Nightfall, St.
Thomas Church, Broadway, New York |
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Painter, architect, and writer George Harvey, who at age twenty-eight immigrated to the United States from England, traveled for two years in the American West before settling in Boston to work as a miniaturist. In 1834 he moved from there to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where his architectural activities included designing his own "picturesque"-style cottage and planning the renovation of Washington Irving's Sunnyside from a simple cottage to an outstanding example of domestic Gothic Revival. From the mid-1840s until his death, Harvey was to move back and forth between England and the United States, returning for a time to Boston, where he resumed miniature painting. When he lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, Harvey's fascination with the differences in light and atmosphere between his native and adopted countries led him to undertake a series of forty atmospheric watercolors of American scenery. For this project, he attempted to capture these distinctions artistically by depicting particular seasons of the year or, in the case of this twilight scene on Broadway, specific times of the day. On Sunday, October 12, 1823, a new Protestant Episcopal congregation was organized in a meeting room at 44 Broome Street. In December of that year, ten New Yorkers -including William Backhouse Astor, known as "New York's landlord"; Charles King, a future president of Columbia University and a son of Rufus King; and William Beach-Lawrence, an internationally known jurist -met to discuss plans to build a church above Canal Street in what was then considered the country. In July 1824 the cornerstone for the new building was laid at the intersection of Broadway and Houston Street. Construction moved quickly, and the new St. Thomas Church was consecrated in February 1826. In 1844 the building was remodeled, probably to accommodate a congregation that had grown rapidly as Manhattan's population spread northward. On March 2, 1851, the church burned, but a new sanctuary rose on the site just over a year later. Josiah R. Brady (c. 1760 -1832) was the architect of the first St. Thomas Church, described upon its completion as "the best specimen of Gothic in the city."1 Interestingly, Alexander Jackson Davis (1803 -1892), later a major proponent of the Gothic Revival in both public and vernacular architecture, had worked in Brady's office for a year during the period of St. Thomas' construction. An engraving of the church after a watercolor painting by Davis appeared in the New York Mirror on June 20, 1839.2 John B. Ryer's saddler's shop, seen in Harvey's painting on the corner opposite the church, was first recorded in New York City directories in 1837, listed at 612 Broadway. Ryer seems to have prospered in this undertaking, for he opened a second shop, and both businesses remained active at least until the 1860s. In July 1831 William Niblo, proprietor of Niblo's Garden, located one block south of this site at Broadway and Prince Street, announced the inauguration of an omnibus, the Lady Clinton, scheduled to run every evening from seven o'clock until ten o'clock between his popular entertainment emporium and the City Hotel on Broadway. The press described the vehicle as "by far the handsomest and most commodious Broadway coach yet produced."3 Filled with passengers, it is visible just beyond the porch of Ryer's establishment. Adding to the scene's veracity are numerous acutely observed vignettes, which convey the district's overall liveliness: the workers at the saddler's shop are preparing to close for the day; the lamplighter proceeds with his task of making the darkening streets safer for area residents; the wheelbarrow pusher rests for a moment, observing the activity around him; vehicles, horseback riders, and evening strollers crowd the street. By 1866, this once cosmopolitan quarter of the city had degenerated into an anchorage for cheap dance halls and "concert saloons," causing St. Thomas' worshippers to abandon their original site for a more reputable location uptown at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, where the present St. Thomas still stands.4
Notes: 1 Quoted in Richard Koke, American Landscape and Genre Paintings in the New-York Historical Society (New York: New-York Historical Society; Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982), p. 114. 2 The original watercolor is in the collection of the New-York Historical Society. 3 New York Evening Post, July 20, 1831; quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island (New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1922), vol. 4, p. 1704. 4 Terry Miller, Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way (New York: Crown Publishers, 1990), pp. 95 -96. |
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