Beyond the Grid: Grace Church

Grace Church, 1850 and present

At “The Greatest Grid” exhibit at The Museum of the City of New York the maps, surveying relics and journals prove that New York City is a very different city than it was 200 years ago. When the grid system began its massive construction in 1811, Union Square was a small outpost with a dirt road for horses and gallivanting dandies. “The Upper East Side” was farm land that was home to a crazed Edgar Allen Poe, who was bequeathing up a storm of legendary prose. It’s hard to picture what those neighborhoods may have looked like before Manhattan had formed the shape it holds now, but there is one monument which has been a marker of consistency since the 19^th century: Grace Church.

 The enormous church that stands on East Tenth Street and Broadway can be seen from all around the neighborhood, notable by its grand white spire that was, for a long time, the highest point in the area. Grace Church was initially constructed in 1808, placed on Broadway and Vector Street, and was intended to be a much smaller place of worship.  

The cornerstone of the current building was laid in 1843 by the architect James Renwick, Jr. who designed the national landmark when he was only 23 years old. He had not designed a single building before Grace Church. The construction of the church established the young man’s reputation however; by the time the church was opened, Renwick had been commissioned to build the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. The Episcopal church has been hosting services every year since it was consecrated in 1846.

Today Grace Church sticks out on Broadway like a beautiful sore thumb. Surrounded by a Halloween costume store, a diner and a Chase Bank, the church looks like it belongs in another time and in a different city. Its Gothic shape is winding and divided into many parts, using stone cut by prisoners of the state in the 1800’s. The church’s lawn is blocked off from public and, in the summertime, has some of the greenest grass in New York City, devoid of a single weed.

Grace Church is one of the only remaining landmarks that can be seen on the maps at “The Greatest Grid”, its inception trailing back to New York’s childhood. For passersby, it can be a reminder of a time before honking horns and Chase Banks, of a city where this church would not look out of place.