EOS

Location of Hope Chapel, New York City

In the early 1850s, when Oakes Smith began to lecture in public, one sees frequent references in newspaper accounts and letters of Hope Chapel. Located at 718 Broadway, between Waverly Place and Washington Place, it was originally a Baptist Church, most recently used as an ecumenical meeting place. When I visited the address in 1995, I found the DiJazz clothing store at the base of a new high rise. The manager, who grew up in the neighborhood, remembers the memorials for John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King being held in the old chapel that once stood on the spot. It was torn down in the 1970s. The image below is from the Perris Map of the City of New York, 1854.