Here's a video tour of the interior.
These four row houses, built in 1832, are the headquarters of the Henry Street Settlement, a pioneering social service agency founded in 1893 by Lillian Wald.
It's Dave's pawn shop, from Flight of the Conchords!
Built in 1801, this church on Mott Street has served congregations of different denominations and ethnicities as the neighborhood has evolved over the years. It's been a Roman Catholic church since 1853, and its congregation is now largely Chinese. True to its welcoming, multicultural heritage, it was open to the public today for rest and contemplation, and it was a perfect spot to pause for a few quiet minutes as the day drew to a close.
Even in space, a New Yorker can't escape the pigeons.
I saw two more of these mysterious trailers today! One even predated Verizon — it had the old NYNEX logo emblazoned on it.
One of a few empty food containers enjoying a second life as ornaments on this discarded tree
The founder of the All People's Garden and its current caretaker, respectively. Obie hails from Macon, Georgia, and was pleased to meet another transplanted Southerner. He spent most of his life in Brooklyn, but moved to the East Village about five years ago, and has been helping with the garden ever since.
People were out in force enjoying the warm weather, playing everything from basketball to handball to dodgeball to bocce.
I had never heard of an armillary until I stumbled into Churchill Square. (Did you know Winston Churchill was the son of a New Yorker?) Thanks to the recent onset of daylight saving time, the sundial was spot on.
There are about 10,000 bodies interred beneath this playground, which was built on top of St. John's Burying Ground. The one remaining trace of the cemetery is the monument above, which was originally placed at the graves of Eugene Underhill and Frederick Ward, two young firefighters who died in 1834 when a building collapsed on them. This monument has since been moved to an out-of-the-way corner of the playground, where it went unnoticed today by a nearby group of twentysomethings wearing aviator sunglasses and playing bocce in between swigs from their brown-bagged beer cans.
A plaque on the wall proclaims that this structure, built in 1833, is the oldest Catholic church building in Manhattan. That's partially true. As we learned yesterday, the Church of the Transfiguration was built in 1801, making it older, but it did not become a Catholic church until 1853, 20 years after St. Joseph's was built. Additionally, St. Peter's was the first Catholic church built in Manhattan, but the original structure was replaced with a new church in 1838.
So, to be precise, St. Joseph's is Manhattan's oldest surviving Catholic church building that was built as a Catholic church.
UPDATE: I should also mention that St. Patrick's Old Cathedral was completed in 1815, well before St. Joseph's. Perhaps it is excluded from the rankings because of the damage it sustained in an 1866 fire (although the extent of the destruction varies greatly from one account to another; a recent piece in the NY Times simply says the building needed to be restored, but an 1884 Times article reports that it had to be rebuilt).
It's Matthew Silver, the filmmaker, performer, and self-described "professional idiot of the avant garde". Is he brilliant? Is he just a weirdo? I think Jeremiah of Vanishing New York said it best, describing his state of mind after an encounter with Mr. Silver:
"What a relief. What a relief from the dull barrage of cell-phone shouters and text-walkers, from the NYU 'woo-hoo' brigade, from the frat-boys and bachelorettes, from the slack-jawed super models and the pink-shirted princes of the Doucheoisie."
Matt is one of a kind. He's totally genuine and totally believes in what he's doing, and his verve and silliness are a vital counterattack against the forces of homogenization in this city. We walked a block together (ran, actually); it was a good block.
You should really check out his seven-minute film "Heartpocalypse". If nothing else, just watch the last minute or so.
Fittingly, this mural is located just down the block from a Catholic Worker house. This Catholic Worker house, to be precise.
Transforming a construction trailer into a rotating gallery
Built in 1849, this is the oldest surviving synagogue building in New York.
Stonework from the facade of NYU's original University Building, whose construction prompted the Stonecutters' Riot of 1834
This building was called the city's longest-running restoration project by the NY Times. And that was in 1989!
