A two-year-old campaign to protect Church of St. Mary (440 Grand St.) as a New York City landmark is picking up momentum. In December, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted to add an application for designation to its public hearing calendar (a date has not yet been announced). On January 15, Community Board 3’s Landmarks Committee voted to support the application. The full board will likely affirm the committee’s recommendation at its meeting January 27.
St. Mary’s was built in 1833, making it one of the oldest Catholic churches in New York City. A local group, Lower East Side Preservation Initiative (LESPI), submitted the application. “Because the building owner reportedly is not opposed to landmarking, and there is strong community support,” LESPI wrote in a recent press release, “preservationists believe there is a good chance the LPC will vote to landmark St. Mary’s after the public hearing testimony. This will bring long-lasting protection to this highly significant Lower East Side church.”
Changes at St. Mary’s in recent years have caused concern in the community. Since the departure of Father Andrew O’Connor, St. Mary’s has not had a dedicated pastor. Father Thomas McNamara of Our Lady of Sorrows, another Catholic Church on Pitt Street, has been doing double duty. Also, the church office, located in St. Mary’s rectory building was shuttered.
City Council member Christopher Marte spoke at the beginning of CB3’s Landmarks Committee meeting the other night. He said the campaign to designate St. Mary’s was a grassroots effort initiated by parishioners at St. Mary’s and local residents. “They got to work and collected over a thousand signatures all across the Lower East Side,” he explained. Marte then got the team at Lower East Side Preservation Initiative involved. “To our surprise,” Marte added, they (the LPC) actually scheduled it, which is huge… It was really a huge victory for this community because it came from the ground up. It was the parishioners of the church who love the building.”
Marte told members of the committee that the Archdiocese of New York will not stand in the way of landmark designation. “The Archdiocese reached out to myself and I know they reached out to the LPC saying that they are in support of this landmarking,” said Marte, “which is huge because, as we know, all throughout the city the Archdiocese has been closing down churches, selling off property, and, for them really not to put up a fight against this preservation, really speaks to the work that LESPI” and the work CB3 Landmarks Committee Chair Sandra Strother did behind the scenes to ensure that the community board weighed in on the application.
Also speaking at the meeting was Charlie Schleck, co-chair of St. Mary’s Parish Council. He said, “There is a rumor that has been going around that the church is imminently closing. That is categorically false.” Acknowledging the closure of the parish office and the decision to share clergy at St. Mary’s and Our Lady of Sorrows, he explained, “we have had a consolidation in order to get our expenses in line…”
The “Statement of Significance” by LESPI included not only the church itself but the adjacent rectory building at 28 Attorney St., which was purchased by St. Mary’s in 1865. But the rectory was left out of the research brief prepared by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The reasons for that weren’t immediately clear.
Elaborating on the recent changes at St. Mary’s, Schleck said, “The Archdiocese is very much behind the Parish of St. Mary’s, but the rectory and (a parking lot on Grand Street), there’s just no use for it anymore” because the priests live in the rectory at Our Lady of Sorrows. While the rectory and parking lot could be sold in the future for financial reasons, he added, there’s no indication that a sale is imminent.
In his remarks, Schleck mentioned that St. Mary’s has been undergoing significant renovations, first undertaken by Father O’Connor before he was reassiged to parishes in Dutchess County. The renovations are about 80% complete.
In its brief, the Landmarks Preservation Commission highlighted both the Church of St. Mary’s architectural and historical significance. It was founded in 1826 to meet the needs of the growing Irish immigrant population in Lower Manhattan and today, “remains an important epicenter of Catholic life on the Lower East Side.” In the midst of native and anti-Catholic discrimination, the first church building on Sheriff Street was deliberately burned in 1831. The new church, in its current location on Grand Street, was completed in 1833, featuring a Greek Revival facade. Thirty years later, the church hired an architect, Patrick Charles Keely, to enclose the portico and update the facade in the Romanesque Revival style. Keely became a prolific designer of churches in New York and across the Northeastern U.S.
The LPC wrote, “The Church of Saint Mary embodies the history and diversity of immigration to New York City, particularly that of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was central to the earliest Catholics who came to New York from Ireland and continues to be an important community institution to more recent Catholic immigrants, including the many from Spanish-speaking communities who make up the congregation today.”
Part of the legacy of St. Mary’s is advocacy for and construction of affordable housing. Under the auspices of the Grand Street Guild, three residential towers were constructed in the 1970s. A fourth affordable building was constructed at the corner of Broome and Clinton streets in 2024 and a fifth just began construction a few weeks ago on a lot directly behind the church.
Lower East Side Preservation Initiative is urging anyone who supports landmark designation for Church of St. Mary to write the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Details about how to do that here. Meanwhile, the church is celebrating its bicentennial this year.
