The St. Augustine's Episcopal Church on 290 Henry Street, known as the All Saint's Free Church was built in 1824 for the city’s white aristocrats on the cusp of emancipation of slavery in New York State. It opened its doors in 1828 when slavery had been abolished in New York State and has been a site of continuous workship in the same location at 290 Henry Street since then. This church has two hidden small rooms -“slave galleries'' above the balcony on the sides of the organ, which have been restored to their original design. White churches prior to the abolishment of slavery in New York State in 1827 segregated African Americans either by making them sit at the back of the church or in the balcony or they were assigned to worship in small rear upper galleries, similar to the ones at St Augustine's Church. In these very small boxed slave galleries above the balcony that are led by very narrow stairs African Americans had to either sit or stand during the religious service (see photos below). Today, St Augustine's Episcopal Church has the largest African American congregation on the Lower East Side and the slave galleries are a physical reminder of the ways racialized spaces are contested zones. These “slave galleries'' not only tell the early story of segregation in NYC, but it has also contributed to a strong oral tradition as a place of continuous worship since it was built.
In the 1990s church leaders of St. Augustine were concerned that the African American population in the Lower East Side was shrinking due to gentrification and that there would not be a presence of them as many were moving uptown to Harlem and other boroughs. The rector, Reverend Dr. Errol A. Harvey in response to this situation formed a committee to preserve and interpret the slave galleries, assigning Reverend Deacon Edgar W. Hooper as the chair to make visible the presence of African American in LES since as early as the 1820s.
Reverend Deacon Edgar W. Hooper initiated the Slave Gallery Restoration Project in collaboration with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum to restore, document and interpret the history of the two slave galleries in the church as a testament of the struggle of African Americans and their connection to contemporary issues. This project brought together historians, preservationist in the community that represented a spectrum of races and ethnicities -- African American, Latinx, Jewish, and Asian community members as well as other religious groups to open a dialogue within the community about the meaning and use of the slave galleries and the history of segregation that continues today in different forms. He speaks about the presence of African Americans in NYC at the time the church was built: “Were it not for their presence, the infrastructure that allowed for this great wave of migration of 19th century could not have taken place, and this contribution is never spoken of, but somebody started that and that is a forgotten part of our history".
References
The St. Augustine’s Project, https://www.staugsproject.org/
Saranicro, N. (n.d) Inside the Slave Galleries of the historic St. Augustine’s Church in NYC’s Lower East Side, Untapped New York. https://untappedcities.com/2019/01/15/inside-the-slave-galleries-of-the-historic-st-augustines-church-in-nycs-lower-east-side/
NYT video. ( 2006). 'Slave Galleries at St. Augustine's. https://www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/thecity/1194817110737/slave-galleries-at-st-augustine-s.html