The Lost 1854 Madison Square Presbyterian Church - Madison Ave and 24th St

By the time this somewhat ghostly photograph was taken, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's headquarters had edged up to the brownstone church.  To the left, on the opposite corner of 24th Street, the mansion of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe can be partially seen.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

In the winter of 1852-53 the congregations of the Pearl Street Church, at the corner of Elm and Pearl Street, and the Central Presbyterian Church on Broome Street faced a problem.  As described by the Rev. Dr. Charles Henry Parkhurst half a century later, because of "the large exodus of the people up-town...the down-town churches became greatly weakened."

Meetings were held and "after mature deliberation," according to Parkhurst, the two congregations agreed to merge and find a new site uptown in an upscale neighborhood.   That site was secured in February 1853 and could not have been more fashionable--a large plot on the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 24th Street overlooking Madison Square.  Miller's Stranger's Guide to New York would mentioned in 1866 "The houses surrounding this park include some of the most elegant of this city."

The eastern edge of Madison Square at around the time the church purchased property.  Booth's History of New York, from the collection of the New York Public Library

The Rev. Dr. William Adams, the pastor, explained "The site which had been selected must strike all as peculiarly pleasant and favorable.  It was at once conspicuous and retired; it was accessible, central, and yet removed from general disturbance."

On March 3, 1853 the new congregation's trustees met and resolved, among other things, "that the said church be designated as the Madison Square Presbyterian Church of the City of New York."

Adams leased Hope Chapel on Broadway for twelve months while construction of the church was underway.  On May 2, 1853 he oversaw the sale of pews for the next year.  The New York Herald noted "there was a large number of persons present, anxious to procure seats in this commodious place of worship."  Pews were offered at a fixed price, and then congregants bid up the cost on "choice" pews.

Names in the group bidding that evening included Sheppard, Stebbings, Livingston, Hudson, and Blanchford; among the most prominent families in New York.  The sale that night brought in about a quarter of a million in today's dollars.

The cornerstone was laid two months later, on July 12.   The New York Times described what would be a substantial structure.  "The entire length outside, including tower and lecture-room, will be 146 feet; breadth, 74 feet 4 inches; space inside, 62 by 85, with a pulpit recess of 5 feet, making the entire length 90 feet."  The soaring tower would rise 208 feet, and the stone walls would be three feet thick with buttresses of matching width.

"The edifice will be entirely built of Jersey free-stone, similar to that of Trinity Church," said the article.   Interestingly, the architect of that church, Richard Upjohn, was the father of Richard M. Upjohn, hired to design Madison Square Presbyterian. 

And in his remarks, Rev. Adams made it clear that he had aggressively steered Upjohn toward Gothic Revival.   The Times reported "Dr. Adams said that he confessed a long cherished attachment to the spire of a Christian church.  This, though sometimes added to the Grecian style of architecture, belong altogether to the Gothic style.  He would never have this form superseded, which made the churches distinct throughout a metropolis."

The completed edifice cost $175,000--more than $4.8 million today and the first service was held in the church on Christmas Eve, 1854.  The black walnut pews could seat 1,200 worshipers.

(top) Looking east toward the pulpit.  (below) Looking west toward the entrance and organ loft.  Note the lacy Gothic struts that upheld the roof and made obstructing columns unnecessary.  from "A Brief History of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church" 1906 (copyright expired)

The Rev. William Adams would lead his congregation for decades; sometimes speaking out on social ills with a frankness that no doubt made his Victorian congregants squirm.  On May 8, 1870, for instance, he addressed prostitution and laid the blame directly on the men who patronized them.  His sermon was entitled "God's Legislation Concerning Marriage, Divorce, and Moral Purity" and referenced specifically the Home for Fallen Women.  A special collection was taken up at the close of services for that institution.

Before beginning, he effectively warned his audience of what was to come.  The New York Times reported "He said that he was not ignorant of the difficulties which pertained to an ample and public discussion of the topic," and noted "He entered upon the discussion with the fullest sense of the sensitiveness with which a pure mind shrank from its announcement."

Adams said that in talking about "the fallen and friendless of a particular class, he thought the best way would be to lay the ax at the root of the tree."   The root, he insisted, was marital infidelity.  The rector drove his point home in terms no man in the audience could have mistaken.

He then went on to other sinful problems which might induce a man to stray.  The Times wrote "Dr. Adams then spoke of the evil effects of light reading, immoral plays, &c., on the imagination."

