Constructed from 1764 – 1766, the
Chapel’s design was based on London’s
famous St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church. The
church’s Georgian interior was designed by Pierre
L’Enfant, the French architect who also designed Washington, DC. Fourteen cut-glass Waterford chandeliers
(brought from Ireland
in 1802) light the church and its
windows are hand-blown frosted glass. George Washington worshiped at Saint
Paul’s and attended a service here following his inauguration as President on
April 30, 1789. At the end of the
American Revolutionary War in December 1783, Washington and the American troops
would return to the City in a triumphal procession marching down Broadway past
St. Paul’s. The building is the oldest public building still in use in Manhattan and the borough’s only
pre-Revolutionary War church.
Behind the Chapel – facing Church
Street -- is a small graveyard. The entrance seen here was once the original entrance facing the Hudson River. The Broadway entrance now serves as the main one.
The chapel was dwarfed by the construction of
the World Trade Center’s gigantic twin towers (completed in
1977) which were across the street from the graveyard. Miraculously, Saint Paul’s Chapel stood standing as the twin
towers crumbled around it on September 11, 2001. Rescue workers found shelter and solace at
the Chapel during the terrible hours following 9/11 and Saint Paul’s has become a shrine for those
who wish to remember the victims of 9/11.
Remembrances and memorials, placed on a fence in front of the church,
are now part of a special exhibit inside the church. (September 11th was not the first
time Saint Paul’s had survived difficult times; a September fire in 1776
destroyed Trinity Church and other areas of downtown Manhattan, but Saint Paul,
saved by a bucket brigade, was not damaged.)
