The Lost 1641 Stadt Huys, Broad and Pearl Streets

from Popular History of the United States, 1876

On June 22, 1920 The New York Times reported on the sale of an old, six-story building at 73 Pearl Street at the northwest corner of Coenties Alley.   The reporter paused to mention “The structure occupies one of the most interesting historic sites on Manhattan Island.”

It was on that site, in 1641, that Governor Willem Kieft erected the Stadt Herberg, or “City Tavern.”   A substantial structure, it rose five stories tall—the skyscraper of mid-17^th century New Amsterdam.    As much a community center as tavern and inn, its entrance faced Fort Amsterdam, the administrative headquarters for the Dutch. 

Kieft’s governorship came hand-in-hand with his position as director-general of the West India Company.   Historian Mary Louise Booth in her 1860 History of the City of New York explained “As yet, no tavern had been erected within the settlement for the accommodation of strangers, and the numerous visitors from the New England colonies as well as from the interior were compelled to avail themselves of the hospitalities of the director.”  Kieft understandably grew impatient with strangers coming and going in his house; and so had the stone tavern erected at the Company’s expense.

from Annals of Old Manhattan 1609-1664, in the collection of the New York Public Library

His problems started when he tried to tax the local Native Americans.  When that failed, he attempted to expulse them.   He ordered military attacks on villages on February 25, 1643 which resulted in the massacre of 120 Native Americans, including women and children.   It did not end there.

A two-year war ensued, called Kieft’s War, that resulted in heavy loss of life on both sides.  The Board of Directors fired Kieft in 1647, replacing him with Peter Stuyvesant.  The new governor seized Kieft’s tavern and renovated it as his City Hall, the Stadt Huys.  A cupola with an all-important bell was added to the tiled roof and the entrance relocated to face the East River.  The bell was rung at 9:00 on the mornings of “court days.”

A turn of the century postcard included the stocks (right) and public well.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

Lawrens Duyts was on the wrong side of the law at least twice here.  Records showed that Anneke Jans Bogardus sued him for the rent of a tract of land near where Trinity Church now stands.  Duyts’s defense was that Mrs. Bogardus had released him from the rent—two hogs—and that he had already paid one hog.  The magistrates ordered him to pay the other hog.

Things were a little more serious for Duyts when he was found guilty of “selling his wife to one Jansen.”  There was no jail in New Amsterdam and justice was served physically.  Lawrens Duyts was sentenced to a flogging and the cutting off of his right ear.

In 1652 the surgeons of the colony petitioned for a law prohibiting that no one could shave people but them.   The magistrates wisely decided “That no man can be prevented from operating herein upon himself, or doing another this friendly act, provided that it be through courtesy, and that he do not receive any money for it.”

One trial record included a remarkable description of the courtroom.  “Over the bench of the Justices are interweaved the orange and blue and white colors of the West India Company, with the tricolor of Faderland.  Around the room hang the leather fire-buckets ready for use.  On the magisterial seat are placed the stuffed red cushions, which are carried to the church on Sundays, and which are to hold the weight and judicial wisdom of New Amsterdam.  Behind is the painted coat of arms of the City, sent over by the Directors from Holland in 1634…Against the wall is the nut-wood chest, where are kept under massive clasps and bands the records and archives of the court.”

Trials here settled complaints large and small.  Jan Haeckins and Jacob Van Couwenhoven came to court with a somewhat subjective problem.  Couwenhoven brewed beer and sold a quantity to Haeckins.  Haeckins then refused to pay for the beer.  “The defendant says the beer is bad,” said court documents, according to historian James W. Gerard in his 1874 book The Old Streets of New York Under the Dutch.

Couwenhoven protested, saying that if his beer were bad, why would other people keep buying it?  “He further insists that the beer is of good quality, and such as is made for exportation.”  After much such bantering the magistrates arrived at a Solomon-worthy decision.  They adjourned court and went off to try the beer for themselves.

The Stadt Huys served the Dutch until 1664 when English forces seized Manhattan and overtook New Amsterdam.   The colony was renamed New York on September 8 of that year, in honor of the Duke of York, later James II.   On October 14 the Dutch magistrates and some of the higher ranking residents were assembled in the Stadt Huys by order of the English Governor Nichols.  They were read the oath of allegiance to Great Britain which they were expected to take.

They refused.  Only after significant amendments were made did the Dutch citizens agree to the oath.

The Stadt Huys would be the scene not only of government meetings, trials (under Governor Nichols the only trial for witchcraft in Manhattan’s history was held here) and civic decisions; it was the place of ceremonies and tributes. 

By 1679 the Stadt Huys, now called City Hall, was in disrepair.  Supreme Court records documented appropriation for studs and planks to shore up the walls.  It survived another two decades before the city abandoned it in 1699. 

