1846Trinity ChurchArchitect: Richard UpjohnLocation: 79 Broadway The first Trinity Church (1698) burned in the Great Fire of 1776, which was apt (if not pleasant) given its connections to the Loyalist cause; the second was replaced awfully tardily (1790), had a good forty-year run until it was pulled down on purpose on account of heavy snows. So this is the third. The picture’s abstract, sure, but you know what it looks like. It’s the dark eminence at the end of Wall Street, God’s vacation home in the land of Mammon. Comprehend its shadows and you comprehend the building: the church is a signpost for the windswept Romanticism of the Gothic Revival, coming into in its own in America at this time, with its emphasis on natural passion and irration, great contrasts of darkness and light, both on building facades and in men’s souls. But for all its buttresses and crocketing and ogive, its authenticity — that is, its likeness to those spooky old churches in Europe once called Gothic as a slur — does not go all the way. Its massing is symmetrical. It’s faced with brownstone, something the Europeans didn’t know. In fact, it’s not even made entirely of stone: the ceiling is made of wood and plaster. In other words, it makes concessions to the rational and the pragmatic. Why these half-measures? Was New York too damned practical? (Too damned money-driven?) Or wasn’t pure, true Gothic sort of redundant in New York once the city passed a certain threshold of size and complexity? Didn’t it feel impossibly old even when it was actually rather young? Wasn’t it already filled with extremes of light and shade in every imaginable sense?
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1846
Trinity Church

Architect: Richard Upjohn
Location: 79 Broadway

The first Trinity Church (1698) burned in the Great Fire of 1776, which was apt (if not pleasant) given its connections to the Loyalist cause; the second was replaced awfully tardily (1790), had a good forty-year run until it was pulled down on purpose on account of heavy snows. So this is the third. The picture’s abstract, sure, but you know what it looks like. It’s the dark eminence at the end of Wall Street, God’s vacation home in the land of Mammon. Comprehend its shadows and you comprehend the building: the church is a signpost for the windswept Romanticism of the Gothic Revival, coming into in its own in America at this time, with its emphasis on natural passion and irration, great contrasts of darkness and light, both on building facades and in men’s souls. But for all its buttresses and crocketing and ogive, its authenticity — that is, its likeness to those spooky old churches in Europe once called Gothic as a slur — does not go all the way. Its massing is symmetrical. It’s faced with brownstone, something the Europeans didn’t know. In fact, it’s not even made entirely of stone: the ceiling is made of wood and plaster. In other words, it makes concessions to the rational and the pragmatic. Why these half-measures? Was New York too damned practical? (Too damned money-driven?) Or wasn’t pure, true Gothic sort of redundant in New York once the city passed a certain threshold of size and complexity? Didn’t it feel impossibly old even when it was actually rather young? Wasn’t it already filled with extremes of light and shade in every imaginable sense?

1842Federal Hall National MemorialArchitects: Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson DavisLocation: 26 Wall Street “From both an architectural and historical point of view,” Nathan Silver writes, “Federal Hall might have been the greatest national landmark had it survived.” Silver’s referring to the Federal Hall that came before this Federal Hall, the building that for about a century was the City Hall before our City Hall, and then for a brief time was the US Capitol before the US Capitol, back when New York was the temporary capital of the country — the Washington, DC before Washington, DC. The Bill of Rights was passed here. George Washington was inaugurated as our first President on its balcony. And, in 1812, it was torn down and sold as scrap. This building, first a custom house, replaces it a tardy thirty years later. Before the income tax, the Federal government got most of its money from custom duties — basically taxes on imports — and custom houses were where such transactions were processed. Sitting in the country’s biggest port, this custom house had an international audience, and thus had to speak loudly to that audience. Its exterior echoes the Parthenon; the interior, with its magnificent rotunda, the Pantheon. Even more, much more than the porticoed row houses popping up all over the city, these borrowings are not merely concessions to a fashion for classical looks. With more than a little presumptuousness, they say to the world that the Americans are the inheritors of the Greeks and the Romans. The exterior was designed bt Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town. They dropped Greek temples just like this one all over the country. Together and separately, they are responsible for three state capitol buildings (Connecticut, Indiana, North Carolina, and partly Ohio; only the latter two remain). Later, Davis specializes in country villas and in the process kinda invents the suburban ideal, or at least one of them. After the custom offices were moved down to 55 Wall Street, the hall was for a time as sub-treasury where some of the government’s gold and silver was kept. Today it’s a museum that details its past uses: a memorial to itself.
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1842
Federal Hall National Memorial

Architects: Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis
Location: 26 Wall Street

“From both an architectural and historical point of view,” Nathan Silver writes, “Federal Hall might have been the greatest national landmark had it survived.” Silver’s referring to the Federal Hall that came before this Federal Hall, the building that for about a century was the City Hall before our City Hall, and then for a brief time was the US Capitol before the US Capitol, back when New York was the temporary capital of the country — the Washington, DC before Washington, DC. The Bill of Rights was passed here. George Washington was inaugurated as our first President on its balcony. And, in 1812, it was torn down and sold as scrap.

