The Renaissance Revival style former church was built in 1847 by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Matthew which first rented it to St. Mark's and subsequently sold it to them in 1857.[2][dead link][3] By the end of the nineteenth century the congregation was in decline as congregants were moving elsewhere. Much of the church membership was killed in the 1904 General Slocum disaster, most of the victims being women and children, and the congregation never recovered.[4]
General Slocum disaster
In 1904, The Ladies' Aid Society (Frauenhilfsverein) chartered the General Slocum steamboat for their summer outing on the East River. The boat caught fire and over 1000 parishioners perished in one of the worst disasters in the city's history. Thereafter Germans began moving uptown from the Lower East Side, primarily to Yorkville and abandoned the church. The parish of St. Mark's merged with the Zion Church in Yorkville in 1946 to become Zion St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church.[5]
Synagogue
Sixth Street Community Synagogue Max D. Raiskin Center
In 1940, the church was converted to the Sixth Street Community Synagogue, located in the Max D. Raiskin Center, a Modern OrthodoxJewish congregation.[4][6]
Evicted from premies in 2013, located at 3 West Sixteenth Street, the congregation known as the Young Israel of Fifth Avenue,[7] subsequently merged into the Sixth Street congregation.
