Church of the Messiah (New York City)

The Former Church of the Messiah
"The Church of the Messiah, East 34th Street and Park Avenue" Published c.1870 by Public Buildings in New York City and Vicinity
General information
Architectural style	Gothic Revival
Town or city	New York, New York
Country	United States of America
Completed	1839
Demolished	1884
Technical details
Structural system	Limestone masonry
Design and construction
Client	The American Unitarian Association

The Church of the Messiah was a former Unitarian church located on 728-730 Broadway, near Waverly Place, Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York. The church was built 1839 and operated as such until 1865 when it was sold to department store-magnate A. T. Stewart and converted into a theater.^{[1] [2]}

The theatre operated under a series of names. It was first called A. T. Stewart’s Broadway Athenaeum, “remodeled in 1865 by J. H. Hackett. It operated under various managers as Daly's New Fifth-Avenue Theater, Fox’s Broadway Theater, The Globe, and finally as the New Theatre Comique when it was run by Harrigan & Hart….it burned down in 1884.”^[3] Recorded in 1876 by the New York Express: Located “opposite the New York Hotel, is a theatre.” ^[4] It was also briefly called New York Theatre.^[5]

Since the fire, several low rise buildings occupy the site (728-730 Broadway), which is located next to the NYU Health Centre.

Conversely, an 1833 church-converted-to-theater contemporary, the First Baptist Church of Washington, D.C., survived through its conversion into Fords’ Theatre, the eventual site of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Although variously used for offices or vacant afterward, it was restored and maintained as a theater museum because it is a "National Landmark".^[2]

References

1. ^ “Church of the Messiah,” Churches of Olde Manhattan, http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Manhattan/worship/messiah.html (accessed 1 April 2008).
2. ^ ^{a b} J. Russiello, A Sympathetic Planning Hierarchy for Redundant Churches: A Comparison of Continued Use and Reuse in Denmark, England and the United States of America (MSc Conservation of Historic Buildings, University of Bath, 2008), p.131.
3. ^ Nathan Silver, Lost New York (New York: Weathervane Books, 1967), p. 76.
4. ^ Robert A. M. Stern, Thomas Mellins, and David Fishman. New York 1880: Architecture and Urbanism in the Gilded Age. (New York: The Monacelli Press, 1999), p. 35.
5. ^ New Theatre Comique at the IBDB database, accessed April 25, 2010