The Lost St. John the Baptist (Epiphany) Church - 259 Lexington Avenue

 

from the collection of the new York Public Library

Cornelius Roosevelt Duffie Jr. was born on August 6, 1821.  He descended from old and distinguished New York families, including the Roosevelts, Bleeckers, and Baches.  (His mother, Helena Bleecker, the daughter of James Bleecker, died 11 days later after his birth.)  His father, Cornelius Sr., was the founder and first rector of St. Thomas's Church.

Cornelius Jr. graduated from Columbia College in 1841, and from the General Theological Seminary in 1845.  Three years later, after serving briefly as curate in Trinity Church, he founded the parish of St. John the Baptist in Murray Hill, "then the upper part of the city," according to the New-York Tribune decades late.  

Joseph Alfred Scovill, in his 1865 Old Merchants of New York, explained that Duffie's grandfather, John Duffie, had "owned a large parcel of land in Kip's Bay, now on the east side of Murray Hill, much of which still remains in the family."  Cornelius R. Duffie Jr. and his aunts donated a parcel at the northeast corner of  Lexington Avenue and 35th Street to the newly organized parish.  According to church historian David Clarkson in 1894, a "frame building" was erected for the small congregation.

(In his book, Scoville added, "The rumor in the vicinity goes that the church received its name from family affection and veneration for old John Duffee, who was a steady pillar deacon of the old First Baptist Church on Golden Hill.")

In 1856, the wooden church was demolished and "replaced by a handsome stone edifice designed by Frank Wills," according to David Clarkson.  Born in England in 1822, Wills had arrived in New York City in 1847 and quickly became the official architect for the New York Ecclesiology Society.  He was an early proponent of Gothic Revival and designed St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in the style.  Anchored on the 35th Street corner by a muscular bell tower that was doubled in height by its soaring steeple, the church was faced in brownstone.  Pointed-arched openings, buttresses, and a central rose window carried out the Gothic design.  (St. John the Baptist would be one of Wills's last projects.  He died at the age of 35 in 1857, a year after submitting the designs.)

St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church sat among brownstone mansions.  The American Metropolis, 1897 (copyright expired)

In his 1897 The American Metropolis, Frank Moss described the church as, "a most enchanting little bit of architecture, and it is so placed on the hill as to show its proportions to the very best advantage."  The new edifice sat among the mansions of Murray Hill millionaires and, according to Moss, "its congregation was large, wealthy and influential."  The tranquility of the neighborhood and the congregation would soon be strained as the rumbles of war grew louder.  Frank Moss recounted:

...in the days that tried men's souls, and when a very large proportion of the district's population was in sympathy with rebellion and riot, that church and its membership stood firmly for the abolition of slavery and the perpetuity of the Union, and were a tower of strength for the National cause.  The young men of the congregation and the neighborhood enlisted for the war under its flag.

As was the case with many congregations, the women gathered to make bandages and send supplies to the Union army.  They also hand-stitched the American flag that hung over the church entrance.  "When Fort Sumter was fired on, the ladies made the flag and the men hoisted it upon the building, and there it flew continuously to the end of the war," recounted Moss.

During the draft riots of 1863, a mob descended on St. John the Baptist.  "A demand was made that the flag should be hauled down," wrote Moss.  A trustee, fearing that the church and parsonage would be burned, lowered the flag.  But another trustee, "ran in and raised it again."  At the end of the war, the flag was taken down and sealed in a glass-fronted case encased in a wall inside the church.

The 2,000-pound bronze bell that hung in the tower caused upheaval in the spring of 1882.  Jared M. Bell and his family lived across down the street at 248 Lexington Avenue.  He complained to Rev. Duffie about the loud clanging.  According to Bell, Duffie, "promised to abate the nuisance as far as lay in his power."  By May 13, as far as Bell was concerned, nothing had changed and he filed a complain with the Board of Health.  It said in part,

This hideous noise is utterly unnecessary to the worship of God, and...forms no part of it, and is simply a relic of the times when there were few if any watches or clocks in the community whereby people could learn the hour of repairing to the sanctuary.

Saying the tolling of the bell was "detrimental to public health and ruinous to property," Jared W. Bell sought to have it "abolished and forever prevented."  In the bell's defense, Rev. Duffie told a reporter from The New York Times that whenever a nearby resident was ill, the tolling of the bell was ceased and in one case had been silent for six weeks.  He knew of many residents "who were very fond of hearing the bell ring," he said.  (Because press coverage ended, it is unclear who won the battle of the bell.)

In 1893, St. John the Baptist merged with the congregation of the Church of the Epiphany.  The joined congregations used the Lexington Avenue structure, but took the name of the older congregation, Epiphany. (The Mission Church of the Epiphany was established in January 1833.)  Rev. Dr. Duffie remained as rector emeritus of the combined parishes.  Shortly afterward, he installed a stained glass window in the chancel as a memorial to his father, Rev. Cornelius Roosevelt Duffie, Sr.

After serving his parish for its entire existence, Rev. Dr. Cornelius R. Duffie died at his summer home in Leitchfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1900 at the age of 79.  In addition to his work here, he had been the chaplain of Columbia College for 25 years.  His funeral was held in the Church of the Epiphany on July 11.

