While Fred E. French's development Tudor City flourished, the perils of private-sector redevelopment emerged at French’s next major project, Knickerbocker Village, located on the Lower East Side near the Manhattan Bridge. When his plans, which included the demolition of the infamous “Lung Block,” faltered in the Depression economy, he was left holding 14.5 acres of tenement property, optioned at about $14 psf. In 1933, French went hat-in-hand to the federal government’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation to beg for millions to realize his dream. Federal officials provided only enough for part of the project: two massive perimeter blocks that, at 12 stories, rose high above the surrounding tenements, yet covered just about half the land. The project achieved a density of 800 people per acre. NYCHA’s first Chair, Langdon Post, called Knickerbocker Village “new types of slums,” but the tenants disagreed after repairs were made to the hastily-built buildings.

48 Henry Street, July 1967.

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51 Market Street, ca. 1978. This four-story building, also known as the William and Rosamond Clark House, was constructed in 1824-25 by an unknown architect. Designed for William Clark, a grocer, the building is an early example of the Late Federal style on the Lower East Side. The home was erected at a time when the neighborhood was an affluent residential area. While the structure may not appear particularly architecturally distinguished today, the building was one of the first to be designated after the Landmark Commission was created in 1965.

Henry Street, south side between Oliver and Catherine Street, Manhattan, showing P.S. #1, 1920. One of four public schools in New York City that have used the name“P.S. 1”, the C.B.J. Snyder designed school was completed in 1897. When opened it served the largely Italian immigrant neighborhood. Subsequent immigration waves included Polish and Russian Jews during and after World War I and later Puerto Ricans and Chinese students. It is believed that this school had the very first rooftop playground. Famous alum include singers Luther Vandross and Eddie Cantor, as well as actors Jimmy Durante and Robert Loggia. Fun fact: This school's origins date to the New York Free School 1, founded in 1809, which predates even the city's Board of Education, set up in 1842.

Oak and New Chambers Streets, decorated for St. Vincent’s festival, October 27, 1935. Buildings along both streets were razed between 1950 and 1953, ahead of the construction of the Alfred E. Smith Houses. The Municipal Building is visible in the background, as are the elevated tracks of the combined Second and Third Avenue Lines.

A 5-story structure, No. 68 (second from the corner), was supposed to have been the first place where stereopticon and shadow views were first shown. It also is reputed to have had the first public meeting rooms on this thoroughfare.

Pagoda Theater, 1964. The Pagoda Theater, which was designed in 1963, was the last new building in New York's Chinatown created by the Chinatown-born architect Poy Gum Lee. Opened in 1964, the theater was the first Chinese language movie theater in the neighborhood built expressly for that purpose (the other three had been converted into theaters). The theater was rendered in a Chinese-influenced, modern style with a three-tiered pagoda at the corner. The auditorium sat just under 500 patrons. The opening of the theater was celebrated with a dragon dance through the nearby streets of Chinatown. The theater closed in the late 1980s and was razed and replaced in the early 1990s with a 15-story commercial structure.

One of the finest of the Greek Revival churches in Manhattan, it has been attributed to Minard Lafever because of the beauty of its detail. The porch is recessed between wide flanking sidewalls, as is the case with St. John's in the Village, only this church is simple distyle in antis of the Doric order.

Shearith Israel Graveyard ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1683 STYLE: Graveyard This small graveyard is what remains today of the early burial ground of the Sephardic Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel. It was established on this site in the Seventeenth Century and thus represents one of the oldest cemeteries within the City. Handsome headstones are here interspersed by marble sarcophagus with simple flat-slab tops. One little monument is surmounted by a small pyramidal stone cap. The unique quality of this small plot lies not only in the simplicity of its early tombs but in its forgotten aspect, surrounded by houses, a reminder of our earliest history.

Construction on the South Street Pumping Station, across South Street from the Long Island Railroad Freight Depot at East River Pier 32; undated photo. A May 1885 report in the Babylon Budget detailed construction of the new depot at piers 32 and 33, "which promises to be the handsomest and most substantial on the whole riverfront." The report further quoted from the Fishing Dispatch trade publication, claiming the depot's construction had been driven by a fourfold increase in freight traffic. Pier 32 was also used for Ferry Service to Long Island City. At the turn of the century, the facing block on South Street was transformed as four buildings, Nos. 191-194, were razed for the construction of the fire department's South Street Pumping Station, completed in 1909. Around the same time, the East River piers were renumbered. By 1922, freight storage for the Pennsylvania and Long Island railroads had expanded to occupy the area between the Pier 22 (formerly 30-31), at foot of Roosevelt Street, and Pier 25 (formerly 33), at the foot of Oliver Street. Most of the piers in this area were removed by 1977.

