Bethlehem Chapel and Memorial House
196 Bleecker Street | Greenwich Village | built 1920
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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.
- 1918
George B. Post & Sons design a chapel and club house for the University Place Presbyterian Church
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The University Place Presbyterian Church built this Medieval Revival building at 196 Bleecker Street from plans of the firm George B. Post & Sons, filed in 1918. John P. Munn, the church's president, is named as the owner. Inside, the church provided space for worship, for club meetings and for a day nursery, and it called the place Bethlehem Chapel and Memorial House.
“Built in 1918 as Bethlehem Chapel and Memorial House for the University Place Presbyterian Church, it included a chapel, club rooms, and a day nursery.”
- 1932
Elisabeth Irwin's Little Red School House moves in as a private school
Elisabeth Irwin, a reform educator, had started the Little Red School House in 1921 as a progressive-education experiment inside the public school system. After it turned into a private, independent school in 1932, it relocated that year into the former chapel at 196 Bleecker Street. The Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that the school bought the building in 1937.
“In 1932, the newly private, independent school moved into the former Bethlehem Chapel and Memorial House of the University Place Presbyterian Church, 196 Bleecker Street, which was acquired in 1937.”
- 1937
Little Red School House, Inc. buys the former chapel and has it altered
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The chapel's congregation joined the Charlton Street Memorial Church in 1931. In 1937 Little Red School House, Inc. bought the building at 196 Bleecker Street, and the architect Jacob Moscowitz altered it for the school. The school had gone private in 1932, when public funding was withdrawn during the Great Depression.
Nearby
- 194 Bleecker Street1 entry
- Little Red School House272 Avenue of the Americas | 7 entries
- 192 Bleecker Street1 entry
- 190 Bleecker Street3 entries
- 188 Bleecker Street2 entries
- 83 MacDougal Street2 entries