The following year, Rev. Edward L. Atkinson was appointed rector of the Church of the Epiphany.  The 36-year-old was described by the New-York Tribune as, "Tall, slight and fair haired, and having an especially cheerful disposition."  In July the following year, he left for a two-month vacation, going first to visit priest friends in Manchester and Plymouth, Massachusetts before traveling to the Catskills.  A week later, on August 2, 1902, the New-York Tribune titled an article, "New-York Minister Drowned."

Atkinson was at a friend's summer cottage on Boot Pond near Plymouth.  The article said, "He went out rowing and fell overboard.  The body has not been recovered."

Apartment buildings had replaced high-stooped mansions by the Depression years.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

By January 1908, when the Church of the Epiphany celebrated its 75th anniversary, the Murray Hill neighborhood had changed.  The Living Church, on February 1, commented, "The present Epiphany Church is located at Lexington Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street, with homes of the well-to-do on one side, and apartments of the not so well-to-do on the other."

The trend continued and on January 24, 1936, The New York Times remarked, "Vast changes have swept over that district in recent years, and the growing demands of trade have usurped much of the land formerly given over to private residences."  As a result, said the article, the Church of the Epiphany "will vacate within a few days its edifice at the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and Thirty-fifth Street as the first step in its plan to sell the property and build a new church on the upper East Side."  The congregation would temporarily share St. Thomas Chapel at 230 East 60th Street before erecting a new building on York Avenue at 74th Street.

Two views of the interior during demolition.  from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Frank Wills's 1856 structure survived three more years, demolished in 1939 for an apartment building that remains.

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The Abyssinian Baptist Church - 132 West 138th Street

 

The small group of Black worshippers who defected from the predominantly white First Baptist Church on Gold Street in June 1808 formed their own congregation, taking its name from the ancient name of Ethiopia, Abyssinia.  The Abyssinian Baptist Church would face immense struggles--both financial and social--through most of the 19th century.  In 1834, for instance, the church was attacked by angry mobs in what one newspaper called "blind fury."

Nevertheless, the congregation nevertheless persevered and grew, relocating several times, including to 166 Waverly Place in Greenwich Village, which it left in 1903 to move to West 40th Street.  There would be one more move for the Abyssinian Baptist Church.

At the end of World War I, most of the congregants had moved far northward.  On January 25, 1922 the New York Herald reported that the congregation had sold its Midtown property, explaining, "A year ago six lots on 138th street between Lenox and Seventh avenues were purchased for a new church site.  Work on a new structure will begin soon."

The article called Abyssinian Baptist "one of the oldest negro religious organizations in the city," and noted "The Rev. A. Clayton Powell has been its pastor for fourteen years."  The Abyssinian Baptist Church had come a long way from the original group of less than a dozen.  "The church is said to have a membership of nearly 4,000, the majority of whom reside in the Harlem colored section."  

The Philadelphia-based architectural firm of Charles W. Bolton & Son had been commissioned to design the structure, and by April construction contracts were signed.  On April 8, the New-York Tribune projected the costs at $210,000.  The total project, including furnishings, would come to $300,000--or about $4.85 million in 2022.  (Two-thirds of that amount was covered by the sale of the West 40th Street property.)

The cornerstone of the church and community house was laid on June 25, 1922.  The New York Herald reported, "The ceremony was in charge of the colored Masonic Grand Lodge of New York State and many prominent officials and laymen of the order from different parts of the State were present to join with a large assemblage of negroes of this city in making the occasion memorable."  The New York Times added, "The entire block was packed and the housetops and fire escapes were filled with spectators watching the ceremonies."

Laundry dries on lines in the rear of tenement buildings behind the construction site in 1922.  photo by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In his address, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr. stressed, "These buildings combine the ideas of a church, social welfare center and school, representing the most serious effort ever made by colored people of the North to better their condition along these lines.  The institution is situated in the midst of 175,000 colored people, a larger number than can be found in any other city on earth."  

The buildings were completed in 1923.  The church proper was a balanced, English Collegiate Gothic structure of rock-faced Manhattan schist trimmed in white terra cotta.  The crenellated central section, flanked by two square towers, was dominated by a massive stained glass window.  Thin, Gothic pinnacles rose from the corners of each tower.

The Community House is to the left.  photo by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The New York Herald reported that the "main auditorium will accommodate 2,000 persons."  The community house, said The New York Times, held "a gymnasium, shower baths, reading room, rooms for cooking and sewing, a model apartment and roof garden."

The church's influential pastor, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., was born to former slaves in the South in 1865.  He was ordained in 1892 and became pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1908.  His focus was as much about the spiritual wellbeing of his flock as it was about their socio-economic condition.  His assistant pastor, starting in 1931, was his son, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who shared his father's passion for equal social and racial rights.

The Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr.  image via Blackpast.org

Rev. Powell stepped down in 1931, turning the pulpit over to his son.  But his work in the community did not cease.  He was a founder of the National Urban League, and vice president of the NAACP.  The New York Times later reported, "When racial conflict in Harlem came to the surface in 1943, Dr. Powell became co-chairman of the City-Wide Citizen's Committee on Harlem...He laid the trouble to pent-up feelings growing out of the treatment of Negro soldiers at home and abroad, crowded conditions in the Negro areas and the lack of employment for Negro youth."  The 1943 Harlem racial upheaval led to his 1945 book, Riots and Ruins, an academic analysis of its causes and suggestions for improving conditions.

