St. George's Syrian Catholic Church

St. George's Syrian Catholic Church is a former church located at 103 Washington Street between Rector Street and Carlisle Street in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. The church is the last physical reminder of the Syrian American and Lebanese American community that once lived in Little Syria.

1. History

Originally three stories tall with a peaked roof, the structure was built c.1812, and by 1850 was being used as a boardinghouse for immigrants; an additional two stories were added on in 1869. In 1925, the building was purchased by George E. Bardwil, a textiles importer, for the use of the Syrian Greek Catholic church, organized in 1889 to serve the Syrian- and Lebanese-American community in the Little Syria neighborhood, also known as the Syrian Quarter. Four years later, Harvey F. Cassab, a Lebanese-American draftsman, was hired to create a new facade for the building. His neo-Gothic design in white terra cotta with a polychrome relief of St. George and the Dragon remains intact. After World War II, the Syrian and Lebanese population in the area declined, in part because the community was destroyed to make way for the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel ramps. The Eastern Mediterranean community later moved to Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. The church briefly became a Latin Church parish, and then became disused as a church. In 1982 the building was bought by Moran Inc. and was turned into an Irish pub. The pub has now closed, however the building is still owned and maintained by Moran Inc. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building a New York City landmark on July 14, 2009. Marc Beherec argues that this church was the inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft's "The Horror at Red Hook". The building was constructed by Ryneer Suydam, a man with a name very similar to that of the story's Robert Suydam. Beherec argues that the building's conversion from Suydam's Federalist tenement to a Gothic church by a sect he (erroneously) believed to be Nestorian, which began while he was in New York inspired Lovecraft.

1. See also

List of New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan below 14th Street

1. References


1. External links

Media related to St. George's Syrian Catholic Church at Wikimedia Commons

Nearby Places View Menu

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Downtown Community House

The Downtown Community House at 105-107 Washington Street is a six-story, five-bay red brick building that is among the last vestiges of the Lower West Side of Manhattan's former life as an ethnic neighborhood known as “Little Syria.” From the time of its establishment, the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association, housed in the Downtown Community House beginning in 1926, was a pioneering organization that served the local immigrant population as a settlement house and continued to provide services for the area well after the community house became defunct. Built in 1925 with philanthropic funds from William H. Childs, the founder of the Bon Ami household cleaner company, the Downtown Community House was designed by John F. Jackson, architect of over 70 Y.M.C.A. buildings and community centers, and through its Colonial Revival style speaks to an underlying desire for the neighborhood's immigrant population to become Americanized and associate themselves with the country's foundations. In recent years, a collection of historic preservationists and Arab-American activists have lobbied the Landmarks Preservation Commission and its chairman Robert Tierney to designate the building as a city landmark.

Community Centre Historic Site

109 Washington Street

109 Washington Street is a five-story tenement in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City, within the area once known as Little Syria. Due to demolitions connected to the construction of the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel and the World Trade Center, it stands as the last tenement on a portion of lower Washington Street that has been estimated by Kate Reggev to have contained around 50 tenements. After September 11, 2001, its proximity to the World Trade Center site made it the subject of some media attention, including a nationally syndicated radio story about the experiences of its residents on the day of the attack. In recent years, community officials, activists, and preservationists have advocated for its designation as a landmark as part of a mini-historical district with the connected buildings of St. George's Syrian Catholic Church and the Downtown Community House.

Historic Site Landmark

Little Syria, Manhattan

Little Syria (Arabic: سوريا الصغيرة) was a diverse neighborhood that existed in the New York City borough of Manhattan from the late 1880s until the 1940s. The name for the neighborhood came from the Arabic-speaking Christian population who emigrated from Ottoman Syria, an area which today includes the nations of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. Also called the Syrian Quarter, or Syrian Colony in local newspapers it encompassed a few blocks reaching from Washington Street in Battery Park to above Rector Street. This neighborhood became the center of New York's first community of Arabic-speaking immigrants. In spite of this name the neighborhood was never exclusively Syrian or Arab, as there were also many Irish, German, Slavic, and Scandinavian immigrant families present. The neighborhood declined as the inhabitants began moving out to other areas, Brooklyn Heights, the Sunset Park area and Bay Ridge, with many shops relocating to Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn. The community disappeared almost entirely when a great deal of lower Washington Street was demolished to make way for the entrance ramps to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. The quarter was located at the southern edge of the site that would become the World Trade Center. After the September 11 terrorist attacks the cornerstone of the Syrian St. Joseph's Maronite Church was found in the rubble.

Historic Site Neighbourhood

88 Greenwich Street

88 Greenwich Street, also known as the Greenwich Club Residences and previously as 19 Rector Street, is a building located on the southern side of Rector Street between Greenwich and Washington Streets in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York City. Constructed in 1929–30, this 37-story structure was designed in the Art Deco style by Lafayette A. Goldstone and Alexander Zamshnick. An entrance to the Rector Street station of the New York City Subway was located in the basement of the building and opened in 1931. However, this entrance was closed by 1941. 88 Greenwich Street was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. In 2006, the building was renovated into residential condominium use. In 2012, the building was severely affected by flooding from Hurricane Sandy. Approximately three million cubic feet of saltwater entered the building's basement, leading to extensive damage. Additionally, during the flooding, water dislodged an oil tank, causing it to crack upon hitting a ceiling beam.

Historic Site Landmark