Stuyvesant moved the entrance to the building facing the East River.  watercolor by Louis Oram, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEL7L7L&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

City documents recorded “On the 25^th day of May 1699, Johannes Depeyster, being mayor, James Graham, recorder, Messrs. Boelen, Lewis, Walters, Wenham, and Cortlandt, aldermen, present.  The board taking into consideration the necessity of building a new citty hall, doo unanimously resolve, (Alderman Cortlandt only dissenting,) that a new citty hall shall be built with all convenient expedition, and that the same be erected and built at the upper end of the Broad street within the said citty.”

The aldermen also agreed to sell the old building for its materials and lease the ground “to farme for the terme of ninety-nine years.”  Merchant John Rodman purchased City Hall for 900 pounds on August 17, 1699.

Long before construction of the new City Hall on Broad Street was started in November 1700, the old Stadt Huys had been demolished.

In 1979, 279 years later, ground was about to be broken for the Goldman Sachs Building at 85 Broad Street at the corner of Pearl Street.  Archeologists studied maps and documents and concluded this was the site of the Stadt Huys.   Dollar Savings Bank owned the property and backed a $155,000 dig.  Nearly two dozen archeologists spent 11 months carefully working down from street level.

More than four tons of artifacts were unearthed—pottery, buttons, coins, delftware plates and tiles, and other fascinating relics.    On April 12, 1981 The New York Times reported “They uncovered what they believe to be the remains of the Stadt Huys.”   Later investigation revealed that the walls were more likely those of the Lovelace Tavern which was built next door to it in 1670.  Today the outline of Stadt Huys is marked by light-colored paving stones on the plaza outside of 85 Broad Street.   Visitors can view the Lovelace Tavern foundations from a section of sidewalk left open and protected by brass railings.

photo therealdeal.com

The 1849 Congregation Anshe Chesed -- No. 172 Norfolk Street

photo by Alice Lum

The governor of Nieuw Amsterdam, Peter Suyvesant, had a strong and simple view on religion:  he was right and all others were wrong.  A member of the Dutch Reformed Church, he forbade citizens to “admit, lodge or entertain…any one of the heretical and abominable sect called the Quakers” in 1655.  The following year he refused Lutherans the right to organize a church.  So it was not surprising that when the first Jews landed in New York in 1654 they were met with severe discrimination.

By the 1820s the Jewish population in New York City was still relatively small; yet it was substantial enough to have three separation congregations: Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest; Congregation B’nai Jeshurun; and Congregation Anshe Chesed.  Composed of German, Polish and Dutch Jews, Anshe Chesed was the youngest group, established in 1828.  Between 1812 and 1846 the Jewish population would swell from 400 to 10,000 and by the start of the Civil War there would be more than two dozen synagogues in the city.  Large numbers, however, did not mean wide-spread acceptance.

Congregation Anshe Chesed was made up mostly of immigrants with little money or status.  They worshiped in rented rooms until 1842 when the old Quaker Meeting House at No. 38 Henry Street was purchased and converted to a synagogue.  Within a decade the congregation grew to be the largest of any synagogue in America.

Anshe Chesed (People of Kindness) distinguished itself from other Manhattan congregations as well by embracing the Reform Movement.  But this change would not become fully rooted until the group built a new, impressive synagogue on Norfolk Street.  As it outgrew the Henry Street facility, trustees began searching for a new site by 1848.  Three lots at Nos. 172 to 176 Norfolk Street, between Stanton and Houston Streets, were purchased for $10,000 (around a quarter of a million dollars today).  In an ironic twist of poetic justice, the lot was part of Peter Stuyvesant’s former estate.

Several architects submitted drawings and a vote in February 1848 resulted in the commission going to Alexander Saeltzer.  The German born architect turned to Gothic Revival for the new structure.  The style had first appeared in New York a decade earlier and would soon become the favorite for Christian churches.  Because of that, later synagogue architects would shy away from Gothic as being too church-like.  But for now, Saeltzer forged ahead with vigor.

His completed brick structure featured the expected pointed arched openings and carved tracery. Two sturdy towers flanked a recessed central section.  Pinnacles and gently sagging moldings adorned the windows; while inside a superb groined-arched ceiling was supported by clustered columns.  The once-tiny congregation of impoverished immigrants had arrived.

photo by Alice Lum

The new shul was formally consecrated on May 16, 1850 with elaborate ritual.  It was the largest synagogue in New York, capable of accommodating 700 men on the main floor and 500 women in the gallery.  The inclusive guest list to the dedication included several Christian clergymen, the mayor and members of the Common Council.

Now in its new home, some reform changes were made--like the introduction of a choir of both sexes.  Little by little other innovations would be accepted.  In 1869 a pipe organ was purchased and later families were permitted to sit together during worship.  On December 28, 1873 The New York Times said “Innovations were gradually introduced; and at a general meeting of the congregation, held a week ago, they declared themselves in harmony with every principle enunciated and proclaimed by reformed Judaism, prepared to adopt the most radical measures to bring their worship to accord with modern ideas.”