Among the earliest examples of activism within the congregation under Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. followed the death of a young Black man from North Carolina on Welfare Island in September 1933.  The Daily Worker called it a "wanton murder" by prison officials, and said it was "symptomatic of the continuous persecution of Negro workers."  On September 22 throngs of Harlemites crammed 138th Street in front of the Abyssinian Baptist Church to protest the atrocity.  They were joined by white members of the Young Communist League, one of whom was 19-year-old Isadore Dorfman.

The horseshoe-shaped seating in the auditorium shortly after completion.   photo by Wurts Bros., from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

When Dorfman witnessed a Black woman being "viciously slugged," as worded by The Daily Worker, by a policeman, he stepped in.  The article reported that Dorfman "was beaten within an inch of his life" and called the actions of the police an "orgy of brutality against the anti-lynching demonstration."  The incident merely fueled Powells' and the congregation's determination to obtain equal rights and treatment.

Rev. Dr. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., died on June 12, 1953.  His funeral in the Abyssinian Baptist Church was, understandably, the most impressive to date.  The New York Times reported on June 17, "City officials, including Mayor Impellitteri and Police commissioner George P. Monaghan, joined with several thousand parishioners...to pay final tribute yesterday."  During the service, Powell's secretary, Hattie F. Dodson, "read messages of condolence from the White House, members of the President's Cabinet and leaders in Congress."

At the time of his father's funeral, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. had been a member of Congress for eight years, the first Black man to serve from any Northeastern state.  In 1961 he was appointed chairman of the Education and Labor Committee.  His duties in Washington and legal problems (he was sued for defamation of character) made his visibility at the Abyssinian Baptist Church less than ideal for some congregants.  On August 10, 1964, The New York Times said, "At present [he] is a 'Sunday visitor' to New York City because a summons has been issued (not servable on Sunday) over [a] defamation award he has not paid."  Nevertheless, said the article, "Although his influence is waning, the 55-year-old minister is still a hero to many through his political clubs and his pastorate of the 10,000-member Abyssinian Baptist Church."

Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. from the collection of the Library of Congress

Despite his sometimes contentious pastorship, Powell remained a major influence in Harlem, and in the fight for racial justice.  Following his death on April 4, 1972, The New York Times said he "played many roles during a lengthy and controversial public career and he seemed to play each with his own special exuberance."

His funeral was held at the Abyssinian Baptist Church on April 9.  The New York Times reported that more than 2,000 mourners packed the church, "while many thousands more filled the streets outside."  Mayor John Lindsay called him "a man of style, brilliance and compassion--a skilled politician."  But the Rev. Dr. Samuel Proctor perhaps encapsulated him best, saying "He gave us a new basis for hope when our churches, colleges, union, hotels all were segregated.  When my great country, America, screamed at me, telling me I'm a nobody, he gave us all hope."

Three months later Rev. Proctor took the pulpit of the Abyssinian Baptist Church.  He divided his time between his duties here, and his position as professor of theology in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University.  His background was as impressive as the Powell's.  During his first sermon, he related that he came from a Southern family "educated by Protestant missionaries who went South in the 1880's to organize Negro colleges."  Among the beneficiaries of that work was his grandmother, "a slave sent to college by her [former] owners.  She graduated from Hampton Institute in 1882."

Rev. Proctor and his assistant pastor, Rev. Calvin Butts, continued and expanded the work of the Powells.  In 1987 the Abyssinian Developer Corporation was formed to improve social services and housing in Central Harlem.  It would build affordable housing complexes and a transitional housing project for formerly-homeless families.

In 1989, Rev. Butts took over the pulpit from Proctor.  Two years earlier, The New York Times had written, "When he was 13 years old, Calvin O. Butts sat in the balcony of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem and heard the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. preach.  Today the 38-year-old is a rising voice in the city who has placed himself squarely in the black clergy's long tradition of social action."  As it turned out, Rev. Butts's influence and charisma would equal the man whom he had so admired as a 13-year-old boy.

from the collection of the Library of Congress

Importantly, the Abyssinian Baptist Church was not merely about politics and social reform.  It was (and is) a center of Harlem culture.  Some of the most famous Black figures in America have worshipped from its pews, a fact exemplified by the funeral of Count Basie on April 30, 1984.

Basie was one of the pre-eminent band leaders and musicians of the Big Band Era.  The New York Times reported, "Thousands of mourners, the elite and the plain, the musicians who swung with Count Basic and the dancers who swung to him, filled the Abyssinian Baptist Church and overflowed onto West 138th Street.  They still stood there in the early afternoon rain, as if awaiting one final encore, when the pallbearers emerged with Mr. Basie's coffin on their shoulders."  Among the mourners in the church that afternoon were Billy Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Cab Calloway, Woody Herman, Sarah Vaughn, Quincy Jones and Benny Carter.

