St. Benedict the Moor Church

342 West 53rd Street | Hell's Kitchen | built 1920

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.

1869
R.C. McLane & Sons design a German Evangelical church on West 53rd Street
Architects R.C. McLane & Sons design a church at 342 West 53rd Street in 1869 for the Second German Church of the Evangelical Association, built to serve Hell's Kitchen's German immigrant population. The Italianate-style red brick building later becomes home to a very different congregation.
Source: Wikipedia
1898
St. Benedict the Moor parish moves into the former German church
The Catholic parish of St. Benedict the Moor, organized in 1883 as the city's first Catholic church for African Americans, relocates into the former Second German Church building at 342 West 53rd Street in 1898. The move, after an earlier stop on Bleecker Street, gives the historically Black congregation a lasting home in Hell's Kitchen.
Source: Wikipedia
1953
Spanish Franciscan friars take over St. Benedict the Moor
Beginning in 1953, Spanish friars of the Third Order of St. Francis take charge of the parish, and the church is rededicated the following year. The shift reflects a changing neighborhood even as the building keeps its nineteenth-century Evangelical-church shell.
Source: Wikipedia
2017
June 30
The archdiocese deconsecrates the church and later sells it
The Archdiocese of New York deconsecrates the church on June 30, 2017, ending well over a century of continuous religious use at 342 West 53rd Street. The property is sold to a developer in 2023.
Source: Wikipedia

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