St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
131 East 10th Street | also 234 East 11th Street, 165 2nd Avenue | East Village | built 1799
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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.
- 1672
Peter Stuyvesant is buried in a vault beneath his family chapel on this site
Petrus Stuyvesant, the Dutch colony's director-general, bought land here for a farm, or bouwerij, in 1651 and had built a family chapel on the spot by 1660. When he died in 1672 he was interred in a vault under that chapel. The present church rose over the same ground more than a century later, and Stuyvesant's vault remains beneath it.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1799
The fieldstone church designed by John McComb Jr. is consecrated
Work on the church began with a cornerstone laid in 1795, and the finished building, designed by John McComb Jr., was consecrated on May 9, 1799. A Greek Revival steeple was added in 1828. The city designated it a landmark on April 19, 1966.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1828
A Greek Revival steeple rises over the church
Architects Martin Euclid Thompson and Ithiel Town design a Greek Revival steeple for the fieldstone church, added decades after its 1799 consecration. Further changes follow through the 19th century: Thompson oversees renovations in the 1830s, ironmaster James Bogardus is credited with a cast-iron portico in 1858, and James Renwick Jr. designs a brick parish hall addition in 1861.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1842
Convicted murderer John C. Colt is interred at St. Mark's after his suicide in the Tombs
John C. Colt, a convicted murderer and the brother of revolver maker Samuel Colt, was interred at St. Mark's in 1842 after killing himself in the Tombs jail. Stone burial vaults under the church's East and West Yards hold many prominent New Yorkers, among them Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins and Peter Stuyvesant.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1878
The body of merchant A. T. Stewart is found stolen from the churchyard vault
Stewart, a wealthy retailer who died on April 10, 1876, was laid in the family vault in the St. Mark's churchyard. On November 7, 1878, assistant sexton Francis Parker found the vault's covering removed again, and the body was gone. Thieves held the remains for ransom, and one account says his widow paid $20,000 in 1881 for them, handed over on a country road in Westchester County.
Source: westsidespirit.com
- 1920
Solon Borglum's statues Aspiration and Inspiration are unveiled at the church entrance
In 1919 the poet Kahlil Gibran joined the church's Arts Committee, and the next year Solon Borglum's two Indian figures, Aspiration and Inspiration, were unveiled to flank the entrance. Gibran also gave readings from his writings, some of which became annual events for a while, and showed an exhibition of his drawings.
“In 1919 poet Kahlil Gibran was appointed a member of the St. Mark's Arts Committee, and the next year, the two prominent Indian statues…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
Theatre Genesis opens at St. Mark's with two Sam Shepard one-acts
Ralph Cook, a head waiter at the Village Gate, approached rector Michael Allen, who had arrived in 1963, and set up Theatre Genesis at the church in 1964. It opened on October 10 with Sam Shepard's one-acts The Rock Garden and Cowboys, and became one of the main Off-Off-Broadway venues beside Cafe La MaMa, Judson Church and Caffe Cino.
Source: dsps.lib.uiowa.edu
- 1966
The Poetry Project begins holding readings at the church
In the 1960s the church opened its doors to the downtown avant-garde. Theater Genesis started here in 1964, and in 1966 the Poetry Project and a film program that became the Millennium Film Workshop were founded. Danspace Project followed in 1975. A fire on July 27, 1978 nearly destroyed the building, and restoration was not completed until 1986.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1966
The city designates the church a landmark as the oldest site of continuous worship in New York
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the church on April 19, 1966, after a hearing a week earlier where five witnesses, including the church's representative, spoke in favor. It called the site the oldest of continuous worship in the city, a late Georgian church with harmonious later additions, and the burial place of Peter Stuyvesant, from whose farm, the Bouwerie, the church takes its name.
- 1971
Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye give a Poetry Project reading that launches their careers
Patti Smith and guitarist Lenny Kaye perform a reading at the church's Poetry Project, five years after the series began there in 1966. The event helps set both toward music, as Smith goes on to form the Patti Smith Group with Kaye. The church's downstairs theater, Theatre Genesis, has its own run of firsts too, staging early Sam Shepard plays after Ralph Cook founds it in 1964.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
A fire nearly destroys St. Mark's Church
A fire tears through St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery, badly damaging the more than 175-year-old building. Restoration stretches across two phases from 1975 to 1984 and finishes in 1986 with new stained-glass windows designed by Harold Edelman. The disaster comes years after the church's 1966 city landmark designation and amid its long run as a venue for dance, theater, and poetry.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1986
Rebuilding after the 1978 fire is completed with new stained-glass windows
After the July 1978 fire, the Citizens to Save St. Mark's raised money and the Preservation Youth Project carried out the reconstruction, supervised by architect Harold Edelman with craftspeople from the contractor I. Maas & Sons. The work was finished in 1986, and Edelman designed the church's new stained-glass windows.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- St. Mark's Church in-the-BoweryWikipedia
- 131 East 10th StreetVillage Preservation: East Village Building Blocks
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