Manhattan, New York

New York City's Pre-Civil-War Catholic Parishes Still Open on Sunday

Seven Manhattan Catholic parishes whose building stones predate 1860 still offer weekly Mass in the Archdiocese of New York.

March 14, 2026 4 minute read Churches List editorial desk

Illustration of a pre-Civil War Catholic church in Manhattan with Greek Revival columns, rendered in stipple ink with sepia wash.

Seven Roman Catholic parishes in Manhattan whose present buildings predate 1860 still offer Sunday Mass, from Saint Peter's (1840) on Barclay Street to Ascension (1897) on the Upper West Side.

Manhattan and the immediate New York boroughs hold at least seven Roman Catholic parishes whose buildings predate the Civil War and that still offer Sunday Mass. Churches List records them through OpenStreetMap building-stone dates, Wikipedia parish histories, and the Archdiocese of New York's own parish registry. The oldest in the group is Saint Peter's Church on Barclay Street, Manhattan's first Catholic parish, with a current 1840 building that stands four blocks from the World Trade Center site.

The parishes below are arranged by the year of the present building, not the founding year of the parish itself. Some parishes date their founding to the 1780s but rebuilt in stone during the 1840–1860 wave.

7Pre-1860 Catholic parishes still open in New York City

1785Founding year of the oldest (Saint Peter's, Barclay Street)

2,264Catholic parishes across New York State

Saint Peter's Church (1785 founding, 1840 building): Manhattan's first parish

Saint Peter's Church at 22 Barclay Street is the oldest Catholic parish in Manhattan. The parish was founded in 1785, two years after the Treaty of Paris formally ended British anti-Catholic laws in New York. The present building, its third, was finished in 1840 to a Greek Revival plan by architect John Haggerty. Saint Peter's held the first Roman Catholic Mass ever celebrated in New York City, and its 1840 facade with six Ionic columns remains intact. Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, later canonized, worshipped there during her 1889 arrival in New York.

Most Holy Redeemer (1852): the German cathedral of the Lower East Side

Most Holy Redeemer Church at 161 East Third Street was finished in 1852 and served as the principal German-language Catholic parish of the Lower East Side. Contemporary accounts called it "the German cathedral of the Lower East Side." The Redemptorist order staffed the parish from its opening and continues to do so. The 250-foot spire was the tallest in lower Manhattan at completion.

Immaculate Conception Church (1858): the Italian-parish predecessor on East Fourteenth Street

Immaculate Conception Church at 414 East 14th Street, built 1858, began as a Grace Episcopal daughter church before becoming Roman Catholic in 1894 when the Italian parish of Our Lady of Victory merged into the structure. The building is one of the earliest Gothic Revival churches in Manhattan still standing on its original foundation. Sunday Mass continues in English and Italian.

Holy Cross (1870): Hell's Kitchen and the original West Side Irish parish

Holy Cross Church at 329 West 42nd Street was completed in 1870 to serve the Irish working-class neighbourhood then known as Hell's Kitchen. The parish served the theatrical district from the 1900s forward and became the informal "Broadway parish"; actor and director George M. Cohan attended regularly through the 1920s. The building sits one block north of the Port Authority Bus Terminal and three blocks from Times Square.

Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard (1875): the Chelsea Irish-Mexican hybrid

Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard Church at 328 West 14th Street began as St. Bernard's in 1875, serving Chelsea's Irish stockyard workforce. In 2003 the Archdiocese of New York merged it with a neighbouring Hispanic parish and renamed the combined parish Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard, preserving the 1875 building but repositioning it as the archdiocese's principal Spanish-language parish in lower Manhattan.

St. Catherine of Genoa (1890): the tail of the pre-1900 cohort

St. Catherine of Genoa Church at 506 West 153rd Street served the Italian immigrant population of West Harlem and Washington Heights. The 1890 building is the latest of the cohort still visibly pre-1900 in its external stone. St. Catherine's remains an active parish of the Archdiocese of New York.

Ascension Catholic Church (1897): the close of the century

Ascension Catholic Church at 221 West 107th Street was completed in 1897 and serves the Upper West Side north of Cathedral Parkway. The parish remains active, with Sunday Mass in English and Spanish. Ascension is typically grouped with the pre-1900 cohort rather than the twentieth-century neo-Gothic wave that produced churches like Saint Francis de Sales on East 96th Street (1903) or Holy Names of Jesus (1900).

Seven Catholic parishes, all active, all serving Sunday Mass, all with building stones older than Lincoln's first inaugural. They span Manhattan from Battery Park at Saint Peter's to West 153rd Street at Saint Catherine of Genoa, and they outlived the neighbourhoods they were built to serve.

A half-day route across the pre-Civil-War parishes

A visitor beginning at the bottom of Manhattan can reach all seven buildings in a single Saturday using the subway. Begin at Saint Peter's (1/2/3 at Park Place), walk to the 14th Street F train for Most Holy Redeemer, ride the F two stops to Third Avenue for Immaculate Conception, walk to Union Square, take the A train uptown to 42nd Street for Holy Cross, walk to Chelsea for Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard, then take the 1/2/3 up to Harlem for St. Catherine of Genoa and Ascension. The route covers 12 miles and roughly five hours.