As a sort of by-product of this decision, the congregation applied to consolidate with the Temple Adath Jeshurun.  “Thus the oldest orthodox congregation of the City of New York has become merged entirely with a congregation recognized as the leading radical reform congregation of the country,” announced The New York Times.

The combined congregation built a new synagogue uptown on Lexington Avenue.  The Norfolk Street shul was purchased by Congregation Shaari Rachmim, which sold it 13 years later to the First Hungarian Congregation Oheb Zedek.  It would not be until June 19, 1890 that this congregation received its first rabbi and appropriate celebration surrounded his arrival. 

The New York Times reported that the synagogue was “completely filled” at the reception of the Rev. Dr. Philip Klein.  Before the congregation were six other rabbis, three judges and other dignitaries.  Following the ceremony a banquet was given.  The importance with which the congregation viewed the event was evident in the list of letters of regret that were read.  Among them were notes from “President Harrison, Vice-President Morton, ex-President Cleveland, and Mayor Grant.”

Along with its Hungarian-born congregants, the synagogue was also spiritual home to many Russians.  In 1905 the Russian government began an all-out persecution of Jews.  On March 12 that year a cable from a group of Jews in Berlin arrived at The New York Times office describing “a new period of persecution of Jews in Russia and alleging that Russian anti-Semites are making a systematic attempt to arrange a repetition of the Kishineff massacre.”  The cable said that manifestos were being distributed “advocating massacres of Jews” with rewards to those who carried them out.

By December the threats had been made real and Russian Jews were being slaughtered.  Speaking to the First Hungarian Congregation on December 4, 1905, Rev. H. Pereira Mendes said that they were the congregation who felt the most grief; for they personally received the letters from Russia.

“The world has never witnessed a time like this.  There have been times of intense suffering at the hands of one nation where the others could not help.”  The rabbi tried to give hope, saying that from the terror would come reform.  “There must be scenes of horror, yet, but can we doubt the ultimate result?  It is equal rights for all Jews in Russia.  The horrors have stirred up the world, and now we will have a government of the people by the people and for the people.”

Sadly, the ultimate horror for Jews in Europe was still a few decades away.

The following year, on November 4, 1906, the cornerstone was laid for the Hungarian congregation’s new synagogue in Harlem.  For a while Congregation Ohab Zedek would maintain both locations.  “The old synagogue in Norfolk Street will be in charge of the Rev. Philip Klein,” reported The New York Times, “and an assistant will be appointed to officiate at the new temple, which will be completed by Jan. 1.”

Congregation Ohab Zedek was still on Norfolk Street in 1910 when Jacob A. Rich married Sarah Siegel.  The ceremony would not have drawn attention normally.  Neither the bride nor groom was socially important—as a matter of fact Rich was a member of one of New York’s lowest caliber groups, the newsboys.  Like shoeblacks, the boys earned a meager existence on the streets and many slept and were fed in lodging houses built specifically for them.

But Jacob Rich, known as Jack Sullivan on the street, had earned the title “King of Newsboys.”  And his wedding was a major event in the Lower East Side.  “Two hundred newsboys will leave the Newsboys’ Home in a body and march to the synagogue in honor of the ‘king,’” reported the New-York Tribune on November 24, 1910.  “Following a reception at the Café Boulevard the couple will go to Lakewood, where they will spend their honeymoon.”

In 1934 the brick was still exposed.  photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

On July 2, 1921 the New-York Tribune ran a one-line article announcing that the Norfolk Street Synagogue had been sold by the First Hungarian Congregation to the Congregation Sheveth Achin Anshe Slonim.  The newest congregation in the building would stay on for half a century.  But by the 1970s changes in the neighborhood pushed the members out.  In 1974 the building was abandoned.

About five years after it was abandoned, the building was in serious disrepair -- photograph by Edmund V. Gillon, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWPK65ED&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Vandals broke in and what damage they did not do, weather and vermin finished.  The once elegant sanctuary was in ruins when Spanish artist Angel Orsensanz stumbled across it.  The oldest surviving synagogue structure in Manhattan and the fourth-oldest in the country; it was on the verge of devastation.

photograph by Edmund V. Gillon, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWPK65ED&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The painter and sculptor purchased the derelict property in 1986 and converted it to an art gallery and performance space.  The brick walls are now stucco-covered and brightly painted.  Inside much of the architectural detail has been preserved, although like the façade, it has been brightened with a spectrum of vivid hues.  The building’s original purpose has come to life again, as well, with the Shul of New York worshipping below street level.

photo by Alice Lum

The marvelous and nearly-lost historic building is tucked away on little Norfolk Street where few New Yorkers have ever ventured.

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