St. George's Church


Stuyvesant Sq.
New York City. 


Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.

Created Date: 1858-1925 

Digital ID: G91F200_057f 
NYPL Call Number: MFY Dennis Coll 91-F200



Your stereopticon slide is of St. George’s Episcopal Church at East 16th St. 
and Rutherford Place in Manhattan. 

The view is from near Third Ave. looking to the northeast towards 
Stuyvesant Square (visible to the right of the tower). The view is 
particularly notable since it is shows the structure without its roof 
immediately after the 1865 fire. Also visible are both of the now-vanished 
spires (everything above the level of the clockfaces is now gone), and the 
original church hall --to the left of the semi-circular apse. This barn-like 
church hall (or chapel?) was demolished and replaced by a far grander rectory 
in the 1880’s (still standing, and now converted to condos, I believe). 

This is the church, by the way, where J. P. Morgan worshiped. Morgan was a lay 
officer of St. George’s and he also endowed and built the old NY Babies Hospital 
around the corner on the west side of Second Ave. between 17th & 18th Sts. just 
to the north of Stuyvesant Square (and still standing, though condos now also). 
The traditional rumor is that he built the hospital out of remorse for siring a
 child out of wedlock. 

 History and updated photos<./a>

St. Georges Church (Episcopal), Rutherford Place & East 16th Street, New York, NY (1846-56) 
is one of the first and most significant examples of early Romanesque Revival in America. 
The exterior is thought to have been designed by the Bavarian born architect Otto Blesch. 
The interiors were designed by Leopold Eiditz. The original gothic style stone spires 
were removed in 1889. Acknowledgment: Andrew Dolkart, Guide to New York City Landmarks, 1991. 


  J. P. Morgan was a warden and a faithful attendant. Harry Burleigh, a soloist in the 
choir here for 52 years, helped win academic respect for African-American music through 
his friendship with Antonin Dvorak. When St. George's was built, in the forties, there 
was an unimpeded view from it to the East River. Members of New York's `best families' 
began to settle in the vicinity, and Stuyvesant Square, Rutherford Place, Irving Place, 
became among the most desirable addresses in New York. By the last decade of the nineteenth 
century they had been pressed out by the tide of German immigrants coming northward on 
Second Avenue. But for a considerable period after the fine old houses were abandoned by 
the very elegant, they were even more notably occupied by a literary colony. And always, 
these forty years past, Tammany chiefs have lived here, close ' but not too close! ' 
to the `pee-pul.' Many doctors live there now, close to the hospitals. 

It is, perhaps, the Quaker meeting-house, next to St. George's, which gives Stuyvesant 
Square an air that reminds some of old Philadelphia. There are many hospitals there, now; 
but the charm of yesteryears has not wholly departed.

205-207 East 16th: Formerly St George Memorial House; an 1886 gift from financier 
J.P. Morgan to the church. Now apartments. 

209 East 16th: Pierce House; St George’s parish house, described by the AIA Guide 
as "a late medieval Germanic tower." 

HISTORY

The life of a parish is like the life of a family, and this parish traces its life back 
to 1749 when Trinity Church established the Chapel of St. George on Beekman Street.  
Over the years the congregation developed in strength, until in 1811 it became a 
self-supporting parish of the Episcopal Church, and in 1846 moved to 16th Street.  
In the meantime the ministry of Calvary Church was begun in 1832, and that of the Church 
of the Holy Communion in 1844.

During the 1840's, New York City was expanding rapidly into the area north of 14th Street.  
The three parishes commissioned three of the great architects of the day, Richard Upjohn, 
James Renwick Jr., and Leopold Eidlitz to design buildings for them.  Ministries were 
developed that not only reflected the doctrine and discipline of the Episcopal Church, 
but met the needs of a growing city with its complex new population.  The old Dutch and 
English families had been the mainstay of the Church in the early part of the 19th century, 
but by mid-century the life of the city and of the Church was enriched by a variety of nationalities. 

The three congregations developed differing styles during the 19th century.  They each 
sought, however, to balance a commitment to the Lord with a deep desire to serve humanity.  
Programs were developed, hospitals established, including St. Luke's, and efforts were made 
on a personal and corporate level to express the biblical and theological recognition of 
the deep worth of personhood.  There was a real concern for justice and the pursuit of 
Truth, and aspects of life that are sometimes seen as mundane, as peripheral to the 
religious experience, were considered essential.  Health and dental clinics, fresh-air camps, 
and the first trade schools in the city were operated by the Parish; soup kitchens were 
opened and fresh water was supplied for tenements before the city could provide it. 

In 1975, the three congregations merged to form one, and later the Church of the Holy 
Communion was sold to meet the needs of the economic crunch.  In a sense our parish is 
very new.  But having its roots in old New York, there is strength to be found in the 
knowledge that other generations of the Parish family, in times equally trying, have 
been faithful in their efforts to be the Church in New York City.


 
   

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