Rev. William Adams, from Encyclopaedia of the Presbyterian Church, 1884 (copyright expired)

The Madison Square Presbyterian Church was, of course, the scene of marriages and funerals of some of Manhattan's wealthiest and most distinguished citizens.  Theodore and Martha Roosevelt attended with their four children, including Theodore, Jr. who would become U.S. President, for instance. 

Another prominent family was that of Horace Francis Clark.  Clark had married Maria Louisa Vanderbilt, daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1848.  That resulted in his becoming a director of the New York and Harlem Railroad and eventually president of the Union Pacific Railroad, the Michigan Southern Railroad and others.  He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1857.

Horace Clark died on June 19, 1873 and his funeral in Madison Square Presbyterian Church was a notable affair.   Following the 4:30 service on June 21, a line of black carriages followed the hearse to Grand Central Depot.   There a special train carried the casket to Woodlawn Cemetery, followed by another private train for the mourners.

After a pastorate of more than 20 years, Rev. Adams tendered his resignation on November 19, 1873.  He was convinced to remain five more months, but on Sunday, April 19, 1874 he gave his farewell sermon.  The following day The Times reported that the church "was crowded to its utmost capacity yesterday morning, and many were obliged to stand in the aisles and passages of the floor and gallery."

Adams was back on May 12 the following year to install the new pastor, Rev. William J. Tucker.  Tucker would address social problems through his coming pastorate, like the miserable conditions of tenement houses; but he never achieved the prominence of his predecessor.  And he would most definitely be overshadowed by his successor.

Tucker was offered the position of chairing the Sacred Rhetoric in Andover Theological Seminary in the summer of 1879.  In reporting on his acceptance, The New York Times hinted at the difficulties he had dealt with in filling the shoes of Rev. Adams.  "It was not an easy matter to follow one so beloved and respected, and who had for so may years been over the church."

Tucker's leaving meant a significant cut in pay.  He had been earning $10,000 a year at Madison Square Presbyterian--a comfortable $275,000 by today's standards.  He would now be grossing $3,000.

But if Adams had been a force within the church, perhaps no minister in the history of New York City would be more colorful and impactful than Tucker's successor, the Rev. Charles Henry Parkhurst.

Parkhurst was installed on March 9, 1880.  Among his first socially-notable functions was marrying Norman W. Dodge, the son of millionaire William E. Dodge, and Emma Hartley on May 6.   He officiated at the funerals of the celebrated Dr. J. Marion Sims in November 1883 and that of Civil War General George B. McClellan two years later, on November 2, 1885.  The services for McClellan required more than 250 policemen to control the crowds, 10 carriages just for the family members, and streets being shut down for the funeral procession afterward.


But it was not society weddings or the funerals of war heroes and titans of industry for which Parkhurst would be most remembered.  As the 1890s dawned, Parkhurst became obsessed with social reform.

After being elected president of the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime, he turned his attention to the police department, challenging its methods and targeting corrupt officers like Capt. Alexander "Clubber" Williams of the 29th Precinct in the Tenderloin district.  Williams had become a millionaire from payoffs and bribes.

In 1892 Parkhurst openly attacked the Tammany regime from the pulpit, and then personally set off to collect evidence of government corruption and graft.  Not only did he hire a private detective, he and a friend went into the streets in disguise to collect proof.  His sermon on March 13, 1892, peppered with documented instances of government crimes, led to the formation of the Senate's famous Lexow Committee in 1894 to investigate police corruption.

from the collection of the New York Public Library

But it was his personal interest in prostitution that raised some eyebrows.  On April 11, 1892 The New York Times reported on "many rumors, among which was one that certain members of the Board of Trustees of the church had made objections to Dr. Parkhurst's preaching any more sermons on municipal affairs."  The article added that some members of the Board of Trustees were reported to be dissatisfied "with the doctor's choice of subjects for sermons and with his recent personal investigations as to the breaking of the excise law and the existence of disorderly houses."

By now the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime was best known as the "Parkhurst Society" the goal of which had broadened to the shutting down of places of vice like gambling dens, "houses of disrepute," and illegal saloons.   The Society had a staff of agents who not only supplemented official police investigators, but superseded them in many cases.

It was the reverend's personal visitations to brothels that most likely concerned many of his conservative congregants.  Parkhurst routinely put aside his clerical attire and went undercover to these "vile dens."

On March 11, 1892, for instance, two of Parkhurst's agents, John L. Erving and a man named Gardner, went to the brothel run by Hattie Adams.  Convinced of what was taking place there, they arranged to come back with a "friend who was seeing the town."