The church would be the setting for an impressive memorial service for the Rev. Calvin O. Butts on October 30, 2022, who had died two days earlier at the age of 73.  He was praised by Mayor Eric Adams as "a real giant in our city" and compared by former Governor David Paterson to Martin Luther King.  "Like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. Butts hated complacency," he told The New York Times.  "While some Black leaders would preach that 'Jesus is going to come around and everything's going to be OK, people like Dr. King didn't want to wait around, and neither did Butts."

The Abyssinian Baptist Church has been a political and social center of Harlem and New York City in general since its completion in 1923--its architectural beauty surpassed by its civic importance.

photograph by the author

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The 1898 Winchester Fitch House - 319 West 80th Street

 

Clarence F. True was among the most prolific architects working on the Upper West Side in the late 19th century.  He would eventually design more than 400 houses in the district, almost all of them a playful take on historic styles.  He turned to the Elizabethan period in 1897 when he designed seven houses that wrapped the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and West 80th Street.

The easternmost of the row was 319 West 80th Street, which, like its fraternal siblings, was four-and-a-half-stories tall.  The arched entrance, flanked by two large, Elizabethan-style brackets, sat atop a two-step stoop.  The understated, bowed facade, faced in limestone, rose to a slate shingled mansard with a pedimented dormer.  Flemish stepped gables separated each house of the row at this level.

The newly-completed house was purchased by Winchester Fitch and his wife, the former Florence Hopper in February 1899.  An attorney, Fitch was the son of well-known lawyer Edward H. Fitch.  The couple had been married in 1897, a year after Winchester joined his father's law office.

Winchester Fitch.  from Field Genealogy, 1901 (copyright expired)

Florence threw herself into entertaining.  On April 6, 1902, the New York Herald reported, "Mrs. Winchester Fitch, of No. 319 West Eightieth street, recently gave a charming breakfast for several visiting friends from the West.  Mrs. Fitch is a sister of Mrs. Nicholas, of the Dorilton, and has entertained much this winter."

The Fitches' summer home was Hillbrook, in Greenwich, Connecticut.  Both Winchester and Florence were amateur musicians, and their gatherings in both homes often centered around music.  On February 13, 1904, for instance, The Evening Telegram reported, "This afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Winchester Fitch, of No. 319 West Eightieth street, will give a musicale in honor of the members of the Shakespear [sic] Club."

It may have been their increasing family (they would eventually have three daughters and a son) that prompted the Fitches to upsize in July 1905.   They purchased the five-story, 25-foot wide residence on the corner of West End Avenue and 81st Street.  Their former home was purchased by retired broker Jennings Stockton Cox.

Jennings Stockton Cox  from The Cox Family In America, 1912 (copyright expired)

For years Cox had been associated with Jay Gould and Rufus Hatch.  In 1873 Gould had sent him to San Francisco as an agent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.  Upon his return to New York, he joined the brokerage firm of John H. Davis & Co.  He was a former president of the New York Athletic Club, and had memberships in the Larchmont Yacht Club, the New York Yacht Club, the Southern Society, and the Maryland Society of New York.   

He and his wife, the former Mary McJilton, three grown sons, Arthur M., William, Jennings, Jr.; and a daughter, Mrs. R. C. Fisher.  Arthur and his wife lived in the West 80th Street house, as well.

Despite Jennings's elevated status within the social and financial communities, it was his son, Jennings Stockton Cox, Jr. who is best remembered among the family.  A graduate of the Columbia University School of Mines, Cox, Jr. was an engineer in the Daiquiri mine in southeast Cuba in the 1890's.  He supposedly concocted a cocktail of rum, sugar and lime juice while entertaining guests, which he named after the mine.  Although his father was included in the 1899 Notable New Yorkers of 1896-1899, it is Jennings Stockton Cox's contribution to American mixology that is best remembered.

In the meantime, Arthur and his family maintained a summer home near Gloucester, Massachusetts.  On August 27, 1907 their 11-year-old son, Arthur J. Cox, was in a boat in the Bass River near the house.  The New York Times explained that the river, "empties into the sea, some 200 yards beyond" the Cox property.  That afternoon, said the article, "three servant girls, bathing in the river, were swept out into deep water."

Walter J. Byrne, a life guard, rushed into action, but he could rescue only two of the women.  "Arthur Cox, who was not far away in a small boat, quickly rowed to where the third girl was going down for the last time.  The little boy jumped in, caught her around the head with one arm, and held on to the boat with the other until Byrne got back."  The newspaper noted, "The cottagers at the time made a fuss over young Cox, which so bored him that he took to the woods for a couple of days."

Jennings Stockton Cox, Sr. died of pneumonia in the West 80th Street house on October 21, 1913 at the age of 79.  In reporting his death, the San Francisco Chronicle said, "In the course of his life he was at one time and another a well-known figure in San Francisco, Baltimore and New York."  Ironically, Jennings, Jr. had died just six weeks earlier.

Four months later, Arthur Cox leased the house to Madame Louise Homer, "who will occupy the house while filling her engagement at the Metropolitan Opera House," said The Sun on February 21, 1914.