Saint James Roman Catholic Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1835-37 STYLE: Greek Revival, Church St. James Church is a fine example of Greek Revival architecture. It has recessed porch with two columns on either side of the porch are enclosed stairs with their own doors opening on to the street. The entire front is crowned by a low gable pediment. One of the principal contributions of the Greek Revival in this country was its modification of the classic temple form.

Chatham Branch, NYPL, ca. 1903. Chatham Square Branch was the first of twelve Carnegie libraries designed by McKim, Mead & White. Completed in 1903, the structure remains one of the most intact Carnegie libraries (interior and exterior) in the city. The Chinatown-located library has served that community nearly since its opening. The library began a circulating Chinese language collection in 1911. Today the Chinese Heritage Collection, a unique collection of materials in English and Chinese, is housed on the lower floor.

"Market Street, east side, north from Madison, to and including Henry Streets. The Manhattan Bridge is seen in the background." - P.L. Sperr, September 9, 1927.

Tracks of the Second Avenue El above Division Street, viewed from the south walkway of the Manhattan Bridge. September 24, 1927.

St. James Roman Catholic Church, 1938. This fieldstone Greek Revival church (right) was built between 1835-37 and is the second-oldest Catholic church building in Manhattan. Despite its status as a New York City Landmark, the church was closed in 1983 due to deterioration and concerns that its roof could collapse. The structure was damaged in a 2011 fire, but remains intact. In the middle ground, the two-level elevated tracks of the Second and Third Avenue elevated lines run above New Bowery (St. James Place), between Franklin Square and the split at Chatham Square. In the far background, the elevated tracks of the IRT City Hall Spur are visible over Park Row.

"Chinatown Today," a 1973 mural by Alan Okada, viewed from Pike Street.; ca. 1978. Okada's mural was one of several produced by the City Arts Workshop, a community organization promoting the representation of the neighborhood's communities of color through the arts, especially murals. "Chinatown Today," appeared on the eastern wall of No. 107 East Broadway, above a vacant lot along Pike Street. After Edmund Vincent Gillon's photo, the single-story Hong Kong Supermarket opened on this lot. In May 2009, a fire at the supermarket caused heavy damage to the buildings abutting this corner, leading to the demolition of No. 107. By then, however, Okada's mural had been painted over.

Division Street tobacco store, January 26, 1938. According to “Changing New York,” the collection of photographer Berenice Abbott’s WPA work: “The Scharlin family opened its snuff store in 1876. The Yiddish signs in the window say ‘Do you want real strong smelling tobacco? Come in and see for yourself-free trial.’ At its height, the business had branches throughout the nation, and, in 1906, Mrs Scharlin reportedly declined an offer of $500,000. But, by the time of the Depression, the vogue for snuff had ended and the business was in decline. The seven-foot wooden statue of "Sandy" the kilted Scotsman holding a snuff box advertised Scharlin's snuff from the 1870 until 1938. He now resides in the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.” The tenement building that housed the Scharlin storefront is still standing, a few doors west of the Knickerbocker Post Office’s rear entrance.

Christmas trees for sale outside Gogel's Delicatessen. December 23, 1941.

Anshe Chesed and Rodeph Sholom are respectively the oldest and second oldest surviving synagogue buildings in the city, and some of the oldest in the country. Both were constructed for German Jewish congregations in German architectural styles: Gothic Revival and Rundbogenstil (“round-arch style”), and feature red brick, central staircases and symmetrical façades with recessed central sections and square towers. Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue is the only Greek Synagogue in New York and the only synagogue of Romaniote Jews in the Western Hemisphere. The Eldridge Street Synagogue was America’s first major house of worship built by Eastern European Orthodox Jews. The yellow brick building features Moorish and Romanesque details and rich ornament. At its peak in the early 20th century, the synagogue hosted as many as 1,000 worshippers at services, but was forced to close in the mid-20th century when the area’s Jewish population began to dwindle. In 1986, the Eldridge Street Project funded a large-scale restoration of the building, which was repurposed as a museum. The Former Congregation Anshe Chesed, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and the Former Eldridge Street Synagogue are all designated New York City Individual Landmarks.