That alleged friend was Rev. Parkhurst.  The three returned and according to Erving's testimony recounted in The Times, "They drank beer supplied by Mrs. Adams, staid in the house from a half to three-quarters of an hour, and witnessed dances and other disorderly performances.  Gardner held up his hat as high as he could and the girls, who were disrobed, kicked at it.  The played 'leap frog' with Gardner, and the witness waltzed around the parlor with one of the women."

Hattie Adams's attorney tried his best to fluster the minister or discredit him.

Did you tell Mrs. Adams that you were a minister of the Gospel?
No. I did not.
Did you remind those poor creatures that they were misbehaving?
No, Sir.
Did you tell them to put on their clothes?
No, Sir.
Did you see them undress?
I did not.  I turned my gaze away.
Did you play 'leap-frog'?
No.
But you drank beer?
Yes.
And you are a minister?
Yes.

Despite the attack, The Times was impressed on Parkhurst's ability to remain calm and unwavering in his testimony against Adams.

Parkhurst's general views on women were traditional, Bible-based and most today would say backwards and offensive.  In his sermon on the suffrage movement entitled "The Biblical Definition of Women" on May 13, 1894, he said in part, "If you women want to preserve your individuality you will do so by remaining womanly and not in trying to become mannish."

He went on to say that some women believed "If a man undertakes a certain business, why should not a woman?  If a man votes, why should not a woman?"  He called that tendency "manhoodmania" and instructed that women needed to "choose to fully understand what is the peculiar mission they have before them."   There was to be no arguing with his logic.  He concluded saying "if the congregation did not understand him it was their fault."

A turn of the century postcard labeled the structure "Dr. Parkhurst's Church." (copyright expired)

At the turn of the century Madison Square was no longer the quiet and exclusive neighborhood it had been half a century earlier.  The Metropolitan Life Insurance  Company had begun construction of its new headquarters next to the church in the spring of 1890 and one by one the residences around the park were either demolished or converted for business purposes.

According to Rev. Parkhurst in his A Brief History of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church in 1906, "As early as 1896, the question began to be considered whether...it would not be to our interest as a church to build elsewhere if a suitable site could be found on Madison Square or in its neighborhood."   A meeting was held on May 14, 1894 during which it was unanimously agreed that the church would not move uptown.

Nevertheless, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company coveted the church's property as it anticipated enlarging its headquarters.  Finally, on January 6, 1903 The Evening World reported "The congregation of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church that since 1865 has worshipped in Dr. Parkhurst's Church at Madison avenue and Twenty-fourth street, will soon move across the street, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company having finally purchased the present site to complete the great building planned for the entire block."

The insurance firm had paid Catharine Lorillard Wolfe $700,000 for her mansion, one of the last private homes on the Square.   It gave the church that plot and additional $300,000.  The Evening World reported that the church had raised another $200,000 "to insure the imposing new structure for the church home."

The two Madison Square Presbyterian Churches sat briefly side-by-side as construction continued on the new structure.  (copyright expired)

Imposing it would be.  Stanford White designed a Roman basilica to replace the Wolfe mansion.  Completed in 1906, the new Madison Square Presbyterian Church was one of the architects greatest works. 

The venerable brownstone Upjohn-designed church was demolished that year to be replaced by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's "tower building," designed by Napoleon Le Brun & Sons which survives.

A circa 1907 postcard pictured the new tower.  (copyright expired)

The Lost St. Chrysostom's Chapel -- 7th Avenue at 39th Street

from King's Handbook of New York City, 1893 (copyright expired)

In 1865 the Rev. Henry A. Neely, assistant minister of the fashionable Trinity Chapel on West 25^th Street considered the neighborhood just to the northwest.   Described by The New York Times as “thickly-populated,” the area was filled with crime and vice.  It would earn the unflattering nickname “Hell’s Kitchen.”  Rev. Neely recognized a need to extend religious outreach into the gritty neighborhood.

He was given permission to establish a mission and in the fall of that year enlisted the assistance of Rev. Thomas H. Sill, then Rector of Grace Church in Canton, New York.  The two began “pastoral visitations” of Hell’s Kitchen and on the first Sunday in Advent on December 3, 1865, they held a service in a room above a lager beer saloon on West 32^nd Street near Seventh Avenue.

The priests moved quickly.  Within two months a Sunday School was established and services continued there for almost a year.   In the fall of 1866 a rented hall was taken on the northwest corner of Broadway and 34^th Street for church services.