Louise Homer, from The Victor Book of the Opera, 1912 (copyright expired) 

When Homer's lease expired, Arthur Cox leased the house to the Frederick Richard Gillespie family.   Born in Ireland in 1845, Gillespie was the head of Hammill & Gillespie, importers and manufacturers of clays.  He had been associated with the firm since 1867.  He and his wife, the former Julia Mendel, had three sons, Edward Stanley, Hilliard Mendell, George Maitland, and a daughter, Edith.  The family's summer home was at Shippan Point, near Stamford, Connecticut.

Edward was associated with his father's business, as well as being the treasurer of the Toronto Fur Company.  Still unmarried, he moved into 319 West 80th Street with his parents, most likely because of a serious physical condition.  

The New York Herald explained that he was "an automobile enthusiast."  On October 12, 1915, the newspaper said, "While cranking his automobile at his father's country home in Stamford, Conn., three years ago, he ruptured a cardiac valve."  Edward never recovered from the injury and he died in the house only months after moving in, on October 11, 1915.  He was 37 years old.

Frederick R. Gillespie died in 319 West 80th Street on January 28, 1919 at the age of 74.  In reporting his death, The American Perfumer recalled that the Irish immigrant had started his career as a messenger boy.

Julia almost immediately left West 80th Street.  Arthur Cox converted the house to ten "non-housekeeping" apartments the following year.  Although the term "non-housekeeping," technically mean there could be no cooking on premises, an advertisement in the New York Herald on April 1, 1920 offered, "Two rooms, kitchenette and bath." 

Cox retained possession of the property until December 1930, when he sold it to Adele Linder "for investment."  A renovation completed in 2005 resulted in two apartments per floor.  Expectedly, very little of Clarence F. True's 1898 interior detailing remains, nor does much of the exterior decoration.

photographs by the author

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The Lost Church of the Strangers - Mercer St. near Waverly Place

 

image by John m. August Will, 1898 from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

On October 8, 1835 a group of affluent men petitioned the Third Presbytery of New York to organize a church to be called The Mercer-Street Presbyterian Church.  Things moved swiftly.  That same month the 45-year-old Rev. Thomas Harvey Skinner arrived in New York from Newburyport, Massachusetts, and on November 8 was installed as the pastor.

The small congregation was composed of prominent New Yorkers like James Boorman and his wife Mary, and Gordon and Marcia Burnham.  A church building was quickly raised on the west side of Mercer Street just north of Waverly Place.  The neighborhood, just two blocks east of Washington Square, was filling with opulent residences.

The Gothic Revival building featured a central tower and tall pointed arch windows.  The architect is unknown, however several of the elements, like the crenellation and layered buttresses, smack of Richard Upjohn's Church of the Holy Communion, completed a decade later.

from Illustrated New York City and Surroundings, 1889 (copyright expired)

Rev. George L. Prentiss would recall in 1895, "No sooner was the new sanctuary completed than large numbers crowded into it from all parts of the city, and were at once received into its fellowship."  Other prominent families in the congregation were those of James Roosevelt, William E. Dodge, Anson Greene Phelps, and Alfred De Forest.

Among Rev. Skinner's first notable works was to help found the Union Theological Seminary in 1836.  For decades, the commencement exercises were held in the Mercer-Street Presbyterian Church.

Thomas Skinner resigned in 1848, triggering a series of rather short-lasting ministers.  The fourth, Rev. Robert R. Booth, was installed on March 6, 1861.  It was during his pastorate that significant change would come.  On September 16, 1870 the New York Presbytery merged the Mercer-Street Presbyterian Church with the First Presbyterian Church on University Place.  The combined congregations (now known as the Presbyterian Church on University Place) worshiped in the University Place church.  The Mercer Street structure was placed on the market for $65,000--about $1.4 million today.

Five years earlier Rev. Charles Force Deems had relocated to New York City from North Carolina.  Deems recalled in his 1897 Autobiography of Charles Force Deems, "Before the organization of any church and while I was simply preaching to strangers, a lady of high character living in Mobile, when on a visit to New York; always attended our service with her daughter.  With them I became acquainted."

The "lady of high character" was Mary Eliza Crawford and her daughter was Frank Armstrong Crawford.  Frank was highly taken with Deem's preaching and theology, and as her marriage to Cornelius Vanderbilt I approached, according to Deems, "it had been intended that I should celebrate the marriage, and that it would have been done but for my absence."

Rev. Dr. Charles Force Deems, from the collection of the New York Public Library

By the time the property became available, Deems's Church of the Strangers had been organized and was worshiping in a chapel at New York University.  The unusual name reflected Deems's non-denominational congregation, insisting that anyone who accepted the Apostles' Creed would be accepted.  He offered $50,000 for the property (money he did not have, but hoped to accumulate through fund-raising).

The Vanderbilts lived at 10 Washington Place, one block away from the Mercer-Street Presbyterian Church.  Cornelius Vanderbilt invited Deems to his mansion and offered to buy the church as a gift.  In Deems's words, "The commodore had never been a member of any church, had been a very worldly and even profane man; but he had from his earliest childhood the most unshaken faith in the Bible."  (The fact that his wife was an ardent admirer of Deems, no doubt, had much to do with the decision, as well.)

original source unknown

Vanderbilt's tepid feelings about organized religion became evident when Deems replied, "Commodore, if you give me that church for the Lord Jesus Christ, I'll most thankfully accept it."  Vanderbilt said, "No, doctor, I would not give it to you that way, because that would be professing to you a religious sentiment I do not feel.  I want to give you a church, that's all there is.  It is one friend doing something for another friend.  Now, if you take it that way I'll give it to you."