Opposite Mulberry Bend ca. 1898 This stretch of East Broadway was enjoying a revival of sorts after the 1892 demolition of the adjacent notorious slum, the Mulberry Bend. Here the well-dressed families and closed shops- one with a sign in Hebrew- suggests that it is Saturday and families are milling about after attending synagogue. Lazarus Levy- the proprietor of the shop at 30 East Broadway- was among twelve and a half pages of Levys listed in the 1898 city directory. He moved his business to East Houston Street within the year.

Oliver Street Baptist Church ARCHITECT: Isaac Lucas DATE: 1844-45 STYLE: Greek Revival The Oliver Street Baptist Church is a fine local expression of Greek Revival architecture stated in its simplest terms and it uses inexpensive materials which nevertheless produce an overall effect of great dignity. The recessed portico with its two handsome Ionic columns is flanked on either side by plain wall surfaces relieved only by the introduction of simple panels. This composition is crowned by a well proportioned low-angled gable (pediment). The sidewalls have full length windows which light the aisles and the galleries above them.

The Manhattan Bridge opened to the public on the morning of December 31, 1909. It was the third suspension bridge built to span the East River, joining the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges. At the beginning of construction, its name was “Bridge No. 3” but that didn’t stick. In the end, the city opted for something simple, christening the bridge Manhattan

Presbyterian Church of the Sea and Land, May, 1924.

88 Division Street, at the intersection of Division, Eldridge, and Forsyth Streets, looking north on Eldridge towards Canal Street. The Eldridge Street Synagogue, opened in 1887, and beautifully restored at the start of the 21st century, is visible on the east side of Eldridge Street (center).

Row of buildings on South Street between James Slip and Roosevelt Street, April 1, 1937. In the background: the Wall Street skyline, with 60 Wall Tower (left), 40 Wall Street (middle) and the top of the Singer Tower on Broadway (right). The South Street buildings were razed in 1950 for the construction of NYCHA's Governor Alfred E. Smith Houses, which opened on April 1, 1953 — sixteen years to the day after this photo was taken.

William and Rosamond Clark House ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1824-25 STYLE: Federal The William and Rosamond Clark House is one of New York City’s few remaining late Federal houses still retaining a significant range of rich architectural details of the period. Above the windows are their original paneled lintels on the first three floors. The lintels are more elaborate than is usual, being enriched with both panels and rosettes. The basement windows are framed with a rusticated architrave composed of alternating smooth and textured blocks of stone. Most of the exterior ironwork is original.

Built in 1887, the Eldridge Street Synagogue was the first grand synagogue built by Eastern European Jews in the United States. Now a museum, it stands as a testament to the 19th century’s great wave of Jewish migration and the Lower East Side’s legendary Jewish community. The synagogue was designed in a Moorish style and built by German Catholic brothers Peter and Francis Herter. It was only the fifth building the Herter brothers had created in New York, and the first non-tenement structure. The structure’s Moorish style is evident in the horseshoe windows on the exterior, interior domes & arches, and dazzling decorative arts in the main sanctuary. The interior also boasts a more recent addition - a stained glass window designed by artist Kiki Smith & architect Deborah Gans, installed in 2010 to replace a historic rose window damaged in the mid-20th century. In the mid-20th century, after decades of declining membership, the congregation abandoned the main sanctuary in favor of the smaller sanctuary (Bes Midrash) on the lower level. Rediscovered in the late 1970's in a state of severe disrepair, the building underwent a meticulous 20 year, $20 million restoration. In 2007 the fully restored space was officially rededicated as the Museum at Eldridge Street. Today the Museum welcomes visitors of all backgrounds, faiths, and interests for tours, concerts, book talks, and other programs. The surrounding neighborhood, now Chinatown, offers a rich foundation for exploring history, immigration, and urban culture. It is open to the public Sunday through Friday.

Church of St. Teresa, November 23, 1932. St. Teresa Catholic Church has occupied this Gothic Revival building since 1863 , but the edifice was not built for them. Completed 21 years earlier, the stone building was constructed as the Rutgers Presbyterian Church. The name of the architect has been lost to time, but he was at the forefront of ecclesiastical architecture. Here he chose an emerging style for New York City religious structures. The four clocks on the bell tower are considered the oldest hand-wound public clocks in the city. During the 20th century the structural integrity of the building suffered with age, culminating in the 1995 collapse of the vaulted ceiling, which rained 60,000 pounds of plaster though the main floor and into the basement. Facing possible demolition, the parish sold their adjacent property and air rights to fund the repair work. Along with this roof and interior reconstruction came also some restoration efforts, including work on the church's timepieces. The four belfry clocks had stopped functioning or their winding had long been ignored. (Photographic evidence suggests that the Rutgers Street clock face read 10:15 from the 1930s through the 1970s.) Today the church's facade, at nearly two centuries old, looks incredibly similar to what it would have looked like when built in 1842.

