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

St. Andrew's, the first Protestant Episcopal congregation in Harlem, was organized in 1829 and opened its first church on Fourth (now Park) Avenue between 127th and 128th Streets the following year.¹ Several additions enlarged the church before fire destroyed it in 1871. The next year, the congregation broke ground on the same site for a new church designed by Henry M. Congdon (1834 - 1922).²The Gothic-style building was completed in 1873.

St. Andrew's grew along with Nieuw Haarlem, a village established in 1658 by Peter Stuyvesant and bounded by the Harlem River, Morningside Heights, 110th Street, and 155th Street. In the 1830s a horse-drawn car line, the first in Manhattan, began operating along Fourth Avenue from City Hall to the Harlem River, and this, with the arrival of the Harlem Railroad in 1832 and the Third Avenue horse railroad (known as the Palace Horse Car) in 1853, helped Harlem grow from a rural community of rich estates to a thriving village.³ The 1873 annexation of the village by New York City, followed in 1880 by the advent of elevated rapid transit lines, turned Harlem into a fashionable neighborhood with easy access to lower Manhattan.

Because of the congregation's steady growth and the noise and smoke of the railroad along Park Avenue, a larger building on a different site was deemed necessary for St. Andrew's. In 1888 the building firm of Mahoney and Watson was hired to dismantle the church, brick by brick, and to reassemble and enlarge it on its present site, the east side of Fifth Avenue between 127th and 128th Streets.⁴The larger building, depicted here, accommodated congregants from the "aristocratic apartment houses and the popular brownstones" of the neighborhood, populated primarily by Germans and Irish and graced by such amenities as Oscar Hammerstein's Harlem Opera House on West 125th Street.⁵

In this painting, no evidence is visible of the urban growth that changed Harlem well before the date of this Depression-era view. The horse-drawn vehicle on the left suggests Harlem's more rustic past. Nothing in the scene depicted here reflects the influx of southern blacks who migrated there in search of work beginning in World War I and crowded into the overpriced housing made available to them by avaricious landlords.

No biographical information about the artist has been found.

Notes:

1 In the 1850s, Fourth Avenue north of 14th Street was renamed Park when the rails were sunk out of sight beneath a grate- and grass-roofed tunnel. Below 14th Street to 8th Street it remains Fourth Avenue, and below 8th Street it is called Lafayette Street.

2 Congdon, who worked primarily as an ecclesiastical architect, was educated at Columbia College and apprenticed to John Priest, a church architect from Newburg, New York. Other churches by Congdon were built in various cities in the eastern United States. See Henry F. Withey and Elsie Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased) (Los Angeles: New Age Publishing, 1956), p. 134.

3 The western half of Harlem was occupied by large estates; the eastern part had been owned by James Roosevelt, great-grandfather of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who sold it in 1825.

4 "Saint Andrew's Protestant Episcopal Church: Designated Landmark Site in the Village of Harlem, a.d. 1829 -1989 . . . ," single-page history prepared and published by the church, 1989.

5 The quotation is from The WPA Guide to New York City (1939; reprint, New York: Pantheon, 1982), p. 256.


View of St. Andrew's Church c. 1935 Maurice Koranievsky (active c. 1935) Oil on canvas, 37 1/2 X 47 1/4 Inscribed on back of canvas: "Old New York" / by / Maurice Koranievsky Gift of Mrs. Marie Koranievsky, wife of the artist, 75.7
St. Andrew's, the first Protestant Episcopal congregation in Harlem, was organized in 1829 and opened its first church on Fourth (now Park) Avenue between 127th and 128th Streets the following year.¹ Several additions enlarged the church before fire destroyed it in 1871. The next year, the congregation broke ground on the same site for a new church designed by Henry M. Congdon (1834 - 1922).²The Gothic-style building was completed in 1873. St. Andrew's grew along with Nieuw Haarlem, a village established in 1658 by Peter Stuyvesant and bounded by the Harlem River, Morningside Heights, 110th Street, and 155th Street. In the 1830s a horse-drawn car line, the first in Manhattan, began operating along Fourth Avenue from City Hall to the Harlem River, and this, with the arrival of the Harlem Railroad in 1832 and the Third Avenue horse railroad (known as the Palace Horse Car) in 1853, helped Harlem grow from a rural community of rich estates to a thriving village.³ The 1873 annexation of the village by New York City, followed in 1880 by the advent of elevated rapid transit lines, turned Harlem into a fashionable neighborhood with easy access to lower Manhattan. Because of the congregation's steady growth and the noise and smoke of the railroad along Park Avenue, a larger building on a different site was deemed necessary for St. Andrew's. In 1888 the building firm of Mahoney and Watson was hired to dismantle the church, brick by brick, and to reassemble and enlarge it on its present site, the east side of Fifth Avenue between 127th and 128th Streets.⁴The larger building, depicted here, accommodated congregants from the "aristocratic apartment houses and the popular brownstones" of the neighborhood, populated primarily by Germans and Irish and graced by such amenities as Oscar Hammerstein's Harlem Opera House on West 125th Street.⁵ In this painting, no evidence is visible of the urban growth that changed Harlem well before the date of this Depression-era view. The horse-drawn vehicle on the left suggests Harlem's more rustic past. Nothing in the scene depicted here reflects the influx of southern blacks who migrated there in search of work beginning in World War I and crowded into the overpriced housing made available to them by avaricious landlords. No biographical information about the artist has been found. Notes: 1 In the 1850s, Fourth Avenue north of 14th Street was renamed Park when the rails were sunk out of sight beneath a grate- and grass-roofed tunnel. Below 14th Street to 8th Street it remains Fourth Avenue, and below 8th Street it is called Lafayette Street. 2 Congdon, who worked primarily as an ecclesiastical architect, was educated at Columbia College and apprenticed to John Priest, a church architect from Newburg, New York. Other churches by Congdon were built in various cities in the eastern United States. See Henry F. Withey and Elsie Rathburn Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased) (Los Angeles: New Age Publishing, 1956), p. 134. 3 The western half of Harlem was occupied by large estates; the eastern part had been owned by James Roosevelt, great-grandfather of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who sold it in 1825. 4 "Saint Andrew's Protestant Episcopal Church: Designated Landmark Site in the Village of Harlem, a.d. 1829 -1989 . . . ," single-page history prepared and published by the church, 1989. 5 The quotation is from The WPA Guide to New York City (1939; reprint, New York: Pantheon, 1982), p. 256.