On October 3, 1870, The New York Times reported, "Since it has stood empty the edifice has been repainted, recarpeted, and renovated generally, and now presents quite a neat and tasteful appearance."  It had officially opened as the Church of the Strangers the day before.  Those attending represented some of the wealthiest and most influential in the city.  "Among the gentlemen present were Commodore Vanderbilt, Thurlow Weed, Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper, Daniel Drew, William M. Evarts, William F. Havemeyer, Algernon S. Sullivan, Stewart L. Woodford, William E. Dodge, Morris K. Jesup, James Lorimer Graham and E. I. Jeffray," said The New York Times.

from New-York Tribune, January 23, 1898

Rev. Deems had instructed the ushers to escort all clergymen to seats provided at the front of the church.  "One enthusiastic usher in obedience to these instructions searched for a victim and was finally rewarded by seeing an elderly gentleman, wearing a white neck-tie, alight from a carriage.  He approached him, and taking his arm, led him up the the main side towards the pulpit."  Rev. Deems interceded, introducing the usher to Cornelius Vanderbilt.  When the embarrassed usher apologized, the millionaire exhibited an unexpected spark of humor.  As he took his seat, he said, "That's not the first time I have been taken for a clergyman.  No apology is necessary."

Despite Vanderbilt's disinterest in organized religion, his faith was strong and his friendship with Rev. Deems grew extremely close.  On Thanksgiving Day 1875 Vanderbilt took a ride in Central Park and caught a cold.  By the spring he could no longer go to his office, and on April 26, 1876 was confined to his bed.  Rev. Deems visited Vanderbilt nearly every day for eight months.  Using the third person, Deems wrote, "The commodore would not let him leave his side, often keeping him for hours...Through all those months the attachment between the two men increased."

Cornelius Vanderbilt died on January 4, 1877.  Two days later  

The New York Times reported, "To-morrow morning the remains will be placed in the main hall of the house, where they will lie until 10 o'clock, at which hour they will be taken to the Church of the Strangers...where the funeral services will be performed."  The newspaper noted, "Some time before his death the Commodore requested Dr. Deems to avoid all pomp and abstain from all eulogy at his funeral."  Nevertheless, in his autobiography Deems wrote, "In his funeral sermon...Dr. Deems has set forth his estimate of the character of Commodore Vanderbilt."

Almost immediately a fund among the congregants was formed to memorialize Cornelius Vanderbilt.  In order that every member could contribute, the donations were limited to between 10 cents and $1.00.  Designed by William Gibson & Sons and approved by Frank Armstrong Vanderbilt and William Henry Vanderbilt, the bronze and black marble tablet was installed in the church in December 1879.

A depiction of the tablet appeared in several periodicals.  from the collection of the New York Public Library.

A surprising (at least to 21st century readers) ceremony took place in the church on Good Friday, 1881.  The New York Times reported, "Palestine Commandery, No. 18, Knights Templar, celebrated Good Friday by visiting the Church of the Strangers last evening and listening to a sermon by its Chaplain, the Rev. Dr. Charles F. Deems."  Accompanied by the fife and drum corps of the Ninth Regiment, the Knights Templar had marched "through Twenty-third-street, Fifth-avenue, Fourteenth-street, Broadway, Clinton-place, and Mercer-street, to the church."

A large floral arrangement with a Maltese cross presented by the commandery decorated the front of the church.  The Knights were seated in the front pews.  Congregants were given programs "printed in purple ink on lavender-colored paper [which] bore the insignia of the order on one leaf and a representation of the banner of the commandery on the other."  At the conclusion of the service, "The Knights arose in a body and, drawing their swords, saluted Dr. Deems and after passing out formed in line and returned to head-quarters."

There would be two other Vanderbilt funerals in the Church of the Strangers.  Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt, described by The New York Times as "the discarded son of the late Commodore Vanderbilt," committed suicide on April 2, 1882.  Known within the family as C. J., he had never gained his father's approval, partly because of his epilepsy, which the commodore viewed as a weakness, but also because of his long-term relationship with his "particular friend," as worded by The New York Times, George Terry.  C. J. had been given a humiliatingly small portion of his father's estate.  On April 5, 1882, The New York Times reported on his funeral in the Church of the Strangers, saying, "The church was nearly filled, but aside from the members of the Vanderbilt family few persons of note were present."

Such was not the case on May 7, 1885.  The New York Times reported, "Many distinguished and well-known New-Yorkers attended the funeral of Mrs. Frank A. Vanderbilt in the Church of the Strangers."  The newspaper commented, "She married Commodore Vanderbilt when he was an unbeliever, and she made him a Christian."

Rev. Charles Alexander Force Deems died on November 18, 1893.  The Church of the Strangers was "crowded to the doors" during his funeral on November 22 at noon.  Among the pallbearers was Cornelius Vanderbilt III, the grandson of Commodore Vanderbilt.

from New-York Tribune, January 23, 1898

Just over four years later, on January 22, 1898, the last service was held in the church.  The Sun reported, "Nearly 1,200 persons crowded into the Church of the Strangers on Mercer street...to take part in the final service in the old edifice.  Next Sunday the congregation will move into its new home, on Fifty-seventh street, near Eighth avenue."