Part of a fleet, Sludge Vessel Coney Island was built in the late 1930s during an era of wastewater treatment modernization aimed at keeping sewage out of the City’s rivers and harbor and improving public health. Back then, the vessels carried sludge out into the ocean, but since the 1990s they’ve sailed to facilities that turn it into biosolids, which can be composted, added to agricultural soils, or further processed for other beneficial uses. Decommissioned by NYC’s Environmental Protection Administration in 1972, the Coney Island was intentionally sunk off the coast of New Jersey, becoming a Scuba diving and fishing destination as part of the Shark River Reef!

St. James School, ca. 1980.

47 St. James Place, ca. 1975.

24 Henry Street, July 1967. The small Federal style two-story house at 24 Henry Street was likely constructed, along with its four-story rowhouse neighbor at no. 22, in the 1820s. The well-known star of Ziegfeld Follies, Franny Brice, once lived with her mother in an apartment in this building. The musical based on her life, Funny Girl, has a scene set at and titled "24 Henry Street." The two buildings were demolished quickly and somewhat surreptitiously in 2010 and replaced with a double lot, contemporary masonry building.

Public art represents and is represented with many different forms and ideas, its creation, concept and location all come into play when looking at a piece's place in an urban landscape such as New York City. Public art takes up a space, one that is always shared with a community, part of this story would like to address how the two intersect. In some cases a piece can even breed its own community, in the case of 5 Pointz, which in itself was its own piece of public art but also a space that created a community of artists. The Graffiti Mecca can also lead us to ask the question, “What is considered public art and where is the line drawn?” This question will be explored as well as looking to an ideal future for a city where art is put at a higher priority. Where graffiti artists aren’t criminalized for their work or used for profit. Looking at spaces and experiences where a community can be represented and enhanced by public art with ways of giving back and giving all people ways of expressing themselves.

Workers lay pipe for the high pressure water system beneath on New Bowery (now St. James Place); undated photo. The elevated trestle carried trains on the combined Second and Third Avenue lines, which split at Chatham Square (in the distance at far left, obscured by the horse-drawn carriage). The buildings at center-right are No.63, the Atlantic Hotel (left), and No. 59 (right), which housed the shops of furniture maker Timothy A. Garvey and John Dahlgren, a producer of decorative moldings. At far right is the entrance to First Shearith Israel Graveyard, the city's first Jewish cemetery.

Three-alarm fire at No. 20 Oak Street, February 3, 1917. On a frigid Saturday morning, a fire broke out at a five-story loft building "occupied by printing concerns," near the intersection of Oak, Roosevelt, and New Chambers Streets. The New York Times described the firefighting efforts: "Three times the benumbed fire fighters thought they had the blaze under control, but each time the fire got a fresh start and burst through the roof."

The Church of the Sea and Land, viewed from the Manhattan Bridge. Photographed by Berenice Abbott as part of the Federal Art Project, March 30, 1937. At the turn of the 19th century, the Rutgers family — for whom nearby Rutgers, Henry, and Catherine Streets are named — owned a farm on the Lower East Side. After the Commissioner’s plan of 1811, Henry Rutgers donated land along Rutgers Street for the construction of churches, including the Market Street Reformed Church (also known as the Northeast Dutch Reformed Church, and variations on the same). The Georgian Gothic Revival church was constructed from field stone and Manhattan schist and completed in 1819. In 1864, following the dissolution of the Dutch Reformed Church, it became the Presbyterian Church of the Sea and Land, its new name a reference to waterfront laborers who made up the congregation. In 1972, the Sea and Land Church transferred ownership of the building to the First Chinese Presbyterian Church, who had shared the space since 1951.

