Located in the heart of the East Village, St. Mark’s Church has for more than 200 years been a vibrant center of spiritual, political, artistic and community activity. Since the 1920s, the St. Mark’s arts projects have been world-famous laboratories of innovation, providing a venue for such diverse figures as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Kahil Gibran, W.H. Auden, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sam Shepard, Allen Ginsberg, Meredith Monk and scores of others. Today the Church hosts the internationally known Danspace Project, Poetry Project, and Incubator Arts Project.

Physical Description

The historic campus of St. Mark’s Church is formally oriented to face true South (skewed from the City's grid), reflecting the original rural lane that once crossed in front of it and is still evidenced as Stuyvesant Street across from the church.  Entering the campus, visitors pass through the gates of the iron fence – one of the oldest in the city – that surrounds the whole site. Crossing into the yards on either side of the church – passing busts of Peter Stuyvesant in the East Yard and Daniel D. Tompkins (Governor of New York and Vice President under James Monroe) in the West Yard – one walks along undulating surfaces that sit carefully atop the cemetery vaults.

Within this landscape are placed three buildings: the south-facing Sanctuary, the Parish Hall behind it, and the Rectory to the west of the Parish Hall. The Rectory is now home to the adaptive re-use project, the Neighborhood Preservation Center.

The overall campus is a harmonized mix of architectural styles that perfectly suits this very active, living site.  Within its confines, visitors experience a truly rare thing – a strong sense of the history of New York and the United States embodied within a vibrant and thoroughly modern environment. 

Historical Significance of St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery

St. Mark’s Church stands on the oldest site of continuous worship in New York City and is the city’s second-oldest public building.  The site was part of a farm (or “bouwerie”) purchased in 1651 by Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of the New Netherland colony.  On the exact site of the present day church, Stuyvesant built his personal Dutch Reform Chapel and, in 1672, was buried in a vault beneath the church.

In 1793, Stuyvesant’s great grandson, Peter Stuyvesant II, asked Trinity Church to rebuild his family’s chapel on the site of his ancestors’ burial vault on the Bowery plantation. Alexander Hamilton, attorney for Trinity Parish, provided legal assistance in incorporating St. Mark’s as the first Episcopal Parish independent of Trinity Church in the New World. St. Mark’s Church was completed and consecrated on May 9, 1799.   

In the early 19th century, many of New York’s most prominent families attended St. Mark’s and many were buried there.  Today, along with that of Peter Stuyvesant are visible on vault markers such familiar names as Beekman, Fish and Tompkins.  Other notable New Yorkers buried on the site include two Mayors of New York City:  Gideon Lee, Vestryman and Treasurer of St. Mark's Church and Philip Hone, known as a chronicler of the city’s social life of his time. 

Architectural Significance 

Completed in 1799, the main structure of the church was built by the architect/mason John McComb, Jr. in the late Georgian style.  Throughout the church’s subsequent history, highly important architects were engaged for additions and alterations, including:

• The Firm of Ithiel Town & Martin E. Thompson – the steeple, constructed in 1828 is attributed to Town and Thompson, who were noted as the most prestigious architects of the Greek Revival style. Thompson is also credited with an interior renovation to the Sanctuary, circa 1836, replacing the original bulky square pillars that supported the balcony with the present slender Egyptian Revival columns by 1839 to “improve the view from the aisles.”
• James Bogardus – one of three architects/contractors who bid for the project, the 1850s cast-iron portico is attributed to Bogardus.  Bogardus’ prominent use of cast iron exteriors led to the use of steel frames in the construction of whole buildings.
• James Renwick, Jr. – Renwick, the famed architect of the “Castle” of the Smithsonian Institute and New York’s Grace Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, designed the brick addition to the Parish Hall in 1861. 
• Ernest Flagg – an important American architect famous for his fluency in the Beaux-Arts style, Flagg designed the Rectory in 1900. Flagg was the architect of the Singer Building. 

Continuing the tradition of engaging important local architects, St. Mark’s employed Harold Edelman to lead the post-fire restoration of the church following the 1978 fire.  Edelman is known primarily as the architect of the Two Bridges Urban Renewal District, a complex on the Lower East Side that mixed 1,500 units of affordable housing with commercial space.  

In 1968, in an effort to stay engaged with the neighboring community, the church decided to reclaim the open-air spaces on the St. Mark’s site for public use and began a summer youth-employment program to train local youth to take on the preservation effort. This was the start of the Preservation Youth Project (PYP). The team created two exterior courtyards by installing a cobblestone paving over the burial ground. The pleasing result is that today, visitors share in the beauty and architectural significance of St. Mark’s through use of this community space – the West Yard for quite reflection and the East Yard for more active uses.

St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a New York City Landmark. Click here for a copy of the 1966 NYC Landmark Designation Report for St. Mark's Church

The Church is also part of the St. Mark's Historic District, designated in 1969 and its boundaries extended in 1984. Click here for a copy of the 1969 historic district designation report and click here for a copy of the 1984 extension.