St. James Church
32 James Street | Two Bridges | built 1837
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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.
- 1836
Irish immigrants organize the first Ancient Order of Hibernians branch here
St. James, a fieldstone Greek Revival church built between 1835 and 1837 and attributed to Minard Lafever, is the second-oldest Roman Catholic church building in New York City. In 1836, while it was still new, the first branch of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Irish Catholic fraternal society, was organized inside it. Decades later the Hibernians would help save the building.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1837
St. James dedicates its finished church to its patron apostle
After the parish holds its first Mass in the unfinished basement the previous September, Bishop John Dubois formally dedicates the completed Greek Revival church under the invocation of St. James the Apostle. Dubois had created the parish to relieve overcrowding at nearby St. Peter's, the city's oldest Catholic congregation.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1966
The city designates St. James a landmark of the Greek Revival
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the church in 1966, calling it one of the monuments of the Greek Revival in New York City. Its parish had long served the Irish families of the neighborhood: Alfred E. Smith, born in 1873 and later governor of New York, served as an altar boy here. The church's original Georgian cupola had been removed from the roof around 1929.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1983
City officials close St. James as its roof threatens to collapse
In 1983 city officials ordered the church closed because its roof was in danger of collapsing, and in 1986 it was scheduled for demolition. Community members, led by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, saved it. A fire on January 11, 2011, caused heavy damage, and the parish, merged with St. Joseph's in 2007, was folded into the Church of the Transfiguration in 2015.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1984
St. James reopens after a roof restoration
A year after the city closes St. James over the dangerous condition of its roof, the parish completes repairs and reopens the church for worship. The restoration keeps one of Manhattan's oldest Catholic parish buildings in use, though further preservation battles over its future still lie ahead.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1986
A demolition order threatens St. James before the Hibernians intervene
City officials schedule the aging church for demolition, prompting a preservation campaign led by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the fraternal order the parish had helped found 150 years earlier. The campaign succeeds in stopping the wrecking order and keeps the Greek Revival church standing.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2011
A two-alarm fire damages St. James Church
Fire breaks out at the historic church, drawing a two-alarm response from the FDNY and causing significant damage to the 175-year-old Greek Revival structure. The blaze adds another chapter to a building that had already survived a 1980s closure and demolition threat.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- St. James Roman Catholic Church (Manhattan)Wikipedia
- The 1836 St. James Church -- 32 James StreetDaytonian in Manhattan
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