St Joseph's Church

Story

The Church of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village is a Roman Catholic parish church located at 365 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) at the corner of Washington Place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1833 - 34, it is the oldest church in New York City specifically built to be a Roman Catholic sanctuary.HistorySt. Joseph's Parish was founded by Bishop John Dubois in 1829. At the time St. Joseph's Parish began, the population of New York, numbering 203,000, was concentrated in the southern half of Manhattan. The parish boundaries stretched from Canal Street to 20th Street, and from Broadway to the Hudson River. Early church records indicate that St. Joseph's first congregants were predominantly Irish-Americans.St. Joseph's was the sixth parish to be established in Manhattan, among those still in existence in the Archdiocese of New York. Parishes that preceded it were St. Peter's on Barclay Street (1785), St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on Mulberry Street (1809), St. James on Oliver Street (1827) and Transfiguration on Mott Street (1827).The cornerstone of the Church was laid on June 10, 1833. The church was designed by John Doran in the Greek Revival style,> but it has been extensively renovated over the years. Two fires, one in 1855 and the other in 1885, caused extensive damage to the interior. Renovations after the second fire were supervised by Arthur Crooks. The interior of the church was restored in 1972. At the time, a fresco of the Transfiguration, after Raphael's original in the Vatican, was discovered under layers of paint and restored. Structural restoration work was performed in 1991 and 1992.