in the mansion and in their own quick abandonment of the property left parts of uniforms behind.

Justina Van den Heuvel would not enjoy the summer estate for which she paid for very long.  She died a year later on Monday, March 25, 1793.  After an appropriate period of mourning, Van den Heuvel (called “Baron” by some writers) married Charles Apthorp’s daughter Charlotte.   The couple set out adding to the family.  Four children—Maria Eliza, Charles Apthorp, Justine, and Susan Annette—were born within the next few years.

In 1801 Van den Heuvel was elected a director of the U. S. Branch Bank “although a new arrival and hardly to be considered to be in touch with American affairs,” as editorially noted by “Valentine’s Manual.”  The family moved to the northwest corner of Broadway and Barclay Street for its city dwelling (the site now occupied by the Woolworth Building).   The Van den Heuvel’s city residence reflected their stature and wealth.  “Valentine’s Manual” said “This was a model house and furnished in better style than any other at that date.  Citizens ‘from the remotest parts’ says the record, which meant as far out of town as Chambers Street, felt such pride in it that they came to visit it.”

Furnishing in style extended to the summer mansion as well.    An extensive parlor set was crafted for the house by one of the city’s master cabinetmakers.   The New York Times would later describe the Sheraton-style furniture  as “an exquisitely beautiful set, made in the best style of the master of the art of furniture designing…For the purpose a quantity of Brazilian rosewood, which is as hard as lignum vitae and has a beautiful grain, was imported from South America.”

The Van den Heuvel children married well.  Maria Eliza married John Church Hamilton, son of Alexander Hamilton; Justine became the wife of Gouverneur S. Bibby; Susan Annette married South Carolinian Thomas S. Gibbes; Charles Apthorp Van den Heuvel married the daughter of Thomas Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence.   Susan and Thomas Gibbes’ daughter, Charlotte Augusta Gibbes spent, summers in the house before growing up to marry John Jacob Astor III.

Although John C. Van den Heuvel’s will, dated March 20, 1822, gave his wife, Charlotte, “the gift to her of the use of his farm and mansion at Bloomingdale so long as she should remain his widow;” she died three years before he did.  Following his death the property was divided into nine parts to be shared by his children “share and share alike.”

Rather than dissect the property into relatively small lots, the heirs sold it to Francis Price for $25,758.85 on May 1, 1827.   Price and his wife Jane almost immediately did what the Van den Heuvel family avoided—they divided the land.    Within the month they sold a section of the land (20 building lots) including the mansion to Robert T. Dixon for $3,121.25.  Dixon’s property stretched from “the Road” to what would become West End Avenue, from 78^th to 79^th Street.

Robert Dixon conveyed the property to Sara Dixon, apparently a relative, in October 1834 for the sum of $4,000.  “Denominated a single woman,” as described by “Valentine’s Manual,” she leased the house in 1839 to William Burnham, thus beginning its life as a roadhouse.   He paid Sara $600 a year rent for the house which became known variously as Burnham’s Mansion House, Burnham’s Hotel and Burnham’s Tavern.

By the time of this sketch the roof had been raised to a full third floor -- "The New York of Yesterday" by Hopper Striker Mott, 1908 (copyright expired)

It gained a reputation as an elegant, respectable hostelry.   Frank Bergen Kelly in his 1909 “Historical Guide to the City of New York” remembered that it was “a favorite resort for driving parties” in the days when coaching in the country air was a favorite weekend pastime for well-to-do New Yorkers.   It was most likely at this time that the gabled roof was replaced by a full third floor.

A writer at the time reported on the virtues of the establishment.   “Burnham’s was fitly styled the family house on the drive.  On each fine Summer afternoon the spacious grounds were filled with ladies and children who sauntered at their leisure, having no fear of annoyance and confident of perfect immunity from affront.”

Abram C. Dayton in his "The Last Days of Knickerbocker Life in New York” in 1882 remembered “Thousands of middle-aged men and women of today recall the many gambols they enjoyed in childhood on Burnahm’s lawn; they cannot fail remembering with vividness the smile of welcome they received from the kind old host and his motherly wife who were always at the door ‘to welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.’  The girls will not have forgotten the large square parlor where the cake and lemonade were dispensed after the hearty run to and from the summer house on the bank, or their protracted stroll through that old-fashioned garden, with its box borders and its profusion of gay native flowers.

“The honest, high-toned reputation of the host and his family acted as a most-efficient police, and was indeed a terror to the evil disposed.”

Although the roadhouse changed hands a few times in the next four decades, it retained the name Burnham’s. 

Sara Dixon sold the property in 1853 to French-born George W. Poillon for $27,500.  Poillon and his wife, Rachel Ann continued to lease the property to the Burnham Hotel proprietors until 1879 when it was purchased by John Jacob Astor, whose wife Charlotte remember the house from her childhood.  The following year the Clarke family rented the house for its florist business.  Greenhouses were installed along most of the block between 78^thand 79^th Street along Broadway and West End Avenue.