This building, first a custom house, replaces it a tardy thirty years later. Before the income tax, the Federal government got most of its money from custom duties — basically taxes on imports — and custom houses were where such transactions were processed. Sitting in the country’s biggest port, this custom house had an international audience, and thus had to speak loudly to that audience. Its exterior echoes the Parthenon; the interior, with its magnificent rotunda, the Pantheon. Even more, much more than the porticoed row houses popping up all over the city, these borrowings are not merely concessions to a fashion for classical looks. With more than a little presumptuousness, they say to the world that the Americans are the inheritors of the Greeks and the Romans.

The exterior was designed bt Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town. They dropped Greek temples just like this one all over the country. Together and separately, they are responsible for three state capitol buildings (Connecticut, Indiana, North Carolina, and partly Ohio; only the latter two remain). Later, Davis specializes in country villas and in the process kinda invents the suburban ideal, or at least one of them.

After the custom offices were moved down to 55 Wall Street, the hall was for a time as sub-treasury where some of the government’s gold and silver was kept. Today it’s a museum that details its past uses: a memorial to itself.

183646-54 Stone StreetArchitect: UnknownLocation: 46-54 Stone Street Every truly great city must have at least one Great Fire, and New York City had two. (Or three, though the third doesn’t have the mythic flavor of the other two.) Mind you, none of them were at a 1666 or 1871 level of annihilation, but still, they disfigured the landscape in remarkable ways: they’re big reasons why Manhattan has very little before 1800. The first started a week after the British invaded Manhattan in September 1776. It destroyed up to a quarter of the city, mostly its extreme west side. It made the city a miserable place to occupy, with survivors living in tents among the ruins. Of course miserableness may have been the intent, though Patriot arson was never conclusively proven. The second one arrived on December 16, 1835. Ungodly winter weather — including temperatures approaching 17 degrees below zero — heightened the effects of a gas pipe explosion at a warehouse on the corner of Exchange and Pearl. High winds carried sparks all over the city, even across the rivers to New Jersey to Brooklyn. Earlier fires already depleted much of the water supply, so firemen were forced to cut holes in the frozen East River for water, and even then, it froze in hoses and pipes. The fire was so hot, so huge, so awful, people in Philadelphia could see it. Philadelphia is a hundred miles away. In the end, nearly 700 buildings over fifty acres went up in flames, thereby gutting the commercial district in America’s largest city. Tiny Stone Street, only a couple hundred feet away from the fire’s source, shows us what was built in the wake of the fire. There’s no record of what stood here before, but it’s easy to assume they resembled what you see all over South Street Seaport today. The new buildings were built taller and grander: four and five stories instead of two-and-a-half, machine-made brick instead of hand-molded, and a liberal use of granite, especially with the columns on the bottom floors — an application of Greek Revival style for commercial use. Today the street offers a concatenation of bars and restaurants that serve people out in the open during warm weather. Pleasant, but a little too crowded for my tastes.
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1836
46-54 Stone Street

Architect: Unknown
Location: 46-54 Stone Street

Every truly great city must have at least one Great Fire, and New York City had two. (Or three, though the third doesn’t have the mythic flavor of the other two.) Mind you, none of them were at a 1666 or 1871 level of annihilation, but still, they disfigured the landscape in remarkable ways: they’re big reasons why Manhattan has very little before 1800. The first started a week after the British invaded Manhattan in September 1776. It destroyed up to a quarter of the city, mostly its extreme west side. It made the city a miserable place to occupy, with survivors living in tents among the ruins. Of course miserableness may have been the intent, though Patriot arson was never conclusively proven.

