The former site of Bethel AME Church, 214 Sullivan Street, ca. 1944.

Though it was demolished more than a century ago, this is the former location of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Bethel AME), the heart of a growing African American community in what was then referred to as “Little Africa”. Before becoming home to the Bethel AME, the site was purchased for the Associated Methodist Protestant Church in 1837, and then sold to the Sullivan Street Methodist Church in 1842. The Bethel AME Church purchased the church in 1862. It is noted on maps of the time as the “Colored Bethel” (1879) and the “African Methodist Church” (1887). In 1895, the church became home to the parish of Our Lady of Pompeii for a short time, which had moved there from Waverly Place. Today, the building at 214 Sullivan Street is a Renaissance Revival factory building that was built in 1899 for a paper box company.