In the attic the Clarke’s found red British uniform jackets that had lain undisturbed for a century.  The military coats were donated to the 82^nd Street Public School No. 9 and unruly boys were required to don one of the bright red coats.  “No worse punishment could befall a boy than this,” commented historian Henry Collins Brown in 1918.

When Astor died in 1890, the property was passed on to his son William Waldorf Astor.  Although now the richest man in America, an intense feud between him and his aunt Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor prompted him to move his family to England the following year.   Before leaving he visited the house where his grandmother had spent much of her childhood.  He had the large Dutch weather vane on the barn removed and shipped to England where it was installed on the stables of his estate.

The finely-wrought balustrade of the staircase was photographed just prior to the demolition of the house -- photo The New-York Tribune, October 20, 1901 (copyright expired)

Living abroad did not stifle Astor’s real estate activities in New York.   The Clarke lease was due to expire in May 1902 and already, on October 20, 1901, the New-York Tribunepredicted the demolition of the venerable mansion.  “It is believed that the house will then be torn down and the ground broken to make way for modern structures.”

The mansion seven months prior to demolition -- photo The New-York Tribune, October 20, 1901 (copyright expired)

Indeed, Astor wrecked the old house shortly after Marshall Clarke’s lease expired.  The New York Times later noted “It was from this old mansion that William Waldorf Astor, one of the family, took everything that could be transported in the way of woodwork and carried it across the water to build into his house, Cliveden.”

On the site of the Van den Heuvel mansion Astor built a mammoth apartment building that engulfed the entire block.  Named the Apthorp, it gave a nod to the early history of the site, although neglecting his distant relative by marriage, Jan Cornelius Van den Heuvel.

Interestingly, four years later a wealthy socialite purchased some fine pieces of Sheraton-style antiques.  The New York Times on May 20, 1906 said “The woman, who knows fine old furniture, discovered this in an out of the way place and bought it for its intrinsic worth, not learning its history until later.”  Investigation proved it was part of the extensive parlor suite from the Van den Heuvel mansion.  The discovery came about when the woman had an elderly cabinetmaker do some repairs.

“His enthusiasm knew no bounds,” said The Times.  “He had not seen anything like the set since the early days of his work, when fine pieces of the kind were more often seen.  He brought others of his craft to see the gems, which they regarded with the reverence shown to an art treasure in a museum.”

Unlike the magnificent country mansion it once graced, the colonial furniture survived as a Van den Heuvel family legacy.

A massive apartment building engulfed the site of the old mansion -- photo by Alice Lum

The Lost 1767 Old Brick Church -- Beekman and Nassau Streets

The above view appeared in "Brick Church Memorial," distributed during the last sermon at the church on May 25, 1856  (copyright expired)

It was the Episcopalians who held sway among the religious sects in New York City in the 18^th century.  And they gave the Presbyterians had a hard go of it for a while.   By 1706 a handful of English, Scottish, Irish and French Presbyterian families were assembling in a private house to conduct services.   That year the Rev. Francis Makemie was arrested when the Governor charged that his preaching was illegal.  Although Makemie was acquitted, the authorities continued to pressure the Presbyterians and it would be a full decade before a full-time minister would settle in.

In 1716 a regular Presbyterian church was formed under Scottish-born Rev. James Anderson.  For three years the congregants assembled in City  Hall; then in 1719 they built their first real church on Wall Street.    By 1766 the Presbyterians had outgrown the small building and the cornerstone for a second church was laid.   The once-shunned congregation now chose what decades later The New York Times would call “the finest piece of property the city owned” and obtained a perpetual lease.  The church was charged a ground rent of $200 per year—about $5,500 today—for the oddly-shaped plot bounded by Nassau and Beekman Streets and Park Row.

They then turned to architect John McComb, Sr. to design the new church.  McComb would go on to design other important structures like the President’s House in 1790; but it was his son, John McComb, Jr. who would be most remembered for his brilliant Federal-style buildings like City Hall.

The cornerstone amazingly survives at the current Brick Church uptown -- photo by Alice Lum

McComb produced a chaste Georgian brick-and-stone structure in keeping with the English vogue of the day.  Completed on New Year’s Day in 1768, it was similar to St. Paul’s Chapel, which was just being completed as the new cornerstone of the Presbyterian church was laid.  Its multi-tiered steeple rose high above the roofs of the surrounding homes and a plain wooden picket fence enclosed the large churchyard.  The nearly-unadorned interior reflected the Protestant disdain for ostentation.

The interior was chaste and relatively unadorned -- "Brick Church Memorial" May 1856 (copyright expired)

The original church was not abandoned; rather the congregation split into the two houses of worship, continuing under the single Presbyterian operation.  The new church was known as The Brick Church.   Dr. John Rodgers was brought in as the Brick Church’s first pastor.   

The dapper Dr. Rodgers was given a fine parsonage at No. 7 Nassau Street.   Over a century later The New York Times would remark that he lived “in a fine style” and wore clothes that “were invariably neat, elegant, and spotless.”   Washington Irving described him “with his buzz wig, silver-mounted cane, well-polished shoes, and silver buckles.”   Rodgers was not merely a fashion plate, however.   He was influential in city affairs, elevated the church by attracting erudite congregants, and was, as The Times said “delightful socially.”

