The 1836 St. James Church -- 32 James Street

photo by Alice Lum

America may have been founded on religious tolerance; but that tolerance was mainly intended for the Protestants.   During British rule Roman Catholic worship was outlawed in New York City; and as the 19^th century dawned two religious groups still suffered brutal discrimination:  the Jews and the Catholics.

Both persevered, however, and the stalwart Catholics collected funds to erect churches for its growing population.  In 1833 St. Mary’s Church on Grand Street, founded by Irish immigrants, was dedicated after its original building had been burned in a savage display of anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant sentiment.   The same year the cornerstone of St. Joseph’s church uptown in Greenwich Village was laid.  As that building began rising, parishioners were forced to stand guard against attacks according to church historian John Talbot Smith.

Two years later construction began on St. James Church at No. 32 James Street.    The Gothic Revival style that would become nearly synonymous with church architecture was still years off and American churches tended to be of the “temple order.”   The Greek Revival style was additionally attractive to the Catholics because it suggested permanence and strength—a message to anti-Catholic bigots that the religious group was here to stay.    Predictably, this was the style chosen for the new structure.

Completed in 1836, St. James Church was one of three Roman Catholic churches dedicated that year—the others being Transfiguration on Chambers Street and St. Paul’s far to the north in Harlem. 

The architect, whose name has been lost, outdid himself.  The sophisticated design and detailing was similar to that of the influential architect Minard Lafever.   The handsome proportions and the refined decorative elements resulted in a nearly unparalleled monumentality.  

Sophisticated detailing is evident in a side entranceway, photographed around 1915 -- collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Constructed of fieldstone and clad in dressed brownstone, the church sat above a broad set of stairs.  Two massive fluted columns upheld the recessed porch, flanked by two separate entrances with handsome Greek Revival ornamentation.  Breaking away from what contemporaries called “pure Greek,” the architect added a Georgian domed cupola to the classic pediment.  Across the brownstone face was carved “D.O.M.S. JACOBO DEO OPTIMO MAXIMO” – To God, the Best and Greatest.

Not long after this photograph was taken, the splendid cupola would be removed -- collection of the Museum of the City of New York

To protect themselves from anti-Irish violence and partly in response to the burning of St. Mary’s Church, immigrants met in the new church in 1836, forming the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  It would be the beginning of a deep and long-lived bond between the Irish and St. James Church.

The congregation was led by a succession of Irish-born priests.  In 1842 the Rev. Dr. John N. Smith took the pulpit.  It was a time when New York was seeing an increasing, and for some alarming, number of Irish immigrants as they fled the Great Irish Famine.

On St. Patrick’s Day in 1844 The Young Friends of Ireland celebrated in the Apollo Saloon.  After several speeches a series of toasts were made, the eleventh of which was “The Hierarchy of Ireland.”   Raising his glass the toaster proclaimed “Honor to them, for all the wealth of the richest nation of the earth could not induce them to sanction the union of church and state.”

Among the boisterous crowd was the Reverend Smith.  The New-York Daily Tribune noted that he “responded to ‘The Hierarchy of Ireland,’ in a happy and appropriate manner; he pronounced a high eulogy on the Catholic Clergy, their well-tried fidelity to their sacred trust, and to the cause of the liberties of mankind.”

photo by Alice Lum

As the immigrants continued to arrive on the overcrowded and unsanitary sailing ships, they were exposed to typhus, what was at the time termed “ship fever.”  In 1847 Father Mark Murphy was in charge of tending to the patients of the quarantine station of Station Island.    As he lay dying of the disease, Father Smith rushed to his bedside.    He, too, contracted ship fever and in February 1848 the Rev. Dr. Smith died “a martyr to charity,” as later described by historian Alphonso T. Clearwater.

Despite the obstacles it faced through its early years, St. James grew and prospered.  In 1865 Father Thomas Farrell was called to New York “to take charge of an immense congregation attached to St. James’ Church,” as recorded by Clearwater half a century later.

photo by Alice Lum

On December 30, 1873 a son was born to Thomas and Catherine Mulvihill Smith.   Little Alfred E. Smith’s grandparents were all immigrants, Irish on his mother’s side and Irish-German on his fathers.  Before he grew to be Governor of New York and the first Roman Catholic candidate for the U.S. Presidency, Smith served as an altar boy in St. James Church.   While still a teenager, he boasted that his church held its own with the great St. Patrick’s, saying it was the “leading Catholic parish in New York, not excepting the cathedral itself.”

The Lower East Side neighborhood of James Street changed in the 20^th century as the Italian and Irish population was replaced by a new group of immigrants: the Chinese. 

Although at some point, possibly in 1929, the attractive cupola was removed; the structure retained its fine proportions.  When the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a landmark in 1966, it deemed it “one of the monuments of the Greek Revival in New York City.”

Despite the designation, the venerable structure was threatened in 1983 when the roof was found to be in danger of collapse.  After nearly a century and a half of service, the City closed the structurally unsafe St. James Church.

The Ancient Order of Hibernians which was founded in the building 147 years earlier took up the cause.  It spearheaded a group of concerned citizens that provided the funds for a complete restoration.

A firefighter scales a ladder towards the burning roof -- photo DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

Then in January 2011 a two-alarm fire, apparently electrical in nature, broke out inside the historic church.   An hour and a half after the first firefighters arrived, the blaze which was located between the ceiling and the roof, was finally brought under control.   There was significant damage, mostly the result of water.

The sedate and noble façade of St. James Church, a true architectural treasure, gives little indication of the ordeals overcome by its founders and early parishioners.

photo by Alice Lum