St. Mary Church

The Church of St. Mary is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 438-440 Grand Street between Pitt and Attorney Streets in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Established in 1826 to serve Irish immigrants living in the neighborhood, it is the third oldest Catholic parish in New York. The church itself was built in 1832-33, and was then enlarged and had its facade replaced in 1871 by the prolific church architect Patrick Charles Keely. The original portion is the second oldest Roman Catholic structure in the city, after St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, which was built in 1815.
Before their sanctuary was built, services were held in a former Presbyterian church on Sheriff Street. In 1831, anti-Catholic nativists set fire to the church, but it was not completely destroyed and continued to operate. The first New York chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians was established in 1836 at nearby St. James Church partly in response.

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