And then came the war.

During the British occupation of New York City, both of the Presbyterian churches were taken over.  The Wall Street church was used as a barracks and the Brick Church was turned into a hospital.  The interior was gutted and left “in ruins” as a later minister would recall.  The elegant parsonage was burned to the ground.

With the war’s end, the one-time animosity of the Episcopalian Church had long abated and Trinity Church offered St. George’s and St. Paul’s Chapels to the Presbyterians for worship until the damaged churches could be restored.    On June 1784, after considerable expense, the Brick Church reopened and Dr. Rodgers was back in the pulpit.

This romantic engraving was produced three years after the Brick Church (left) was destroyed -- NYPL Collection

By 1809 the operation of the two churches as a single body became cumbersome and the congregants agreed to a separation.    A year later it became necessary for the Brick Church to find a replacement for Dr. Rodgers after four decades in the pulpit.   “Brick Church Memorial,” written in 1856, recalled that “The age and infirmities of Dr. Rodgers had released him from all duty, and the great object of the church now was to secure the services of a stated pastor.”

Finding a new pastor would not be easy.   The congregation was in turmoil, dissatisfied with the split of the two churches.  The “Memorial” noted “There were divisions among them arising from the separation…from ancient feuds, personal animosity, and political excitement.”  Several ministers were offered the position but they politely declined.  The trustees finally found, in June 1810, young Gardiner Spring who had just graduated from the Andover Theological Seminary.  Like Rodgers, Spring would be here for a very long time.

Spring nearly lost his ministry and his church the following year.  On a Sunday morning in May 1811, while the congregation worshiped, a fire broke out in a waterfront warehouse three blocks away.   A  burning cinder was carried on the spring breezes to be dropped onto the wooden steeple.  There it smoldered, then caught fire.  Before long the steeple was burning.

As the congregation crowded onto Beekman Street in horror, certain that they would witness the destruction of their beloved church, a seaman named Stephen McCormack elbowed his way through the well-dressed crowd and, using his skills as a sailor, shimmied up the lightning rod.   Using his jacket, he beat out the fire and saved the church.  The thankful parishioners offered the young man a $100 reward, but he disappeared into the crowd and never returned for it.

Probably because of McCormack’s actions, the Brick Church and Rev. Spring became active in the ministry to seafarers.   Since sailors notoriously avoided formal church services, the Brick Church laymen initiated a series of prayer meetings in houses along Water Street “in the hope of benefiting such classes of the population as did not frequent public worship.”   Somewhat to their surprise, it was not only the women running the boarding houses and their cooks and other help who attended the meetings—the crusty sailors came.

Buoyed by their success, a prayer meeting “specifically for sailors” was started in a house near the docks at Old Ship and Front Street.  Before long other denominations and churches joined in, laying the foundation for what would evolve into the Mariners’ Church.

Rev. Gardiner Spring -- from "The Brick Church Memorial," May 25, 1856 (copyright expired)

Members of the Brick Church were expected to tow the doctrinal line and Mrs. Maria Townsend found that out quite clearly in 1820.   Church officials discovered that Mrs. Townsend felt that wrong-doers would be absolved of their sins and admitted into Heaven by the grace of the Crucifixion.   Presbyterian belief firmly declared that the wicked would be punished in Hell.   Maria Townsend was called in to explain herself and renounce her earlier statements.

She refused.

After two years of exasperation, Maria Townsend gathered her children and began worshiping at Trinity Church.    The Rev. Dr. Spring was not pleased.   From his pulpit he announced “It has become my painful duty, to announce that Mrs. Maria Townsend, a member of this Church, has for two years past, persevered in denying the doctrine of the everlasting punishment of the wicked, and has presented her children for dedication, at that place of pretended worship, where the doctrine is taught that the wickedwill be saved as well as the righteous.”

Maria Townsend was publically excommunicated from the Presbyterian Church.   The indignant woman got the last word, sending Rev. Spring a polite and educated lesson on God’s love and the sacrifice of His Son.

By 1856 the Beekman Street neighborhood was no longer the quiet residential area it had been.  But the property was still among the most expensive in the city.    With the majority of the congregation having moved away, the church needed to relocate and the decision to abandon the venerable structure was made.

print NYPL Collection

A last minute attempt to save the Old Brick Church was launched by Rev. Spring, who proposed to the Presbytery that the building be retained as a church for travelers.  Under his plan, the New York Presbyterian churches would contribute towards the maintenance of the satellite church.   But a committee formed to consider the proposition turned it down and, as Rev. Spring wrote, “the Presbytery and the congregations dropped the subject.”

Early that year the elegant old church was sold for $200,000 in cash to The New York Times.  The congregation purchased a plot in Murray Hill for $58,000—a sum that included a considerable amount of the building materials for a new structure.

On May 25, 1856 the Reverend Gardiner Spring issued his last sermon from the pulpit of the Old Brick Church.   “For whatever purposes this hallowed ground may be hereafter employed, experience has convinced us that it is no longer a fit place for religious worship,” he began.    The minister said “Had any one told me twenty years ago that I should live to see it abandoned as a place of religious worship, I should have thought him a romancer, if not a madman; yet the hour of abandonment has come.”

