Gateway Plaza, 500 building (St. Joseph's Chapel)

385 South End Avenue | also 393 South End Avenue, 389 South End Avenue, 345 South End Avenue | Battery Park City | built 1983

Open on the map4 entries

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. 1983

    St. Joseph's Chapel, a Maronite-rooted parish, moves into Gateway Plaza

    St. Joseph's traces its beginnings to 1899, when Maronite Catholics first worshipped in the lower level of St. Peter's Church. In 1983 the congregation relocated to the new neighborhood of Battery Park City and affiliated with St. Peter's, taking space at 385 South End Avenue. Parish tradition holds that a Catholic deacon working for the LeFrak Organization persuaded his boss to lease it space intended for a dry cleaner, reasoning that a chapel would help attract tenants.

    Source: spcolr.org

  2. 2001

    September

    St. Joseph's Chapel becomes a supply station and refuge for recovery workers after September 11

    After the attacks of September 11, 2001, government agencies took over the chapel and ran it as a supply station. For several months it also gave firefighters, police officers and construction workers on the recovery effort a place to find food, rest and spiritual counsel. When residents could return, the remaining parishioners attended Sunday Mass in a recreation room on Rector Place while the chapel's wrecked interior was rebuilt.

    Source: spcolr.org

  3. 2005

    May 22

    Cardinal Egan rededicates St. Joseph's Chapel as the Catholic September 11 Memorial

    Archbishop Edward Cardinal Egan rededicated the Gateway Plaza chapel on May 22, 2005, after its interior had been renovated following the 2001 attacks. It became a Catholic memorial to September 11. The chapel stood about one and a half blocks from the World Trade Center site.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 2018

    January

    St. Joseph's Chapel closes after its rent is set to triple

    In 2017 the management company run by the LeFrak organization and partners told St. Peter's parish, which ran the chapel, that its rent would roughly triple, and the parish did not or could not pay. A November 2017 announcement from St. Peter's said the chapel at 385 South End Avenue would close in January 2018, despite community efforts to find a better solution.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 22 buildings with stories in Battery Park City