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| Old St. Michael's Church and School - 1868 NW Corner Ninth Ave and 31st-32nd Streets (Public Domain) Image: http://library.gc.cuny.edu/34th_st/items/show/880 |
Location
of Work.—The area covered
by the work of the Terminal Station-West is bounded as follows: By the east
line of Ninth Avenue; by the south side of 31st Street to a point about 200 ft.
west of Ninth Avenue; by a line running parallel to Ninth Avenue and about 200
ft. therefrom, from the south side of 31st Street to the boundary line between
the 31st and 32d Street properties; by this line to the east line of Tenth
Avenue; by the east line of Tenth Avenue to the boundary line between the 32d
and 33d Street properties; by this line to the east line of Ninth Avenue. The
area is approximately 6.3 acres.
House-Wrecking.—The property between Ninth and Tenth
Avenues was covered with buildings, 94 in number, used as dwelling and
apartment houses and church properties, and it was necessary to remove these
before starting the construction. Most of the property was bought outright by
the Railroad Company, but in some cases condemnation proceedings had to be
instituted in order to acquire possession. In the case of the property of the
Church of St. Michael, fronting on Ninth Avenue, 31st and 32d Streets, the
Railroad Company agreed to purchase a plot of land on the south side of 34th
Street, west of Ninth Avenue, and to erect thereon a church, rectory, convent,
and school, to the satisfaction of the Church of St. Michael, to hand over
these buildings in a completed condition, and to pay the cost of moving from
the old to the new buildings, before the old properties would be turned over to
the Railroad Company.
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| (Old St. Michael's School - Top Left) |
The house-wrecking
was done by well-known companies under contract with the Railroad Company.
These companies took down the buildings and removed all the materials as far as
to the level of the adjacent sidewalks. The building materials became the
property of the contractors, who usually paid the Railroad Company for the
privilege of doing the house-wrecking. The work was done between April and
August, 1906, but the buildings of the Church of St. Michael were torn down
between June and August, 1907.
The bricks were
cleaned and sold directly from the site, as were practically all the fixtures
in the buildings. The stone fronts were broken up and left on the premises.
Some of the beams were sold on the premises, but most of them were sent to the
storage yards. Some of the lath and smaller timber was sold for firewood, but
most of it was given away or burned on the premises.
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St.
Michael's Church 424 W. 34th Street NYC
(School Building on 33rd Street) (Photo: Jeanette O'Keefe, |
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