Two days later James S. Hall, the church sexton, announced in the New York Times that “The Brick Presbyterian Church…having been sold, the trustees have procured a beautiful location in the Cemetery of the Evergreens to which place all the remains of the dead found in the graveyard will be removed, unless otherwise indicated by surviving friends.”  That tied up the last dangling thread.

John McComb’s lovely Georgian church was demolished later that year.  The New York Times erected its new building on the site in 1857-58.  

The former New York Times building stands on the site of the Old Brick Church -- photo by Alice Lum

The 1766 St. Paul's Chapel -- Broadway and Fulton Street

The Broadway entrance was intended to be the rear of the church.

Ten years before the Declaration of Independence was signed, the last stone was placed in St. Paul’s Chapel at Broadway and Fulton Street. The dignified house of worship was erected on land granted by Queen Anne as a Chapel-of-Ease for worshipers who lived north of Trinity Church.

While today the five city blocks that separate St. Paul’s from Trinity may seem like an easy walk; in 1766 the site was well removed from the established city below Wall Street and had been a field of wheat prior to ground breaking.

Designed by Thomas McBean, the church was situated with its rear wall towards Broadway so that the front had a pleasing view of the river. McBean, who was a student of the renowned London architect James Gibbs, constructed the chapel from small, rough-faced field stones quarried on the site. Andrew Gautier was the master craftsman in charge of the construction. Window and door openings and corners were then trimmed in dressed brownstone that gave a sophistication to the otherwise rural feel of the structure.

St. Paul's prior to the addition of the elegant 1828 wrought iron fencing in a still semi-rural setting -- NYPL Collection

Inside were the clean, elegant lines associated with Georgian architecture. The painted woodwork of fluted columns and paneled arches that would be found in an upscale home of the period was used here. Fourteen Waterford cut glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling.

Georgian woodwork and Waterford chandeliers grace the interiors -- photo by official-ly cool

As picturesque as the view might have been, parishioners complained about the inconvenience of the entrance. Three years later demands were met when a carriage portico was added to the Broadway side. The roof line was extended to the property line where four graceful fluted stone columns upheld the deep pediment. A primitive wooden carving of St. Paul was inserted in a niche in the pediment and a balustrade graced the roof line above the cornice.

Broadway bustles in front of the carriage portico where a primitive wooden statue of St. Paul stands in a niche -- NYPL Collection

By the time the British Army landed on Manhattan in September 1776 many New York residents had already fled. On the evening of September 21 a fire broke out in the Fighting Cocks Tavern, according to an eyewitness, near Whitehall Slip. The fire spread quickly, engulfing the closely-built structures. The conflagration raged through the night, destroying up to 25 percent of the buildings, including the 1698 Trinity Church.

St. Paul’s Chapel escaped the flames.

As the American Revolution drew to an end, the ruins of Trinity Church still stood on Broadway at the head of Wall Street. On his Inauguration Day on April 30, 1789, George Washington attended services at St. Paul’s and continued to worship there for the next two years while New York served as the nation’s capital.

In the 1850s, well-dressed Victorians visit Washington's pew beneath the north balcony -- NYPL Collection

Above his pew hangs an oil painting -- the first depiction of the Great Seal of the United States.

Ivy covers most of the facade by 1897 -- NYPL Collection

Atop Thomas McBean’s square stone tower architect James Crommelin Lawrence added an impressive spire in 1794 which he modeled after James Gibbs’ Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. It was a fitting conclusion to the design of Gibb’s student. Later, in 1840, the spire would be sheathed in copper.

The chapel was not only a place of worship but a place of remembrance and in 1787 the first monument to a Revolutionary War hero was erected in honor of Richard Montgomery, sculpted by Jean-Jacques Caffieri.  Pierre L’Enfant’s “Glory,” a neo-Baroque sculpture was installed and, outside, the ample graveyard received the burials of New York’s most elevated citizens.

Over a century later as a bronze tablet commemorating the centennial of Washington’s inauguration services was dedicated, the rector, Dr. Mulchahey, commented on St. Paul’s use as a place of memorials. Comparing it to Westminster Abbey in that regard, he said “I would not object to see these walls entirely covered with memorials of persons and incidents conspicuous in the history of the church and the State.”

photo by Alice Lum

In what would be one of the first of many heart-felt memorial services, those lost at sea in the sinking of the Titanic were remembered here on April 19, 1912. Using words that would be prophetic in decades to come The Rev. W. Montague Geer prayed “for those, who, whether prepared to meet their God or not, were suddenly called upon, in the darkness at dead of night to cry, many of them in the anguish of their souls.”

Skyscrapers had begun surrounding the churchyard in 1906 -- NYPL Collection

In July 1925 the first restoration work in the long history of St. Paul’s began to restore it “as it was when George Washington worshiped there.” A month later, the crystal chandelier that had been missing since 1838 was found in the attic by workmen. In 1926 the church was reopened with all fourteen chandeliers in place.