The successful work of the humble mission did not go unnoticed.  In 1868 the 100-square foot plot of land at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and 39^th Street was purchased for a new “free chapel.”  In June that year, $66,000 was appropriated by the vestry of Trinity Church “to put the project into effect,” according to the 1950 A History of the Parish of Trinity Church in the City of New York.   

The neighborhood may have been notorious and its residents impoverished; but the vestrymen went to one of New York City’s most esteemed architects for the design.  Before long, as noted in the History, “the plans for St. Chrysostom’s Chapel and School House, as submitted by Richard M. Upjohn, were approved.”

On October 28 the cornerstone was laid by Bishop Horatio Potter and the now-Bishop Neely.  At the time only the foundation walls had been erected; nevertheless reporters were told “It will be of the Gothic style of architecture, the material being brownstone with Cleveland stone trimmings.  The windows will be of stained glass and the interior of the building will be decorated in polychrome.  It will probably cost $60,000 and will be finished next summer.”

The prediction that the building would be “finished next summer” was optimistic.  Although the first service was held in the new chapel on November 7, 1869; it would be a full decade before construction was truly complete. 

The almost perfectly square plot resulting in a boxier and heavier structure than one would expect from Upjohn.   The architect placed the front of the chapel building on 39^th Street, rather than the avenue.  The corner section, between two hefty gables, morphed into a pyramidal roof supporting a thin steeple and belfry.   Upjohn reduced the visual density of the blocky church by interrupting the brownstone with bandcourses of contrasting, lighter colored stone.

Street car tracks ran down the middle of Seventh Avenue when this shot was taken.  Crude crosswalks protected women's footwear from treacherous chinks in the brick streets.  photo by Robt. L. Bracklow from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWGP5CFI&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=770

The stained glass windows are often attributed to the English firm of Heaton, Butler and Bayne; which had installed a window in Westminster Abbey a year earlier.   For the indigent worshipers living in the lowest of housing, the Gothic interiors of St. Chrysostom’s Chapel would have been uplifting.

photo by Wurts Bros.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWGP5CFI&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=770

Rev. Thomas H. Sill became pastor of the mission--now chapel--that he had devoted his life to.  On December 26, 1874 The New York Times remarked on the Christmas Day decorations.  The newspaper noted “this chapel is frequented by many of the humbler members of the community in whose midst it is situated.” 

“The floral and evergreen decorations were elaborate and exhibited much care and good taste in their arrangement.  The windows were transformed into miniature groves of fir, and the galleries, lectern, pulpit, font, chancel rails, and gas-fittings were tastefully decorated with laurel, cedar, and palm.  Festoons of evergreens depended from the pillars, and a rood screen of laurel divided the choir and nave.  The altar was decorated with a beautiful floral cross of white japonicas, entwined with smilax."

But the journalist did not totally approve.  “While the elaborate decorations in evergreens were executed with good taste, the same cannot be said of the other adornments. For instance, the effect of the beautiful rood screen and cross—a beautiful and unique feature in church ornamentation—was completely marred by the tawdry decorations displayed over the altar and on the pillars in the body of the church.”

New York churches with wealthy congregations closed for the summer months—their members all having left the city for summer estates and resorts.  Such was not the case for St. Chrysostom’s Chapel whose indigent worshipers suffered through the hot months in near-insufferable conditions.  And so it was, instead, repairs and final decoration that forced services out of the chapel proper and into the school room next door in the summer of 1879.

“The walls of the church, which had become badly discolored, have been renewed, and the plaster ceilings have been replaced by wood-work.  The new walls are to be tastefully decorated in tints, new gas-fixtures are to be put up, and the interior of the church will present a greatly improved and more cheerful appearance,” reported The New York Times on August 3.

The repairs and improvements were completed just in time for the consecration on October 30, 1879.  The services were conducted by Bishop Potter, “in an impressive manner,” according to The New York Times, assisted by about 25 clergymen.   The work of Rev. Sill and the Chapel’s guilds, school and the “corps of lay visitors of both sexes [who] now assist the clergy in their ministrations from house to house” was noted.  Since the mission was founded there had been 1,314 baptisms, and 345 marriages.  The membership of just 375 was, perhaps, understandable given the crime- and vice-ridden neighborhood.