The New-York Tribune commented on the much-changed neighborhood.  "The quaint old building of rough stone is not small, even for a church of to-day, and when it was new, back in the thirties, it was doubtless regarded as an exceptionally large and imposing structure.  In those days it was at least allowed to show for what it was worth."  But, said the article, as "the neighborhood in which it is situated gradually changed from a quiet residence district to a noisy, active business centre, there came a corresponding change in the surrounding architecture."  The vintage church was now engulfed by loft buildings.

The structure sat empty until 1901 when a demolition permit was issued.  The loft building which replaced it was completed in 1903 and survives.

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The Lost University Building - Washington Square East and Waverly Place

from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

In February 1830 a group of esteemed New Yorkers including Morgan Lewis, John Delafield and Myndert Van Schaick, proposed the organization of a university, "the great object" of which, according to the New York Spectator, "shall be to extend the benefits of education in greater abundance and variety, and at a cheaper rate, than at present they are enjoyed."  The Sun later remarked that it was intended "to far overshadow Harvard, Yale, and Princeton."  The University of the City of New York was founded that fall and incorporated by an act of the state legislature in April 1831.

Classes were temporarily held in Clinton Hall at Beekman and Nassau Streets.  The building committee appointed to plan for a permanent home for the school selected the eminent architectural firm of Town and Davis to design the structure.  The Sun said it was meant to be "the most splendid building in New York."

George Rogers had began construction of the first mansion on Washington Square in 1828 and within the next few years other elegant homes were rising along its borders.  The University of the City of New York acquired the southeast corner of Washington Square East and Waverly Place as the site for its home.  According to Julia M. Truettner in her 2003 Aspirations for Excellence Alexander Jackson Davis submitted the first design in the classic revival style.  "This design, however, was rejected by the university in favor of one of the newly emerging Gothic Revival style."

Construction began in the summer of 1833.  Marble quarried at Sing Sing, New York created a gleaming white presence amid the red brick mansions.  Completed in 1836 it featured a castellated roof line, turrets and corner towers.  A three-story Gothic window flooded the chapel, which doubled as the lecture room, with natural light.

A column of a portico of one of the Washington Square North mansions was included in this 1850 print.  To the right are the towers of the 1840 Reformed Dutch Church.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The northern portion of the University Building contained housing for students.  They could expect a no-frills existence.  Decades later, in 1887, the New-York Tribune explained "The rooms...were fair for those days.  All of them had thick walls and high ceilings, with broad windows encrusted in heavy stone sills and cornices.  There was no running water, it is true, and steam-heaters and hot-air registers were alike unknown.  The rooms were warmed partly by the sun, partly by open grate fires or stoves.  Coal and gas were extras of course.  So was all but the minimum of service."

The New Yorkers gave the institution the popular name of New York University.  The expansive lecture room of its marble building was used not only for class instruction, but for public lectures.  On January 30, 1836, for example, The Herald reported:

Professor Bush last evening at the New York University, explained the Egyptian Hieroglyphics.  He read distinctly the inscription on the Rosetta stone, and explained every character on the Pyramids.  What prodigious learning!

Dr. Sleigh gave a weekly lecture on Saturday evenings at the time.  On February 24 The Herald reported on his latest talk, saying "The lecture room was crowded to excess with the fashionable world, ladies and gentlemen."  The women in the audience were warned against the physically constricting fashion trend--the corset.  He reminded them that "figure did not constitute beauty" and was sure that by evening's end "he would bring conviction home to the heart of every female of the destructive and pernicious effects of the corset."

drawing by John Disturnell, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The Financial Panic of 1837 erased the institution's endowment, and finances worsened following Dr. Morgan Lewis's death in 1844.  He had headed the trustees of the university since its inception.  An article in The New York Times entitled "A Financial Explosion" on February 8, 1849 lamented "Dr. Matthews was one of its most efficient founders; but unfortunately, of late years, it has fallen into quite different hands, and has been diverted from its original broad character, to a narrow and puritanical course.  Its prayers and piety, as far as lip service goes, the New York University is a perfect pattern; but in solid learning, sound sense, and flourishing funds, it has been as bad as it well could be."  The writer bemoaned "Is there no mode of resuscitating such a noble institution as this ought to be, and so useful in promoting the intellect and learning of this great metropolis?"

With enrollment falling off, a decision had been made to convert some of the dormitory rooms into bachelor apartments in 1840.  The New-York Tribune remarked in 1887 "The big, square marble building with its shortened towers, was long ago found too large for all its students, and, to help the college treasury along, nearly half of its living rooms were let out to bachelor tenants.  The Waverly Place wing was shut off as far as possible from the main hall, doors were cut at convenience through the inner walls to make suits, or barred up again to please tenants who took only single rooms."

Bachelors fitted up the apartments to their liking, like this artist's studio.  The Sun, March 6, 1892 (copyright expired)

While the accommodations needed the tenants' dressing up, the Washington Square location was fashionable and convenient.  "Rooms were taken bare of everything except the paper left by the last tenant on the wall, and were furnished to suit the taste or pocket-book of the owner."  It was a favorite among journalists and artists.  In 1892 The Sun recalled "they find in its cloister air and in the fine views from its windows a sympathetic place for their labor."  