On September 11, 2001 in one of New York City’s and America’s most devastating tragedies, terrorists struck the nearby World Trade Towers with airliners, collapsing them to the ground and murdering nearly 3000 innocent civilians. St. Paul’s emerged unharmed and was almost immediately turned into a place of refuge for recovery workers.

Outside, photographs of the missing were hung from the 1827 wrought iron fence, creating a heart-breaking wall of grief. Inside workers came to rest and sleep. Volunteers worked at the chapel for eight months, 24 hours a day in 12-hour shifts serving food, changing linens, offering counseling. To help the police, firefighters and construction workers recover, citizens from all walks of life came to St. Paul’s Chapel to offer their services: chiropractors, massage therapists, stress counselors, and even musicians.

Many of the memorial banners remain in the sanctuary and a number of exhibits are on display here. They remember those who, like the victims of the Titanic, “whether prepared to meet their God or not, were suddenly called upon.”

While the World Trade Center site still smoldered months later, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani chose St. Paul’s Chapel from which to give his farewell Speech on December 27, 2001. In the sanctuary where Lord Cornwallis, Presidents Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and George H. W. Bush once worshiped, President George W. Bush, Senator Hillary Clinton, George Pataki and Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudolph Giuliani attended a memorial service on September 10, 2006.

Memorial banners for the victims of 9/11 hang from the balcony -- photo by shipoffools.com

St. Paul’s Chapel is the oldest existing church building in New York City. Of the surviving 18th Century buildings in Manhattan, the Landmarks Preservation Commission deemed it “undoubtedly the most notable both architecturally and historically.”

In designating the property a landmark, the Commission said it “represents the epitome of the Georgian period of architecture.”

St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery

Peter Stuyvesant purchased his farm, or bouwerie, from the Dutch West India Company in 1651. By 1660 he had built a family chapel on the grounds where, when he died in 1672, he was buried in a vault below.

As Peter’s grandson, Petrus, developed the land towards the end of the 18th Century, laying out a network of roads and erecting elegant family homes, he donated the chapel and its grounds to the Episcopal Church. The stipulation of Stuyvesant’s bequest was that a new chapel be built there. In compliance, the Church laid the cornerstone of Saint Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery on April 25, 1795.

The building, bounded by the present-day 10th Street, Stuyvesant Street and 2nd Avenue, was completed in 1799 and consecrated on May 9 of that year. Alexander Hamilton, the close friend of Stuyvesant’s son-in-law Nicholas Fish, provided legal assistance in incorporating St. Mark's Church, making it the first Episcopal parish independent of Trinity Church in the new world.

The parish of wealthy New York society, it was a graceful Georgian fieldstone building designed by John McComb, Jr., who had six years earlier designed the impressive Georgian home of James Watson at 7 State Street.

In 1828 the wooden Greek Revival steeple was added, following the designs of architects Martin Euclid Thompson and Ithiel Towne. In 1836 Thompson was called back to revamp the interior of the church at which time he removed the chunky square pillars supporting the balcony in favor of the slim, reeded Egyptian Revival pillars which survive today. Two years later the architect designed the heavy wrought-and-cast iron fence that surrounds the property.

For decades after its consecration the church was seemingly a work-in-process and in 1858 the imposing cast iron Italianate portico was added. The porch is attributed to James Bogardus, a pioneer of cast iron architecture who planted the seed for the ornate cast iron facades that would eventually line lower Broadway.

In 1866 James Miller in his Stranger’s Guide for the City of New York said of St Mark’s “The steeple is lofty, but somewhat venerable in appearance, which is indeed the character of the entire structure. The church is venerable also on account of its historic associations; it stands on what was the estate of Petrus Stuyvesant, the last of the Dutch governors and his remains rest in a vault under the church, over which, on the east side, is a table indicating the fact. Here also repose the mortal remains of the English governor, Col. Sloughter and those of the American Governor, Tompkins.”

Photo NYPL Collection

Miller neglected to mention that Daniel Tompkins was also Vice President under James Monroe. Also buried in the churchyard on the east and west sides of the church are Nicholas Fish (Revolutionary War officer, US Senator, New York State Governor and Secretary of State to U.S. Grant), retailer A. T. Stewart (his body was stolen from the graveyard and held for ransom contributing to Mrs. Stewart’s mental breakdown), Abraham Schermerhorn (United States Representative and father of Caroline Astor), Philip Hone (Mayor of New York 1825), Commodore Matthew Perry (who forced Japan to open trade relations with the US), and other famous 19th Century figures.

The church was stuccoed over at some point and 1936 photographs show an interesting Edwardian fresco, much in the style of Maxfield Parrish, in the pediment over the portico. Here animals and birds lounge in an idyllic setting under spreading trees.

Photograph Library of Congress

The 20th Century saw St. Mark’s become increasingly involved with and supportive of the arts. The trend was started by Reverend Dr. W. Norman Guthrie who was Rector from 1910 to 1937. In 1923 Guthrie, who felt that a person’s spirituality could be fostered through the arts, wrote The Relation of The Dance to Religion.  He invited Isadora Duncan to perform at the church and later Martha Graham danced here.  From that start, the church’s Danspace Project is now renowned for promoting new work in dance. Michael Kaiser, President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has said “Danspace has played a significant role in the arts ecology of New York and the entire dance world."