The funerals and weddings of the lower classes here went largely unnoticed by New York newspapers.  But that would not be the case on May 8, 1881.  Poet William Ross Wallace was widely-popular and his most famous poem “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle is the Hand That Rules The World,” which praised motherhood, touched the heartstrings of Victorian literary taste.  His funeral at St. Chrysostom’s Chapel drew reporters; and the journalist from The New York Times reported on the event in terms worthy of the poet himself.

“A few minutes before 1 o’clock P. M. yesterday, a hearse, followed by two carriages, drew up at the Gothic entrance of St. Chrysostom’s Chapel…and a coffin was lifted upon the shoulders of four stalwart men in black and borne down the aisle…A lady in deep black, leaning upon he arm of her son, and a young girl, supported by an elderly gentleman, followed the coffin to the altar, convulsed at intervals with subdued sobs.”

The description dripped with 19^th century sentiment.  “The Rev. Mr. Sill conducted the services, and at their expiration the casket was opened that friends might take a fare-well of the strongly-marked and well-remembered features.  The face was emaciated by suffering.”

In Victorian New York, church leaders often looked with derision on actors and some banned their congregations from attending the theater.  Rev. Thomas Sill, however, was an ardent supporter of the art and St. Chrysostom’s Chapel frequently was the spot for the marriages and funerals of thespians.

Weddings here, in general, drew the suspicion of the New-York Tribune in 1884, which sent an investigative reporter on the case.  On September 8 it reported “Some comment has recently been passed upon the fact that St. Chrysostom’s Chapel, in this city, is apparently much sought after by runaway couples and others desirous of entering the matrimonial state as expeditiously as possible. Two cases in particular happening within a few days of each other seem to have intensified the feeling to such an extent that a Tribune reporter a day or two ago made some inquiries at the chapel.”

The reporter was concerned, specifically, about “an actress, who married a man who already had a wife, and a Brooklyn organist who eloped with a young member of his choir.”

The assistant rector was undaunted by the suggestive questioning.  “I regret both these cases extremely, but were I to be placed again in the same circumstances, I should act in precisely the same manner.”  He told the reporter that he had been assured that the wife of the first man was dead.  And, he stressed, if he were to deny the rites of matrimony to these couples, they would go to a Justice of the Peace, “to be united without the blessing of the Church, or to something worse.”  (“Something worse,” of course, alluded to living in sin.)

On November 29, 1885 Rev. Thomas H. Sill celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the chapel’s founding.  Sill recounted to the crowded church the work being done by its 13 guilds—groups which worked within the community.  The Times commented at the time, “A considerable proportion of the congregation is colored.”

Yet another guild was added in 1894—the Guild of St. Agnes.  On March 29 that year The Evening World described the “admirable organization.”  It was organized “for women and girls who cannot or should not go out at night.  It meets every Friday at 3 o’clock.  The members are entertained in various ways and taught sewing, housewifely ways, good humor and good manners.”

The cost of running St. Chrysostom’s Chapel and its related school and organizations could not be, obviously, supported by its needy congregation.  Trinity Church provided the funds and a sermon in May 1897 Rev. Sill gave his appreciation.

“Notwithstanding the tendency of parishes to follow fashion and wealthy uptown, Trinity has remained to minister to the wants and needs of the population that also must remain…For thirty years St. Chrysostom’s has ministered to this section of the city, crowded as it is with tenements and poorer dwellings.  For my own part, I am profoundly grateful that for nearly thirty years I have been permitted to have my part in the work here that has ever kept me busy.”

That work included a long list of organizations and groups.  Among these were St. Chrysostom’s Chapel Dispensary with an attending physician who visited the sick poor at their homes; the Guild for Intercessory Prayer (a Trinity Church pamphlet said “Its name implies its object”); the St. Chrysostom District Visiting Society; The Guild of St. Margaret which assisted he sick and assisted in their burials; and The Guild of St. Cyprian, “a mutual benefit society for colored men and women, providing for its sick and burying its dead;” and others.

In 1899 the Actors’ Church Alliance began meeting here.  The group was founded in 1892 by Walter Bentley, a priest who had been a Shakespearean actor.  The announcement that services would be held in St. Chrysostom’s Chapel on the evening of October 15, 1899 noted “All members of the dramatic profession are invited.”

Around his time St. Chrysostom’s received a new member.  Unlike the majority of the congregants, the unmarried Charlotte Fitch was, as described by the New-York Tribune, “wealthy and of good family.”  The middle-aged spinster had lived in the family mansion in Coxsackle, New York until 1899 where “her eccentricity kept her alone.  He servants would not stay,” according to the Tribune.

