New York City’s First German Parish

Last updated on: June 28, 2009 at 9:08 am by Pat McNamara

New York City’s First German Parish 2009-06-28T09:08:00-06:00 Pat McNamara

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On this day in 1835, the cornerstone for St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Manhattan was laid. Founded in 1833, St. Nicholas was the first German Catholic Church in New York City. The following is taken from http://www.nycago.org/:

St. Nicholas German Catholic Church, known to parishioners as Die Deutsche Romisch-Katholische St. Nicholas Kirche, was founded in 1833 by the Rev. John Stephen Raffeiner. For seven years Father Raffeiner was actively engaged in establishing St. Nicholas parish, the oldest German church in the diocese of New York. Seeing a sizable German colony east of the Bowery, the energetic man rented a carpenter shop on Delancey Street, where services were temporarily conducted. He later leased a former meeting house of the Ana-Baptists at Delancey and Pitt Streets, where the first congregation of German Catholics was formally begun. The ever-increasing number of parishioners made it imperative to seek a permanent structure, for which purpose a number of lots were purchased on Second Street, between Avenue A and First Avenue, from John Jacob Astor. At a cost of some $10,000, a brick building was erected on this site and dedicated to St. Nicholas Bishop of Myra, on Easter Sunday,1836. St. Nicholas was a spiritual home of an American saint, John Nepomucene Neumann, who celebrated his first Mass in the church on June 26, 1836, and was canonized in 1977.The growing number of German immigrants necessitated a larger church, and in 1848 a Gothic Revival building was erected. A second German church, the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, run by the Redemptorist fathers on East Third Street, was built in 1844 and soon eclipsed St. Nicholas. By the mid-20th century, the demographics had changed on the Lower East Side, resulting in the discontinuance of church services and the parochial school. St. Nicholas Church was sold in 1960 and demolished.

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