When a group of poets lost their meeting spot at the Telegraph Bar in 1966, Allen Ginsberg approached the Rector asking if they could meet in the church. They could.  And with that poetry joined dance at St. Mark’s.  Poetry readings were conducted by Ginsberg as well as W.H. Auden, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Amy Lowell, Carl Sandburg, Kahlil Gibran, and William Carlos Williams. Eventually hundreds of writers and other performers appeared here. Sam Shepard staged his first few plays from St. Mark’s and visitors have been entertained by the likes of Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Yoko Ono, John Cage and Patti Smith.

The spiritual and artistic life of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery was nearly extinguished when, on July 27,1978, a devastating fire tore through the structure, nearly destroying it. New Yorkers formed the Citizens to Save St. Mark’s organization that raised funds for the reconstruction of the building. The church hired architect Harold Edelman to direct the restoration. Edelman also designed the abstract stained glass windows that replaced the 19th Century balcony windows which were destroyed.

Today the historic St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery is perhaps more vital to the neighboring community than it was in the early 19th Century. The oldest site of continuous religious practice in New York City, it continues as a fundamental force in developing arts in America.




Photograph NYPL Collection

The Lost Arch-Brook Mansion -- East 75th Street and Avenue A

The rural setting included a wooden pump and log outbuildings that stood in stark contrast to the sophisticated mansion -- Valentine's Manual of New York 1866 (copyright expired)

In the 1630s, in the countryside far north of New Amsterdam, a rushing stream emptied into the East River.    Over two centuries later it would run below East 74^th Street; but for now it caught the eye of Dutch settlers who used the water to power a sawmill.   With no wagon roads on which to transport the finished lumber it was sailed down the river to New Amsterdam.

The stream earned the name Saw Kill, or Saw River, and in 1677 the mill was acquired by George Elphinstone and Abraham Shotwell who converted it for leather manufacturing.  Later the land became the property of Alderman Cox who developed it into a farm with a summer house.  Upon his death the property passed to his wife, Sarah Bradley Cox, who eventually married the notorious pirate, Captain William Kidd.

Captain Kidd had a city house on Pearl Street; but used the Saw Kill farmhouse for several summers.   On his way back to New York on July 6, 1699, Kidd was arrested in Boston.  A year later he was hanged in London for piracy and murder.  Sarah Bradley Cox Kidd and the Captain’s daughter lived on in the farm until Sarah married Christopher Rousby in 1703.

The house and farm changed hands rapidly.  Rousby passed the farm to John Gurney, a New York banker, who soon died.  His widow, Mary, sold it on September 23, 1708 to Thomas Hook, Jr. “gentleman” of New York for 400 pounds.

Hook would own the farm until 1730 when he sold it to John Devoor.  Devoor lived in the house for half a century, during which time upper Manhattan saw the appearance of vast summer estates of New York’s aristocracy, side-by-side with working Dutch farms.  

By the end of the century the property was owned by David Dickson and Andrew Stockholm.  They constructed expansive cotton mills on the Saw Kill here in 1791 and brought in experienced workmen from Manchester, England.  The ambitious project failed.

Isaac Gouverneur took over the land on December 26, 1799; but he too ran into financial difficulties.  On March 6, 1806 the property was sold at $30,000 in foreclosure to three brothers-in-law—Richard Riker, John Lawrence and John Tom.   A year later John Tom was dead and Riker and Lawrence divided the large farm in halves.  Lawrence renovated the old Sawmill Kill farmhouse on his section and in 1811 Richard Riker built “a fine stone dwelling,” as described by historian James Riker in 1881, on his land.

Riker’s primary residence was on Fulton Street between Broadway and Nassau Street.  He had been Deputy Attorney-general of the State of New York, and afterward a Supreme Court Commissioner.  In 1815 he was appointed Recorder of the City. 

Although historian Charles Haynes would later recall that “He was universally respected as a clear-headed and upright judge,” his stern approach was noticed.  “In sentencing culprits he was apt to remark, they ‘must suffer some,’ and the frequent repetition of this was taken up by the people and it became a byword,” said Haynes.

Riker’s elegant Georgian-style summer residence facing the East River would rival all others.   Two and a half stories of brick and stone sat above a high basement housing kitchens, pantries and other service areas.  The double-height veranda featured an up-to-date Chinese Chippendale railing.  Accessed by a wide flight of steps, it caught the river breezes.   Inside, according to The Sun decades later, was “a wealth of fine wainscoting and carved woodwork.” 

The landscaped lawn sloped gently to the riverbank.  In her 1875 book “Old New York, from the Battery to Bloomingdale,” Matilda Pratt Despard noted that “A brook ran through the grounds, and wound its way through the lawn to the river; and after he had built his house, Mr. Riker, in order to make a wide slope of unbroken lawn, threw  over this brook an arch of solid masonry.”  The distinctive stone arch over the stream lent its name to the house: Arch-Brook.