She moved to New York City and began attending St Chrysostom’s Chapel.  A bizarre obsession with Canon John Harris Knowles quickly followed.   She began with writing letters to Knowles, asking him obscure points of theology.  He later said “then they became more personal, until finally she was actually proposing to me.”

He said “She would sit in the congregation and glare at me until I could hardly preach.  She has followed me in the street.  I have actually been afraid at times.”  Knowles was not the only person afraid of Charlotte Fitch.  “All the sextons knew her, and were usually afraid of her.”

After nearly five years of this behavior, Charlotte was convinced that Canon Knowles proposed marriage to her in a veiled sermon.  She tried to force her way into the vestry rooms, and then on January 17, 1904 the New-York Tribune reported that she “pursued him everywhere, has tried to force her way into his apartments, and lately brought a Broadway policeman there, hoping to force an entrance.”

Canon Knowles tried to endure the woman’s delusions privately, not wanting publicity for her family. But it was the family who finally took action, after they were alerted to Charlotte’s mental condition when she accused both Knowles and her brother-in-law of trying to poison her.

Charlotte’s sister, the wife of the Rev. Edwin S. De. Groat Tompkins, filed a formal complaint and led police to St. Chrysostom’s Chapel on January 16, 1904.  “Miss Fitch struggled and screamed when the policeman took her to the courtroom,” reported the Tribune.

Canon Knowles told reporters that her family had “hoped to have her taken to some private sanatorium without any fuss, but she slipped away and came to the church this morning.  Then she tried to see me, and her sister had to send for a policeman.”

Charlotte Fitch was committed to Bellevue Hospital for “an examination as to her sanity.”  Peace was restored to St. Chrysostom’s Chapel.

Even more press-worthy than the funeral of William Ross Wallace was that of nine-year old Princess Isabella, daughter of King Andrew of the Miskito Indians of Nicaragua on February 17, 1906.  She had been sent from South American two years earlier to attend the school on Amsterdam Avenue at 129^th Street. “Four children were selected from among the Miskito tribe to be educated in this country and return to teach their fellows,” explained The New York Times.

Little Isabella died in St. Mary’s Hospital from an attack of appendicitis.  Strangely, following the St. Chrysostom’s Chapel funeral, her body was not returned to Nicaragua, but buried in Brooklyn’s Mount Olivet Cemetery.

It was not only Father Thomas Sill who actively supported the Actors’ Church Alliance.  Somewhat surprisingly, so did Bishop Potter.  When an entertainment was held by the group in the chapel’s parish hall on April 25, 1907 (attended by “more than a hundred persons,” according to The Times), the bishop showed up personally.  “Bishop Potter, who has been working in co-operation with the organization to make the fair a success, presented the alliance with an oil painting of himself.  This will be raffled off at the fair to be held at the Metropolitan Operation, beginning May 6,” said the newspaper.

Having served St. Chrysostom’s Chapel for 45 years, Rev. Thomas Henry Sill died in St. Luke’s Hospital on April 6, 1910 at the age of 72.  The New York Times remarked “No clergyman in this city has been so long connected with the same church as Mr. Sill was.”

Grateful congregants contributed what they could to erect a monument to the beloved vicar.  Two years later, on November 10, 1912, a new altar, reredos and credence were dedicated in Sills’ memory.  But the memorial would not last long.

The altar in memory of Rev. Sills was photographed by Wurts Bros. shortly after dedication in 1912.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYWGP5CFI&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=770

While Hell’s Kitchen district to the west continued to be a gritty and sordid neighborhood; the Seventh Avenue area surrounding St. Chrysostom’s Chapel was becoming engulfed by the expanding Garment District.   In 1924 demolition began on the Renwick-designed church.

The New York Times explained “St. Chrysostom’s Chapel…was abandoned by Trinity Parish because of increasing commercial invasions of the neighborhood.  The officials of Trinity Parish entered into an agreement with Mr. Sparks [of St. Clement’s Episcopal Church on West 46^th Street] to provide a church home for the members of St. Chrysostom’s."  In return, Trinity paid for much-needed structural repairs of St. Clement’s.

On April 30, 1924 workmen broke open the old cornerstone and pulled out the lead box placed there by Bishop Potter in 1868.  Inside were “a Bible, a prayer book, a convention journal of the diocese, canons of the church and copies of The New York Times and The New York World, dated Oct. 28, 1868.”  The box was taken to the Trinity Parish house at No. 187 Fulton Street and placed in a vault.