Chatham Square Cemetery, ca. 1900. The Chatham Square Cemetery is the oldest extant cemetery of the Shearith Israel Congregation and the second oldest cemetery in Manhattan. The Sephardic congregation dates to the middle of the 17th century when Spanish and Portuguese Jews arrived in New York and established a synagogue. Their first cemetery, established in 1656, is long lost. The cemetery was purchased in 1682 with the first interment the next year. Situated on a hill overlooking the East River (or it was a hill in the colonial era) the cemetery was actually used as a strategic position by both General Washington and the British during the Revolutionary War. A ban on burials below Canal Street in 1823 signaled the end to (most) interments here; a second ground for the congregation was opened on 11th Street near Sixth Avenue. Later a third cemetery was established near Sixth Avenue and 21st Street (1829) and a fourth in Ridgewood, Queens (1850s). The size of the cemetery was somewhat drastically reduced in 1855 when the expansion of the Bowery took a sizable portion of the cemetery by eminent domain. In all 256 graves required re-interment. Today the tiny cemetery sits a few feet above the adjacent street level and about one hundred headstones and above ground tombs are visible.

Oysters are one of New York's oldest residents. There's a reason food historian Mark Kurlansky refers to New York City as "The Big Oyster," or the oyster capital of the world. The bivalves were a dietary staple of the Lenape, and in the 1600s, the New York Harbor was home to half of the world's population of oysters. Oyster barges, such as the one pictured above, were built in the mid-19th century. The boats were approximately 20 feet in width and 70 feet in length and constructed to form a wedge as to not knock the sides of neighboring barges. Inside, the floors were bowed to allow for proper drainage. Robert S. Greenberg, a historian, said to the New York Times: "oystermen during that era would steer their small sailboats up to the rear of the barges and offload their catch, which barge operators would sell wholesale or serve fresh on the piers to lines of customers." The barges served as processing plants, where the fresh products were hauled in from ships at the back, and readied for sale to the front, where the barge met the pier. At the time, oysters were a food enjoyed by New Yorkers of all stripes and went for as little as six cents per piece. Barges often had a dual purpose as speakeasies, where the briny snacks could be had alongside alcohol. However, routine overfishing and pollution caused the eventual decline of the industry by the 1920s. In 1927, the city closed all off New York Harbors oyster beds due to contamination. Though most oyster barges disappeared after the beds closed, one such vessel was purchased by Ernest Ball and moved to the river-front neighborhood of Fair Haven in New Haven. It found use as a speak-easy and was later converted into a restaurant. In 2015, plans were unveiled to bring the barge back to New York, though it would be docked on the Red Hook waterfront rather than on the East River. The barge will be disassembled and labeled, piece by piece, then put back together in its original state, with some structural updates, in the New York Harbor.

Former Madison Street Mission, ca. 1973. Now an apartment house, 209 Madison Street, was originally built in 1886 as the Madison Street Mission. The mission, an extension of the First Mariners Methodist Church, closed in 1894. Later, 209 Madison Street became home to Etz Chaim Anshei Wolozin, a Jewish congregation with roots in present-day Belarus. They occupied the space for a number of years, but like many other Lower East Side synagogues, the building was converted into a residential property in 1933.

View of 234 Cherry Street looking east from the roof of 102 Monroe Street, 1935. The Manhattan Bridge is visible in the background. Both No. 234 Cherry and the photographer's vantage point on Monroe Street were razed. Today, the site is part of the NYCHA Rutgers Houses, completed in 1965.

Northern Reformed Church ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1817-19 STYLE: Georgian Gothic The Northern Reformed Church has what were probably among the earliest pointed Gothic windows and doors in Manhattan. it is an especially fine, simple example of a well-constructed church of the Federal period, and its construction was made possible through the generosity of one of New York’s leading citizens, Colonel Henry Rutgers. It was built in Georgian Gothic style.

Tracks of the Second Avenue El above Division Street, viewed from the south walkway of the Manhattan Bridge. March 9, 1934. The car at left is traveling on the northbound track, from Chatham Square toward Canal Street. This segment of the elevated line closed in 1942. The building under construction in the background is the United States Courthouse at 40 Centre Street (today the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse).

25-29 Oliver Street, March 30, 1937. No. 25 (at right) was the childhood home of Al Smith, four-time New York State Governor. Constructed circa the 1830s, the row house was built as a single family house in a Federal style. The two-and-a-half-story home had a full third floor added in the early 1870s by its then owner, Thomas Coleman, a politician. The home was purchased by the nearby St. James Church and used as a rectory and rented out, at one point to a funeral director. Al Smith, an up and coming politician rented the building beginning in 1909 to house his family of seven. During his run for Sheriff in 1916 (Tammany-supported, he won, of course), a large painting of the man bordered in red, white, and blue hung in front of the building. By that time Oliver Street had become something of a Politicians Row, home to magistrates, state senators, and even the coroner. Smith remained on Oliver Street until the mid 1920s. 25 Oliver Street returned to its occupation as a funeral home once again after the Smith family moved upstate while their patriarch was Governor. In 1939 Berenice Abbott photographed the building and two years later a section of bluestone sidewalk from the front of the house was dislodged and placed in the SS Alfred E. Smith, a transport ship. Though named a National Historic Landmark in 1965, today the building is considerably run down.