The grounds of Arch-Brook swept steeply down to the river -- sketch from "Old New York, from the Battery to Bloomingdale" 1875 (copyright expired)

The Riker family summered for years at Arch-Brook and it was here that son John H. Riker was born in 1818.   Riker’s elevated position as Recorder brought him into contact with celebrated figures of the time and the mansion was the scene of elegant entertainments.  

Among Richard Riker’s esteemed friends was the Marquis de Lafayette.  In 1824 the Riker family accompanied Lafayette to the Park Theatre on Park Row.  The General sat in the family’s box and the entire house rose to honor him when the band played “Lafayette’s Return: or The Hero’s Welcome.”

Riker’s daughter, Elizabeth, later reminisced “The play, I presume, was well performed, but I thought the most attractive feature of all was the appearance on the stage of nine pretty little girls, modestly dressed, who formed in dancing the letters of Lafayette’s name.”

print from "Reminiscences of an octogenarian of the city of New York, 1816-1860" (copyright expired)

As the city grew, sanitation and safe drinking water became a problem.   In 1832 cholera broke out and between July 24 and October 1 about 3,500 residents died.  Discussion arose about the possibility of bringing drinking water from the Croton River upstate.

The always-opinionated Richard Riker had other thoughts.  Charles Haynes wrote “When the question of introducing water into the city was discussed, he dissented from the general opinion as to the necessity of such action, and cited in support of the goodness and sufficiency of the Manhattan water, then in use in some streets, that he drank a tumbler of it every morning.  For this he was criticized, caricatured, and lampooned for many years after.”

print from the NYPL Collection

On October 16, 1842, Richard Riker died at Arch-Brooke at the age of 69, the same year that the massive Croton Reservoir he had railed against was completed.    By not the city was rapidly approaching, replacing the farms and estates north of 14^thStreet with streets and avenues. 

The Riker family divided the estate into city lots; however Arch-Brook was preserved.  It sat within the city block of 74^th and 75^th Streets, between Avenues A and B and a stone wall was built to protect it.

Arch-Brook became the home of John Matthews who had made a fortune in the soda water business.  As a young man in the 1830s he perfected the art of carbonating.  His simple equipment included a cast iron box lined with lead in which carbonic acid gas was generated by the interaction of marble chips with sulfuric acid.   The gas was passed through a tank of cool water which he rhythmically rocked.

When the monumental white marble St. Patrick’s Cathedral was begun, he negotiated the purchase of all the marble chips.  It was estimated that by the time the cathedral was completed its chips had produced 25 million gallons of soda water.

Arch-Brook was no longer a summer estate.  It was now a city house surrounded by rising rowhouses and business buildings.  In 1875 Matilda Pratt Despard wrote “But the city has destroyed the beauty of that region; the Riker House and the Lawrence homestead and the lovely Arch Brook are hardly to be discerned, and have been all long ago passed from the possession of the families who made them.”

As the city grew around it, the Matthews family lived on in Arch-Brook tended to by a staff of servants.  Along with the immediate family in 1883 was 24-year old Frederick Matthews, a nephew of John and a member of the firm.  By now the company was “one of the first and wealthiest of its kind in the country,” as reported in The New York Times.

Young Frederick had much to live for that summer.  He was engaged to be married in July and his uncle had “specially fitted up” the family country estate in the Adirondacks for the newlyweds to spend their honeymoon.  On July 25 he returned home from work “in excellent spirits,” according to his cousin Emily.

Around 2:00 in the morning Emily was awakened by “a noise as if a shutter had been blown against the house.”  She got up and listened at her aunt’s door and, hearing nothing, went back to bed.

Frederick had asked a servant to arouse him at 7:00 for breakfast because he had an appointment with a real estate broker regarding property to buy.  When he did not come down by 8:00 Emily went up to check on him.

“The door of the room not being fastened, I looked in,” she told investigators.  “I thought he was sleeping, and attempting to arouse him, found that he was dead.  I then came down stairs and told my aunt.  She told me that he could not be dead, and to return and feel his heart and give him some brandy.  When I went to feel his heart I found that he was dead.  He was lying on his right side, and a revolver with one chamber empty was lying near him.”

Frederick’s fiancée, Miss Field, was summoned “by a dispatch informing her that her affianced was very ill.”  As she alighted from her carriage, she noticed the undertaker’s wagpn on the ground of Arch-Brook.

“She tried to articulate a question, but fell fainting on the door-steps before she could make herself understood,” said The Times.  “It was a long time before she was restored to consciousness.”

The Times explained the unpredictable tragedy saying “All the circumstances surrounding the suicide tend to show that the unfortunate young man had become suddenly insane during the night,” and added “The taint of suicidal insanity seems to have been inherited by young Matthews.”  The newspaper then rehashed the suicide four years earlier of Frederick’s father who had been despondent over the death of his brother for days.

Joy returned to the house the following year when George Matthews Jr., Elizabeth Matthews’ grandson, was married to Grace Birmingham in the house on October 29.

