St. John's Chapel (New York City)

St. John's Chapel
An engraving of the chapel in The New-York Mirror from 1829.
Location	Manhattan, New York City
Country	United States
Denomination	Episcopal
Architecture
Architect(s)	John McComb Jr. & Isaac McComb
Architectural type	Chapel
Style	Georgian
Completed	1807
Demolished	1918
Specifications
Height	214 feet (65 m)
Administration
Parish	Trinity Church

Coordinates: 40°43′16″N 74°00′22″W / 40.72111°N 74.00611°W / 40.72111; -74.00611

St. John's Chapel was a chapel in the Episcopal parish of Trinity Church (Manhattan).

It was constructed in 1803 to designs by John McComb Jr. and his brother Isaac McComb on Varick Street, facing St. John's Park. McComb gave it a sandstone tetrastyle prostyle portico supporting a tower and multi-storeyed spire that rose to 214¼ feet. Master builders for the chapel have been recorded as T. C. Taylor, Henry Hedley, Daniel Domanick and Isaac McComb. The chancel was added in 1857 to designs by Richard M. Upjohn.

The original location of this church was one of the most attractive in New York. It stood on the eastern side of St. John's Park whose tree-shaded walks were a favorite recreational spot for the well-to-do residents of the neighbourhood. In 1867 Trinity Church, which had retained ownership of the park, sold it to the Hudson River Railroad for a downtown freight terminal. This unfortunate occurrence changed the character of the residential section nearby; the warehouse's undesirable influences were felt for many blocks in every direction. What had been a neighborhood of patrician dwellings was reduced to a slovenly purlieu of ramshackle buildings.