The second one arrived on December 16, 1835. Ungodly winter weather — including temperatures approaching 17 degrees below zero — heightened the effects of a gas pipe explosion at a warehouse on the corner of Exchange and Pearl. High winds carried sparks all over the city, even across the rivers to New Jersey to Brooklyn. Earlier fires already depleted much of the water supply, so firemen were forced to cut holes in the frozen East River for water, and even then, it froze in hoses and pipes. The fire was so hot, so huge, so awful, people in Philadelphia could see it. Philadelphia is a hundred miles away. In the end, nearly 700 buildings over fifty acres went up in flames, thereby gutting the commercial district in America’s largest city.

Tiny Stone Street, only a couple hundred feet away from the fire’s source, shows us what was built in the wake of the fire. There’s no record of what stood here before, but it’s easy to assume they resembled what you see all over South Street Seaport today. The new buildings were built taller and grander: four and five stories instead of two-and-a-half, machine-made brick instead of hand-molded, and a liberal use of granite, especially with the columns on the bottom floors — an application of Greek Revival style for commercial use.

Today the street offers a concatenation of bars and restaurants that serve people out in the open during warm weather. Pleasant, but a little too crowded for my tastes.

1766St. Paul’s ChapelArchitect: Thomas McBeanLocation: 209 BroadwayManhattan’s oldest church was originally created for the parishioners of Trinity Church when the city had grown and the main church building was deemed a little too far away for some; this in a time when the city was so small it allowed the chapel an uncomplicated view of the Hudson River. (From the back. The current front was the original back.) Generals Charles Cornwallis and William Howe worshiped here when the British occupied the city, as did George Washington when New York City was the capital of the young nation. Then after over two hundred years of having nothing new to offer history other than an interminable list of official visitations, the World Trade Center fell down across the street. The towers knocked over a huge sycamore tree, but otherwise, not a window was harmed. Until the memorial-commercial complex under construction gets finished—and maybe after, too, if it’s as sorry as I fear—St. Paul’s will serve as the de facto site of remembrance for the public.
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1766
St. Paul’s Chapel

Architect: Thomas McBean
Location: 209 Broadway

Manhattan’s oldest church was originally created for the parishioners of Trinity Church when the city had grown and the main church building was deemed a little too far away for some; this in a time when the city was so small it allowed the chapel an uncomplicated view of the Hudson River. (From the back. The current front was the original back.) Generals Charles Cornwallis and William Howe worshiped here when the British occupied the city, as did George Washington when New York City was the capital of the young nation. Then after over two hundred years of having nothing new to offer history other than an interminable list of official visitations, the World Trade Center fell down across the street. The towers knocked over a huge sycamore tree, but otherwise, not a window was harmed. Until the memorial-commercial complex under construction gets finished—and maybe after, too, if it’s as sorry as I fear—St. Paul’s will serve as the de facto site of remembrance for the public.

1719Fraunces TavernArchitect: UnknownLocation: 54 Pearl StreetGeorge Washington wept here. In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, he bade farewell to his troops in the tavern’s Long Room. Our country’s near-idolatry of its first President ensured that this building wouldn’t be demolished—at least not as casually as nearly everything else was. But a century’s worth of modernizations, a couple of gutting fires, and a highly speculative restoration completed in the early days of such things has left us with a patchwork of new and old, something only partly the home Etienne Delancey built, the tavern Samuel Fraunces founded, and so on. For example, the National Register of Historic Places’ registration form says it has “original beams supporting the second and third floors” and “approximately 75% of the brick at the second and third floors of both elevations date from 1719.”  Its authenticity wouldn’t stop Diogenes in his tracks, but then again, a goofy patchwork building from 1719 is still a building from 1719. (By the way, the building in the background is 85 Broad Street.)
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1719
Fraunces Tavern

Architect: Unknown
Location: 54 Pearl Street

George Washington wept here. In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, he bade farewell to his troops in the tavern’s Long Room. Our country’s near-idolatry of its first President ensured that this building wouldn’t be demolished—at least not as casually as nearly everything else was. But a century’s worth of modernizations, a couple of gutting fires, and a highly speculative restoration completed in the early days of such things has left us with a patchwork of new and old, something only partly the home Etienne Delancey built, the tavern Samuel Fraunces founded, and so on. For example, the National Register of Historic Places’ registration form says it has “original beams supporting the second and third floors” and “approximately 75% of the brick at the second and third floors of both elevations date from 1719.”  Its authenticity wouldn’t stop Diogenes in his tracks, but then again, a goofy patchwork building from 1719 is still a building from 1719.

(By the way, the building in the background is 85 Broad Street.)