Congregation Sons of Israel Kalwarie, ca. 1978. The Romanesque Revival synagogue was designed by Alfred E. Badt and completed in 1904. Also known as the Pike Street Shul, the synagogue closed in controversial circumstances, beginning in September 1979. Just prior to Rosh Hashanah, the trustees sold the building without notifying the congregation, beginning a 15-year legal battle which ended with its eventual sale to a developer. Though 13-15 Pike Street was made a New York City landmark in 1997, the designation came too late to save its original stained glass windows. Today, it is home to the Sung Tak Buddhist Temple.

Manhattan Bridge ca. 1936 The Manhattan Bridge, the first suspension bridge to use flexible steel towers, was built concurrently with the Queensboro Bridge. Gustav Lindenthal's technical innovations for the Manhattan Bridge, and his insistence on incorporating aesthetic elements into the design, were disapproved by Tammany Hall politicians and other powerful figures: Such political resistance prevented Lindenthal from acquiring funds or political backing for his design and eventually he and Hornbostel were replaced by designer Leon Moisseiff and the architectural firm Carrere and Hastings, respectively. Moisseiff altered Lindenthal's plan by substituting conventional wound steel cables for nickel-steel chains and by reducing the proposed size of the structure's tall stiffening trusses. It has been speculated that the real cause of Tammany opposition to Lindenthal's design was that it called for nickel-steel and therefore failed to provide business to the Roebling Company, the only one producing steel cables. Various explanations have been offered was to why the completed bridge could just barely support the necessary weight: that Moisseiff neglected to undertake certain critical calculations (he later designed the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, Tacoma, Washington, which collapsed shortly after its 1940 opening, taking his career with it) or that inferior materials, inadequate to withstand predicted traffic-load pressures, were used. Whatever the cause, the Manhattan is the most troublesome of New York City's suspension bridge, although it has the greatest traffic capacity of the four East River bridges.

View of the Manhattan Civic Center, including the Municipal Building, U.S. Courthouse, and Woolworth Building, ca. 1935. The building at extreme right, in the foreground is the Church of Land and Sea, at the northwest corner of Henry and Market Streets.

Doorway to 113 East Broadway, March 30, 1937.

Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church, Oliver Street, ca. 1977. The Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church was completed in 1845 as the Oliver Street Baptist Church for a congregation likely dating to the 1790s. The first Oliver Street church, a wooden structure, was lost in an 1843 fire. The Landmarks Preservation commission credits the present Greek revival structure to architect Minard Lafever, while other sources suggest Isaac Lucas, a member of the congregation. In 1863, the church was renamed to Mariner's Temple to reflect its ministry to seamen and immigrants. After decades of declining attendance during the 20th century, church membership has lately rebounded.

"Riots in New York July-Aug '63; northeast corner of Catherine and Cherry Street during the Draft Riots in 1863." The New York City Draft Riots were a week-long violent action that occurred in Manhattan in the summer of 1863. The impetus for the riots was discontent among working-class populations (largely Irish immigrants) with new laws regarding a draft for the Civil War. The working classes were upset at the wealthy who could buy their way out of conscription for $300. What began as a discontent regarding the draft, in the days as the first draft numbers were being drawn, quickly devolved into race riots. White mobs attacked black people and their homes, public buildings, the homes of abolitionists, churches, and in a violent conflagration, the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue was burned to the ground. The police department attempted to quell the violence but had little luck. (The police superintendent John Alexander Kennedy was brutally beaten.) The military eventually arrived and by July 16 (four days after the riot had begun) there were several thousand Federal troops in the city, and news had begun to spread that the draft was being postponed. The results of the riots were drastic, 120 people killed, more than 2000 injured, hundreds of homes and business damaged and 11 black men lynched. As a result of this violence, many blacks who lived in Manhattan left the city and moved to Brooklyn. The population shift was so dramatic that by 1865, the number of blacks living in Manhattan was lower than it had been in 1820.

Henry Street view towards City Hall and the Woolworth Building, 1938. Surprisingly little has changed on this block in nearly eighty years: many of the tenement buildings are still standing, and a parking lot continues to operate on the south side of the street.