EASTER IN NYC. ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL OF TRINITY CHURCH

Today, The Grandma has visited St. Paul's Chapel in Lower Manhattan to commemorate Easter. 

St. Paul's Chapel is a chapel building of Trinity Church, an episcopal parish, located at 209 Broadway, between Fulton Street and Vesey Street, in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

Built in 1766, it is the oldest surviving church building in Manhattan, and one of the nation's finest examples of Late Georgian church architecture. In 1960, the chapel was named a National Historic Landmark; it was also made a New York City Landmark and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. When St. Paul's Chapel remained standing after the September 11, 2001, attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center behind it, the chapel was subsequently nicknamed The Little Chapel That Stood.

A chapel of the Parish of Trinity Church, St. Paul's was built on land granted by Anne, Queen of Great Britain. Construction on the building's main body began in 1764 and was completed in 1766. The church's spire was added between 1794 and 1796.

Built of Manhattan mica-schist with brownstone quoins, St. Paul's has the classical portico, boxy proportions and domestic details that are characteristic of Georgian churches including James Gibbs' St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. The church's octagonal spire rises from a square base and is topped by a replica of the Athenian Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (c. 335 BC). Inside, the chapel's simple elegant hall has the pale colors, flat ceiling and cut glass chandeliers reminiscent of contemporary domestic interiors.

More information: Trinity Church Wall Street

The church has historically been attributed to Thomas McBean, a Scottish architect and student of James Gibbs. Recent documentation published by historian John Fitzhugh Millar suggests architect Peter Harrison may have instead been responsible for the structure's design. Master craftsman and furniture maker Andrew Gautier produced the church's interior fixtures.

Upon completion in 1766, the church was the tallest building in New York City. It stood in a field some distance from the growing port city to the south and was built as a chapel-of-ease for parishioners who thought the mother church inconvenient to access.

On the Broadway side of the chapel's exterior is an oak statue of the church's patron saint, Saint Paul, carved by an unknown sculptor and installed in 1790. Below the east window is the monument to Brigadier General Richard Montgomery, who died at the Battle of Quebec (1775) during the American Revolutionary War. 

In the spire, the first bell is inscribed Mears London, Fecit [Made] 1797. The second bell, made in 1866, was added in celebration of the chapel's 100th anniversary.

The Hearts of Oak, a militia unit organized early in the American Revolutionary War, and composed in part of King's College (later, Columbia University) students, would drill in the chapel's yard before classes nearby. Alexander Hamilton was an officer of this unit.

The chapel survived the Great New York City Fire of 1776 when a quarter of New York City (then confined to the lower tip of Manhattan), including Trinity Church, burned following the British capture of the city after the Battle of Long Island during the American Revolutionary War.

George Washington, along with members of the United States Congress, worshipped at St. Paul's Chapel on his Inauguration Day, April 30, 1789. Washington also attended services at St. Paul's during the two years New York City was the country's capital. Above Washington's pew is an 18th-century oil painting of the Great Seal of the United States, adopted in 1782.

The chapel contains several monuments and memorials that attest to its elevated status in early New York: a monument to Richard Montgomery (hero of the battle of Quebec) sculpted by Jean-Jacques Caffieri (1777), George Washington's original pew and a Neo-Baroque sculpture called Glory designed by Pierre L'Enfant, the designer of Washington, D.C. The pulpit is surmounted by a coronet and six feathers, and fourteen original cut glass chandeliers hang in the nave and the galleries.

More information: City Beautiful Blog

 Absent in body, but present in spirit.

Saint Paul

ART, SHOPPING & CAST-IRON ARCHITECTURE IN SOHO

Today, The Grandma has visited SoHo in Lower Manhattan to visit some of the most influential artists of the city.

SoHo is a neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. 

Since the 20th century it has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and has also been known for its variety of shops ranging from trendy upscale boutiques to national and international chain store outlets. The area's history is an archetypal example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socioeconomic, cultural, political, and architectural developments.

The name SoHo derives from the area being South of Houston Street, and was coined in 1962 by Chester Rapkin, an urban planner and author of The South Houston Industrial Area study, also known as the Rapkin Report. The name also recalls Soho, an area in London's West End.

Almost all of SoHo is included in the SoHo–Cast Iron Historic District, which was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973, extended in 2010, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1978.

It consists of 26 blocks and approximately 500 buildings, many of them incorporating cast-iron architectural elements. Many side streets in the district are paved with Belgian blocks.

SoHo is part of Manhattan Community District 2 and its primary ZIP Codes are 10012 and 10013. It is patrolled by the 1st and 5th Precincts of the New York City Police Department.

Because of the nature of neighbourhoods in New York City, different sources will often give different boundaries for each one. In the case of SoHo, all sources appear to agree that the northern boundary is Houston Street, and the southern boundary is Canal Street, but the location of the eastern and western boundaries is disputed.

More information: SoHo Memory

In 1974, shortly after SoHo first came into existence, The New York Times described the boundaries as stretching from Houston to Canal Streets between West Broadway and Lafayette Street.

The map at the Community Board 2 profile page on New York City's official website has SOHO written near Broadway in the space roughly equidistant between Houston Street and Canal Street.

The SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District is contained within the zoned SoHo neighborhood. 

Originally ending in the west at the eastern side of West Broadway and to the east at the western side of Crosby Street, the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District was expanded in 2010 to cover most of West Broadway and to extend east to Lafayette and Centre Streets. The boundary lines are not straight, and some block-fronts on West Broadway and Lafayette are excluded from the District.

SoHo boasts the greatest collection of cast-iron architecture in the world. 

Approximately 250 cast-iron buildings stand in New York City, and the majority are in SoHo. Cast iron was initially used as a decorative front over a pre-existing building. With the addition of modern, decorative facades, older industrial buildings were able to attract new commercial clients. Most of these facades were constructed during the period from 1840 to 1880. In addition to revitalizing older structures, buildings in SoHo were later designed to feature the cast iron.

More information: The Bowery Boys

After the abandonment of the highway scheme, the city was left with a large number of historic buildings that were unattractive for the kinds of manufacturing and commerce that survived in the city in the 1970s. The upper floors of many of these buildings had been built as commercial Manhattan lofts, which provided large, unobstructed spaces for manufacturing and other industrial uses.

These spaces attracted artists who valued them for their large areas, large windows admitting natural light and low rents. Most of these spaces were also used illegally as living space, despite being neither zoned nor equipped for residential use. This widespread zoning violation was ignored for a long period of time, as the artist-occupants were using space for which there was little demand due to the city's poor economy at the time, and would have lain dormant or been abandoned otherwise.

In 2005, the construction of residential buildings on empty lots in the historic district was permitted. Nevertheless, with no enforcement of the new zoning laws by the city, beginning in the 1980s, in a way that would later apply elsewhere, the neighbourhood began to draw more affluent residents. Due to rent protection and stability afforded by the 1982 Loft Law, in addition to the fact that many of the artists owned their co-ops, many of the original pioneering artists remained despite the popular misconception that gentrification forced them to flee.

More information: Coldwell Banker Warburg

 Out of all the neighborhoods in Manhattan,
Soho in particular had the charged atmosphere of a movie set,
populated with passersby who looked
like extras from Central Casting,
so perfectly did they fit into this environment.
There was the feeling of everything being not quite real,
or too perfectly cliched to actually be true,
and it began to rain in a fine,
misty drizzle from a black patent leather sky.

Candace Bushnell