Tracks of the Sixth Avenue El over West Broadway, with the Church of St. Alphonsus Ligouri in the background. Undated, 1870-90.

The Sixth Avenue Line was built during the 1870s, with lower Manhattan tracks running over Church Street, South Fifth Avenue (today’s West Broadway), and West 3rd Street, then Sixth Avenue’s southern terminus.

St. Alphonsus Ligouri was founded in 1847 by a congregation of German Catholics who built their first church nearby, at the foot of Thompson Street. In 1870, having acquired a larger lot, the parish hired architect Francis G. Hempler to design a new church. Hempler’s Lombard Romanesque structure was completed in 1872, with a prominent spire and rose window facing South Fifth Avenue.

However, the church had been built on unstable footing: it’s concrete slab foundation was perched on the filled-in creek bed for which Canal Street is named. Over time, the sediment shifted beneath the foundation, leading the church building to become structurally unsound. In 1979, services were suspended over safety concerns. Two years later, the building was razed. Today, the Soho Grand Hotel occupies the site.