In the years following the Civil War men paid from $300 a year for a single room, to $700 for a large suite--or about $1,450 per month for the most expensive in today's dollars.

In another move to augment the struggling university's coffers classrooms were leased to outside groups.  An announcement in The New York Herald on October 20, 1867 touted "A Ladies' Class, for the Study of the various stages of the English Language and Early English Literature is now being formed...This course is under the patronage of several ladies."  

Others who rented space were J. Jay Watson who advertised "Private lessons, piano, organ, violin, guitar, singing, languages, University Building, 36 Waverley place" on April 1, 1877; and his apparent competition, "Miss Watson's Select Music School for ladies and children.  Piano, Organ, Guitar, Singing, Languages."

Mrs. Henrietta A. Matthews and her husband occupied an apartment in the building where she held the position of "janitress"--more like a manager or superintendent in today's terms.  On Wednesday evening, March 27, 1878 three burglars broke into the third floor rooms of F. S. Comstock.  They loaded a bag with $250 worth of clothing and jewelry and were on their way out when they were frightened.  As they fled they left the bag on the staircase landing.

The Sun, March 6, 1892 (copyright expired)

The cause of their alarm was the approach of Mrs. Matthews who had been informed of the break-in.  The feisty, no-nonsense women had no intentions of allowing a burglary on her watch.  As the thief who dropped the bag scrambled to get away, "Mrs. Matthews caught him at the main door, grasped him by the arm and dragged him, notwithstanding his efforts to escape, to her room, where her husband assisted her in holding him until the arrival of Officer Kenny."

Part of the problem was that there was no security in the building as is expected today.  There were no guards to question anyone who wandered in or out, and because a long corridor ran from one end of the building to the other, crooks found it an inviting spot.  On November 24, 1889 The New York Times wrote "'Dead beats' and petty swindlers have discovered that the arrangement of the first floor of the building is specially well adapted for their thieving needs."

One scam was to order merchandise to be delivered to the University Building, then wait for the messenger.  The thief would ask him to wait while he hurried upstairs to get the payment, only to exit out the opposite side of the building.

Around 1877 the soaring chapel space, "which was one of the wonders of New York," according to The Sun, was floored over and divided into additional bachelor apartments.  While the lower two floors were much like the other rooms in the building, the article described:

...the top rooms have the vaulted roof of the chapel for a ceiling.  Turning from the windows one sees an interior like that of some mediaeval palace.  There are queer corners.  The pendants, massive and reaching nearly to the floors, make odd nooks and unexpected partitions.

Huge stars of gold glitter in the elaborate carving of the stone ceiling.  Gargoyles peer and grin.  there are Latin inscriptions half effaced.  In several of the rooms colossal figures, flowing and mysterious, rise from the floor to grow ghastly in evening shadows.

One of the upper apartments in the former chapel.  The Sun, March 6, 1892 (copyright expired)

In 1891 the university considered opening a northern campus.  On May 5 The New York Times reported that a committee meeting "took place last evening at the University Building, in Washington Square.  Plans for enlarging the scope of the university were discussed."  

The resident who had lived in the building the longest at the time was also its most eccentric.  Henry T. Gamage, known as the "University Building hermit," had moved into his room on the top floor around 1842.  During his half-century residency, according to The Evening World, "not more than two persons besides himself had been admitted there."  He cooked his own meals and "waited upon himself in every respect."  The newspaper said "The other tenants had become accustomed to his peculiarities, but the oldest of them had no more than a nodding acquaintance with him."

On February 13 1892 a servant passing by his room smelled a suspicious odor and pushed open the door, which was ajar.  Gamage had died in his chair and his head had fallen onto a small stove.  "He found that the old man's head was burned to the bone on the right side."

from the collection of the New York Public Library

There were more than fifty oil paintings stacked throughout the room.  Five days later The Sun reported that those who had called "the University building hermit [a miser] did the dead man a great injustice."  His will revealed that he had saved up his fortune as well as the accumulated paintings to pay the debts "incurred many years ago by his father."

The University Building--the symbol of the school--was included in the ambitious plan of the uptown campus.  The firm of McKim, Mead & White provided general plans to the university in April 1893 "for removing the historic building on Washington Square and reconstructing it" at University Heights.  The architects placed the cost of the project at $200,000--more than $5.75 million today.

The University Building took center stage in the original uptown plans.  The New York Times, April 29, 1893 (copyright expired)

The problem was that while the university did not want to see the venerable structure razed, it did not intend to pay for the expensive undertaking of moving it.  The New York Times explained that the trustees "feel unwilling to adopt plans which will obliterate the old edifice until they have invited citizens to assist them in preserving this notable structure."

The private donations did not come in.  And without the upgrades it would have received in the rebuilding, University Hall was unusable for the Washington Square campus (which would be officially named New York University in 1896).  It was demolished in 1894 to be replaced by the Main Building, designed by Alfred Zucker (renamed the Silver Center of Arts & Science in 2002).

photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York