Methodist Mission Building
209 Madison Street | Two Bridges | built 1900
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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.
- 1885
Methodist missionary society buys a former Seventh Ward house for $15,000
On June 25, 1885, three purchasers acquired 209 Madison Street on behalf of the Methodist Episcopal Church's New York City Church Extension and Missionary Society. The three-story brick house had been advertised for sale in 1853, after the death of its owner Joseph C. Skaden, as having hot and cold baths and gas. Rev. George N. Compton, who had lived there earlier, pastored the Madison Street Mission, founded around 1856.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1886
D. & J. Jardine remake the house as a Romanesque Revival mission chapel
Plans filed in June 1886 by the firm D. & J. Jardine called for taking down and rebuilding the front wall and raising the building by four feet. The architects gave it a church-like Romanesque Revival face, with three arched first-floor openings under a terra cotta eyebrow. Inside, the former second and third floors became a double-height chapel lit by stained glass flanking a rose window.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1890
Mission doctor William Hall rallies neighbors to turn Rutgers Slip into a playground
Dr. William James Hall, who ran the mission's dispensary, spoke at an open-air meeting of the Seventh Ward on August 12, 1890, demanding that Rutgers Slip become a park. A week later, The World reported, local children were using the mission as a recruiting base for the campaign. Of the ward's 75,000 residents, 35,000 were children.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1895
The Hope of Israel Mission moves in to convert Jewish immigrants
In 1895 the Methodist society placed the Hope of Israel Mission, founded in 1893, in the building. Its doctor treated 50 to 80 patients a week, and a basement reading room held Bibles in English, German, Hebrew and Russian. Rev. A. C. Gaebelein made the mission's first report to the society, and its goal was to win over the growing Jewish population of the Lower East Side.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1897
The building is sold to a congregation and becomes a synagogue with a mikveh
In June 1897 the society sold the former mission to the congregation Chevra Etz Chaim Anshe Walosin for $24,000, and the basement was fitted out as a mikveh in 1907. Sometime after World War I, Congregation Agudath Achim Anshei Barisoff, organized in 1891, took over the space. A Star of David was later set into the rose window, and the synagogue stayed until a 1993 conversion into apartments.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
Further reading
- The Methodist Mission Building - 209 Madison Street Daytonian in Manhattan
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