St. George's Episcopal Church

209 East 16th Street | Gramercy | built 1855

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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. 1856

    St. George's Episcopal Church is completed on Stuyvesant Square

    Begun in 1846 and finished in 1856, the new St. George's rose on Stuyvesant Square for a congregation that had been independent of Trinity Church since 1811. Charles Otto Blesch is credited with the round-arched exterior, while Leopold Eidlitz designed the interior and the rectory. The church is regarded as an early and important American example of Romanesque Revival church design.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1865

    A fire guts St. George's Episcopal Church

    In 1865 a fire gutted St. George's Episcopal Church. Leopold Eidlitz, who had designed the interior, supervised the rebuilding, which was finished within two years. The spires on the church's two towers were removed in 1889.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1883

    Rev. William Rainsford turns St. George's into a hub for the poor

    William Stephen Rainsford became rector in 1883 at J. P. Morgan's urging and set the church on a new course, ending pew rentals and offering an industrial school, sewing classes, soup kitchens, health programs and clubs for the poor of a neighborhood that had filled with immigrants. Morgan, the senior warden and the church's most influential parishioner, agreed to cover any deficits, and the church became informally known as "Morgan's Church." Within seven years it was a leader of the institutional church movement.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1976

    St. George's Episcopal Church is named a National Historic Landmark

    St. George's received National Historic Landmark designation in 1976. That same year its parish merged with Calvary Church and the Church of the Holy Communion to form the Calvary-St. George's Parish. St. George's is now one of the parish's two sanctuaries, the other being Calvary Church on Park Avenue South.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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