Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

St. John's Chapel was designed by John McComb, Jr. (1763 -1853), in 1803 for the vestry of Trinity Church to accommodate its expanding Episcopalian congregation.¹ The chapel's hewn-oak spire reached more than two hundred feet in height, while a curved stairway to the pulpit and carved acanthus-topped fluted pillars lent elegance to its airy, open interior.

The Trinity parish planned to offer ninety-nine-year leases on land it owned around the perimeter of what was then Hudson Square, expecting fine homes to be built. But upper-class New Yorkers of the period found the area too far uptown, and the long leases seemed onerous. By the 1820s, when the northward push of the city made Hudson Square a desirable place to live and the parish decided to sell rather than lease the property, attendance at the chapel increased.

In 1827 Trinity parish granted use of the square to owners of the surrounding land. Befitting a neighborhood rapidly gaining renown for the wealth of its residents and the grandeur of their houses, St. John's park came to be thought of as one of the finest, with specimens of both American and foreign trees.²

In 1866, however, when New York's relentless expansion north rendered the neighborhood less fashionable, Trinity parish sold the park for four hundred thousand dollars to Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who promptly built a freight depot on it for the Hudson River Railroad. Although St. John's gained respite from its financial problems by this transaction, it now faced the walls of the depot's warehouses and also opened itself to criticism for abandoning one of the few parks available to the poor left behind by the northward migration of New York's more affluent citizens.

St. John's Chapel was demolished in 1918 - 1919. The announcement of its impending closing once more exposed Trinity parish to public censure. Others defended the action: "In closing this chapel Trinity parish is not, as has been implied in some quarters, deserting the people of one of the poorer regions of this city, and leaving them without the ministrations of the Church . . . in view of the movement of the population the work of Trinity parish for this region must be done from a center near to the present site of St. Luke's Chapel . . . the work can be done more strongly and effectively from this one center."³

Edward Lamson Henry's Old St. John's Church on Varick Street depicts the church and park as they appeared in the 1840s. Henry often developed his paintings from old photographs or sketches, as he has done here, and also collected antique vehicles, clothing, and other artifacts, using them as models for meticulously rendered scenes of earlier times. According to his biographer Elizabeth McCausland, Henry's commitment to the preservation of venerated sites and buildings, such as St. John's Chapel, is documented in letters he wrote to public officials and newspapers and inspired some of his paintings.⁴ In addition to their documentary value today, Henry's works had great popularity as lithographs published by New York City printer C. Klackner.

Notes:

1 McComb was also the architect for City Hall, Castle Garden, and two New York area lighthouses still in use at Eaton's Neck and Montauk.

2 Morgan Dix, History of Trinity (1898 -1906), vol. 4, pp. 236 -237, quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1922), vol. 4, p. 235.

3 Unidentified news clipping, dated December 17, 1908, in the Museum Archives.

4 Elizabeth McCausland, The Life and Work of Edward Lamson Henry N.A., 1841 -1919 (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1945).


Old St. John's Church on Varick Street 1905 (depicting 1840s) Edward Lamson Henry (1841 -1919) Oil on canvas, 28 X 24 Signed lower left: E. L. Henry 1905 Bequest of Mrs. Ellen P. Moffat, 60.77
St. John's Chapel was designed by John McComb, Jr. (1763 -1853), in 1803 for the vestry of Trinity Church to accommodate its expanding Episcopalian congregation.¹ The chapel's hewn-oak spire reached more than two hundred feet in height, while a curved stairway to the pulpit and carved acanthus-topped fluted pillars lent elegance to its airy, open interior. The Trinity parish planned to offer ninety-nine-year leases on land it owned around the perimeter of what was then Hudson Square, expecting fine homes to be built. But upper-class New Yorkers of the period found the area too far uptown, and the long leases seemed onerous. By the 1820s, when the northward push of the city made Hudson Square a desirable place to live and the parish decided to sell rather than lease the property, attendance at the chapel increased. In 1827 Trinity parish granted use of the square to owners of the surrounding land. Befitting a neighborhood rapidly gaining renown for the wealth of its residents and the grandeur of their houses, St. John's park came to be thought of as one of the finest, with specimens of both American and foreign trees.² In 1866, however, when New York's relentless expansion north rendered the neighborhood less fashionable, Trinity parish sold the park for four hundred thousand dollars to Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, who promptly built a freight depot on it for the Hudson River Railroad. Although St. John's gained respite from its financial problems by this transaction, it now faced the walls of the depot's warehouses and also opened itself to criticism for abandoning one of the few parks available to the poor left behind by the northward migration of New York's more affluent citizens. St. John's Chapel was demolished in 1918 - 1919. The announcement of its impending closing once more exposed Trinity parish to public censure. Others defended the action: "In closing this chapel Trinity parish is not, as has been implied in some quarters, deserting the people of one of the poorer regions of this city, and leaving them without the ministrations of the Church . . . in view of the movement of the population the work of Trinity parish for this region must be done from a center near to the present site of St. Luke's Chapel . . . the work can be done more strongly and effectively from this one center."³ Edward Lamson Henry's Old St. John's Church on Varick Street depicts the church and park as they appeared in the 1840s. Henry often developed his paintings from old photographs or sketches, as he has done here, and also collected antique vehicles, clothing, and other artifacts, using them as models for meticulously rendered scenes of earlier times. According to his biographer Elizabeth McCausland, Henry's commitment to the preservation of venerated sites and buildings, such as St. John's Chapel, is documented in letters he wrote to public officials and newspapers and inspired some of his paintings.⁴ In addition to their documentary value today, Henry's works had great popularity as lithographs published by New York City printer C. Klackner. Notes: 1 McComb was also the architect for City Hall, Castle Garden, and two New York area lighthouses still in use at Eaton's Neck and Montauk. 2 Morgan Dix, History of Trinity (1898 -1906), vol. 4, pp. 236 -237, quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1922), vol. 4, p. 235. 3 Unidentified news clipping, dated December 17, 1908, in the Museum Archives. 4 Elizabeth McCausland, The Life and Work of Edward Lamson Henry N.A., 1841 -1919 (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1945).