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Gospel of St. Mark’s

St. Mark’s In The Bowery, at 2nd Ave. and E. 10th, is the oldest building on 2nd Ave., dating to 1799, with additions in 1828 (the steeple) and 1858. Most of the church was rebuilt after a devastating fire in 1978. It stands on the chapel site of Peter Stuyvesant’s 17th-century estate (the Director-General is interred in a vault in the churchyard, as his great-grandson sold the property to the Episcopal Church in 1793) and is turned to face Stuyvesant St., once the driveway to the estate. St. Mark’s claims to be the oldest site of continuous worship in NYC. St. Marks’ rectory is a force in neighborhood preservation and is an enthusiastic patron for the arts. NYC mayor and diarist Philip Hone and NYS Governor and US Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins are also interred in the churchyard.

Peter Stuyvesant’s country house sat roughly at 10th and Stuyvesant Sts., and in his era the Bowery was The Bowery Road, “Bowery” descended from a Dutch term meaning “farm.” The English word “bower” has the same etymology. The Stuyvesant estate extended from the Bowery Road east to Ave. C and between about 3rd and 13th Sts.

The country house burned down in 1778 but the driveway still exists as Stuyvesant St., the only street at a diagonal against the street grid in Manhattan except for Broadway from St. Mark’s Place north to Central Park. It’s also the only street in Manhattan to run directly west to east.

Constructed in 1901 and designed by architect Ernest Flagg, St. Mark’s Church rectory on E. 11th near 2nd Ave. was severely damaged in a 1988 fire, but was subsequently reopened as the Neighborhood Preservation Center in 1999 and is also home to the St. Mark’s Historic Landmark Fund, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, and the Historic Districts Council. The cover of 1970s British rockers Foghat’s album, Fool For the City, was shot on E. 11th St. outside the building.

The bust of Daniel Tompkins in the west churchyard was sculpted by Oliver Grymes and given to the church in 1939 by the US Daughters of 1812. Tompkinsville, Staten Island was founded by a future Vice President, Daniel D. Tompkins (1774-1825) in 1815, while he was the governor of New York State. He established a ferry service to Manhattan in 1817, possibly from the landing mentioned above at Victory Blvd., and founded the Richmond Turnpike Company as an expedited means for wagons to travel to Philadelphia and elsewhere on the East Coast; the turnpike, called Arietta St. in Tompkinsville, was renamed Victory Blvd. after World War I. Tompkins was elected Vice President on the ticket with James Monroe in 1816, and served two terms. He died in Tompkinsville just three months after leaving office and is buried here in St. Mark’s Churchyard; nearby Tompkins Square Park also bears his name, as well as Tompkins Aves. in Staten Island and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

St. Mark’s Church stands on the site of the chapel built in 1660 by Peter Stuyvesant, the last governor of Dutch New Amsterdam, and its grounds are all that remain of Stuyvesant’s vast “bouwerie,” or farm. Stuyvesant was interred in the family vault beneath the chapel when he died in 1672. During the 18th century, the chapel fell into dilapidation, until little remained except the foundation and the Stuyvesant family vault beneath. In 1793, Stuyvesant’s great-grandson, Peter Stuyvesant IV, donated the chapel property to the Episcopal Church with the stipulation that a new church be erected. Originally intended to be a chapel of Trinity Parish, St. Mark’s in-the-Bowery was completed in 1799 as the first New York City Episcopal parish separate from Trinity. The Stuyvesant vault’s still present under the east wall of the church; it was closed permanently when the last family member was interred there in 1953.

The bust of Peter Stuyvesant near his vault was designed by Dutch sculptor Toon Depuis and was presented to St. Mark’s by Queen Wilhelmina of Holland and the Dutch government on December 5, 1915.

Elsewhere in front of St. Mark’s are two sculptures of Native-Americans, “Inspiration” and “Aspiration”  by Solon Borglum, brother of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. They were acquired by Rector Norman William Guthrie in the 1920s. Guthrie began St. Marks’ long association with the arts that continues to this day. Two lion sculptures, acquired by Rev. Guthrie in the 1920s, stand guard outside the church doors. The lion’s the symbol of St. Mark.

The portico in front of the church was installed in 1858 and is the work of James Bogardus, the early proponent and builder of cast-iron front buildings, many of which are found in southern Manhattan. The wrought-iron fence was installed in 1838, while the steeple dates to 1828. The clock’s relatively new and was installed after the 1978 fire.

I’m unsure when the brick peace symbol first appeared at St. Mark’s, but no earlier than 1958, when the first peace symbols appeared at a nuclear disarmament rally at Trafalgar Square in London. The symbol was invented by Gerald Holtom and the symbol, a circle with a vertical line with two diagonals issuing from it, is supposed to be a graphic representation of the semaphore signals for “N” and “D” for “nuclear disarmament.”

The universal peace symbol formed in bricks at the E. 10th St. entrance of St. Mark’s Church at 2nd Ave. was employed on the inner gatefold cover of 1970s-era folk rocker Melanie’s Candles in the Rain album, as she posed with neighborhood kids. Melanie (1947-2024), a native of Astoria, Queens, moved with her parents to Long Branch, New Jersey and began singing in clubs there and eventually in Greenwich Village. Her music caught on with Columbia Records, who released her first LP, and in 1969 sang at Woodstock, which inspired her hit “Lay Down Candles in the Rain.” Her biggest hit, “Brand New Key” came in 1971-72 and at one time, she had three singles in one Top 40 chart, an unusual feat in that era, made possible by a label switch. After her initial fame died down, she continued to write and perform until her death at 76.

On nearby St. Mark’s Place, you’ll find a couple of interesting items. The German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse (Deutsch-Amerikanische Schuetzen Gesselschaft), at 12 St. Mark's Place, dates back to 1889-89. Prior to the 20th century, St. Mark's Place was the heart of Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany. This yellow brick clubhouse, designed by William C. Frohne, served as headquarters for 24 companies who offered offsite facilities for target practice to the immigrant community. In the basement were a shooting gallery and a bowling alley. The street level housed a saloon, a large meeting room and a restaurant. The rest of the building was reserved for lodge rooms and an apartment for the caretaker on the fourth floor. The lodge rooms were rented to a variety of union groups over the decades—the International Molders and Foundry Workers’ Union, The National Federation of Post Office Clerks, the Building Trades Council, and the Gas Workers Union among them.

A rare example of the German Renaissance style in New York, it features fanciful ornament, a steep mansard roof and tall ornate dormers. Particularly noteworthy is the arched panel at the center of the fourth story, depicting a target and crossed rifles above an eagle with outstretched wings. The German inscription says, “Unity Makes Strength.”

When it was conceived in the 1830s by developer Thomas E. Davis, 20 St. Marks was part of one of the first housing developments in New York. The house was sold on Dec. 19, 1831 to Daniel LeRoy, the husband of Susan Fish. The building’s elegant architecture wasn’t the only reason that No. 20 acquired historic status. Susan Fish’s mother, Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish, was a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant. The walls, if they could talk, might tell tales of New York’s oldest and richest families in the 1830s.

In the 1970s, the building housed the Lady Carpenter Institute of Building and Home Improvement, designed to teach women carpentry skills. Later, Sounds was the name of a music store that moved into the building in 1979, when the neighborhood was home to CBGB. I made many purchases here, and the clerks sat on a raised platform, as if to judge you. Today, the windows look out on passing tourists and students more often than artists and rock stars.

—Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)

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