Fraunces Tavern was originally built in 1719, so if you ignore the massive changes to the building over the years, it’s the oldest extant building in Manhattan, constructed some 95 years after the Dutch arrived. In other words, we have nothing standing from the first quarter of our history. The next-oldest extant building in Manhattan is the Morris-Jumel Mansion uptown, and it was built in 1765. Note that there are older buildings elsewhere in the city – some of which will be discussed in this series – but they weren’t in the city in the eighteenth century. Only when “New York City” changed from Manhattan island to the island plus big chunks of adjacent land did the old buildings in the outlying areas become old buildings in NYC.
That brings us to the third-oldest building in Manhattan, St. Paul’s Chapel at Broadway and Fulton Street.
Note that it’s not a church. It was constructed as a chapel of Trinity Church, which is five blocks down Broadway, to reduce crowding at the church. During the Great Fire of 1776, the first building of Trinity Church was destroyed, and St. Paul’s filled in until the second Trinity was built. (We’re now on the third Trinity, if you’re counting.) St. Paul’s is therefore famous in certain circles as “George Washington’s church” from the brief period that the city was the nation’s capital. But that was in the future, post-1776.
Also in the future: the many small projects we’ve worked on at the chapel, the most interesting of which was assessing the capacity of the somewhat odd roof trusses.
If you wait long enough, everything becomes historic. The HABS photographs of St. Paul’s Chapel above are from 1937, and show a number of old buildings – most notably George Post’s St. Paul Building directly across Broadway – that were later demolished. Also, note the cars.
Like this? Then read the “Witnessing the Revolution” series by Cirrus Structural Engineering
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