By the 1890s Arch-Brook was a strange but quaint anomaly—a Georgian country home sitting within a pastoral oasis in the city.  It was a miniature estate encompassing a full city block surrounded by a stone wall.  Inside, life continued for Elizabeth Matthews and her family.  On April 19, 1891 The Sun printed a want ad:  “Cook—Young woman as competent first class cook; must be able to take entire charge; French, German, or English preferred; family and house strictly private; steady place and good wages; best references required.  Call from 10 till 12, Arch Brook, foot of East 75^th Street.”

Times would, eventually, catch up with the former Riker estates.

While Elizabeth Matthews was seeking a new cook, the Manhattan Elevated Railroad company held a monopoly over the city’s growing elevated transportation system.  As the operation expanded, additional electric power was needed.  The bank of the East River at 75^thStreet was ideal for a power plant, as it had been in 1630s (albeit it on a much smaller scale).

Following Elizabeth Matthews’ death, the house sat vacant and neglected.  Finally, on July 7, 1899 The Sun reported “Another of New York’s old houses is passing in the destruction of the Matthews cottage, at the foot of East Seventy-fifth street, where a new power house is being built.”

The article noted that “Arch-Brook was surrounded by a high stone wall which of late years has been much dilapidated.  The grounds occupied about a city block and were terraced to the river.  It is years now since anyone lived in the house, which was built early in the century, and was of the rambling cottage style…In the time of the father of George Matthews, the last owner, there was a fine old library there, comprising rare black-letter Bibles and other tomes of the early days of printing.” 

In reporting the eminent demolition, The Sun touched upon the German-Hungarian ethnicity of the neighborhood of late.  “The house was one of those which, with the Jones and Schermerhorn mansions, made an aristocratic locality of Jones’s Wood, later given over to beer and the dancing pavilion revelry of the ‘spieler.’”

The massive Manhattan Elevated Railroad powerhouse was completed in 1903, erasing an especially gentile page of Manhattan history.

Now operated by Con Edison, the old plant remains today -- photo by Manhattan Railway Company from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1G3ULC1Q&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1G3ULC1Q&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915&PN=2

The Edward Mooney House - 18 Bowery

Life was good for James DeLancey during the British rule in New York.  He owned an estate in Westchester County, property in Manhattan and a farm north of the city.  His problems started with the American Revolution.

Wanting to cover all his bets and unsure of which side would win the conflict, DeLancy straddled the political fence.  He secured a seat in the New York Assembly in 1768 by winning the support of the Sons of Liberty who rallied against British control.  In the meantime, however, he was rubbing shoulders with the Crown, meeting secretly and assuring his loyalty.  That all ended when in February 1775 he was exposed as a loyalist in the legislature.  By May he had left New York never to return.

On March 6, 1777 the Provincial Congress appointed Commissioners to "take into their custody & possession all the personal property" of loyalists with ten days' notice.  The families were allowed to keep their clothing, a few pieces of furniture and three months' provisions.  Everything else was sold at public auction.  Things got worse for the loyalists when, on October 22, 1779 the Congress passed "An Act for the forfeiture and sale of the estates of those who have adhered to the enemies of this state."  Loyalists were banned from the state under penalty of death "without benefit of Clergy."

When the Commissioners of Forfeiture auctioned off DeLancey's property in 1785, estimated at $50,000, Edward Mooney was there.  A high-profile player in the colonial wholesale meat business, he was also the representative of the City's butchers in the Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen.  He purchased the lot at the corner of Bowery and Pell for his new residence.

Mooney built his house sometime between the auction date, just after the British fled New York, and 1789, the year Washington was inaugurated on Wall Street.  It represents the newer Federal architecture while holding on to some of the traditional Georgian designs.  A beautiful deeply-set arched Georgian doorway flanked by slender columns displays a fanlight with delicate spiderweb tracery.  As with the stone window lintels, a double keystone block crowns the entrance.

Between the paired chimneys on the Pell Street side, an arched window with its original 18th Century mullions is flanked by two quarter-round windows.  Inside, beneath the handsome gambrel roof the hand-sawn timbers can be seen.  A few interior details original to the house remain including window trims and frames.

Edward Mooney lived in his house until his death in 1800.  Seven years later the size of the house was doubled by an addition to the rear.  The original oval-shaped handrail on the staircase in that section still exists.

By the 1820s the house had been converted to a tavern and would never again be used as a private residence.  During the 20th Century it went through many transformations including a hotel, poolroom, brothel, store, restaurant and a Chinese club.  Through it all the exterior of the house remained virtually unaltered, save for the unfortunate green metal entrance door seen today.

Upon designating the Mooney House a landmark in 1966, the Landmarks Preservation Commission remarked that it "has a special character, special historical and aesthetic interest, and value as a part of the development, heritage and cultural characteristics of New York City."  It added that it is the only extant townhouse from the American Revolutionary period.

The neighborhood has drastically changed.  Once part of a quiet street of 18th Century homes, the Mooney House is now surrounded by New York's bustling Chinatown.  One of the last survivors of colonial New York, it was restored in 1971 and today houses a bank.