Church of the Holy Innocents

128 West 37th Street | Garment District | built 1920

Open on the map4 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1870

    February 13

    The Church of the Holy Innocents is dedicated on West 37th Street

    A Roman Catholic parish completes a Gothic Revival church designed by architect Patrick C. Keely on the site of a former Episcopal chapel. The brick building, trimmed in brownstone and Ohio sandstone, seats about 1,500 beneath 76 stained-glass windows and a marble altar frescoed by Constantino Brumidi, who was working on the U.S. Capitol at the same time.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1873

    November

    Irish-born boxer John C. Heenan is given a funeral at the church

    Heenan, who died that October in the Wyoming Territory while traveling to a fight in San Francisco, has his body brought back to New York by train for burial. His funeral at Holy Innocents draws large floral tributes, including arrangements shaped like anchors and harps, reflecting the working-class Irish congregation he belonged to.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1887

    June 21

    The church holds a requiem mass for Irish famine victims during Victoria's Jubilee

    As Queen Victoria marks her Golden Jubilee, Holy Innocents holds a requiem mass remembering an estimated 150,000 Irish victims of the Great Famine four decades earlier. The service underscores the church's deep ties to New York's Irish Catholic community.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1888

    Future playwright Eugene O'Neill is baptized at Holy Innocents

    Infant Eugene O'Neill, who grows up to become a celebrated playwright, is baptized in the church. Holy Innocents earns a reputation in this period as "the actors' church," reflecting its ties to the performers of Midtown's growing theater scene.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 10 buildings with stories in Garment District