St. Clement's Church

423 West 46th Street | Hell's Kitchen | built 1925

Open on the map6 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. 1870

    November

    Edward Delano Lindsey files plans for a Gothic chapel on West 46th Street

    In November 1870 architect Edward Delano Lindsey filed plans for a three-story brick chapel here for a Presbyterian mission in Hell's Kitchen. Known as Faith Chapel, the Ruskinian Gothic building has pointed arches, patterned brick and fishscale slate. The Episcopal Church of St. Cornelius took it over on June 7, 1897, and it later became St. Clement's.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1873

    Rev. James Hart Hoadley grows Faith Chapel into a full congregation

    Rev. James Hart Hoadley becomes Faith Chapel's first permanent pastor in 1873 at age 26. Under him the mission grows quickly, reaching about 350 members and nearly 1,000 Sunday school students by 1877, and the congregation incorporates as Faith Presbyterian Church on November 12, 1883.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1897

    June 7

    St. Cornelius Episcopal Church takes over the West 46th Street chapel

    The Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Cornelius opens in the building on June 7, 1897. Rector Isaac C. Sturges spends seven years raising $45,000 for the parish, and an anonymous Christmas gift in December 1904 clears the remaining debt, letting the church be formally consecrated on February 19, 1905.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1963

    April

    Rev. Sidney Lanier starts the American Place Theatre inside the church

    As part of a ministry to the theater, St. Clement's rector Sidney Lanier created the American Place Theatre here in April 1963 to foster new writing. Robert Lowell's The Old Glory, staged here, won five Obie Awards in 1965, and Sam Shepard's Back Bog Beast Bait opened on April 29, 1971. The church later became known for embracing the ministry of women and of gay and lesbian people.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1963

    December 19

    Playwright Molly Kazan's funeral draws Broadway luminaries

    Molly Kazan, a playwright and an early force behind the church's American Place Theatre project, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage on December 14, 1963. Her funeral at St. Clement's on December 19 draws roughly 400 mourners, including Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Warren Beatty, with her husband, director Elia Kazan, delivering the eulogy.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1965

    Robert Lowell's "The Old Glory" wins five Obie Awards at St. Clement's

    Robert Lowell's play "The Old Glory" opens at the American Place Theatre inside St. Clement's, starring Frank Langella, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Lester Rawlins, and wins five Obie Awards in 1965, including Best American Play. The production helps establish the church's experimental theater as a serious Off-Broadway venue.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

Nearby

All 46 buildings with stories in Hell's Kitchen