St. Paul's Chapel
Where once was a wheat field now stands New York's only surviving pre-Revolutionary church, surrounded by towering office buildings and millions of bustling businessmen and women. The chapel was built in 1766 and miraculously spared in the great fire of 1776 (which destroyed the original Trinity Church). St. Paul's is an architectural treasure, a Georgian chapel reminiscent of London's St.-Martin's-in-the-Fields, and was said to have been the most beautiful church in the colonies when built. George Washington worshipped here when inaugurated in 1789, and plenty more forefathers can be found in the peaceful graveyard, now a popular lunching spot.
St. Paul's has gained recent notoriety as an emotional hub in the days and weeks following the nearby September 11th attacks. Volunteers and victims alike congregated at this resilient, humble chapel (just one block from the World Trade Center), where workers slept, ate, served food, and provided, for each other, great emotional and spiritual support. As with the larger Trinity Church, the iron fence here quickly became an impromptu memorial, decorated with tributes both personal and patriotic.
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