The Church of the Nativity & Landmarking the East Village!

Speaking of the firm Town, Davis & Dakin (which as you’ll recall from yesterday’s post built NYU’s original main building), we recently came across some great shots of the stately Greek Revival church that once stood at 46-48 Second Avenue. According to the Historic American Buildings Survey, the Second Avenue Presbyterian Church was built by the firm in 1831. Town, Davis & Dakin was one of the earliest American architectural partnerships and was responsible for introducing the wildly popular and widely copied Greek Revival distyle-in-antis style of church architecture (meaning, two columns between antae). This was the last church of this style built by the firm and was likely, before it’s demolition, the earliest extant example of the style.

The 1968 Church of the Nativity, designed by Genovese & Maddalene, stands on the site today.

This is all part of our ongoing research on the history of every single building in the East Village, which we’ll continue to spotlight on Off the Grid. We take requests, so make sure to let us know if there’s a specific building that interests you!

In other East Village news, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) announced this week that it will be considering two potential East Village Historic Districts collectively comprised of over 300 buildings. While we don’t have the details on the exact boundaries, we have been told by the LPC that the southern boundary of one of the districts is around 2nd Avenue & 2nd Street, quite near the Church of the Nativity site. More information will be released after a meeting with owners of property in the proposed district this coming Tuesday night, and there will be a public hearing and discussion on the proposals at a Community Board 3 hearing on May 12th, at which the LPC will be presenting their proposal.  GVSHP will provide more details as they become available.