St. Andrew’s Church was consecrated on Duane Street and Cardinal Hayes Place, formerly City Hall Place, in 1939, replacing an earlier church named Carroll Hall built in 1842. Just before the Civil War when the City Hall area became the center of the printing and newspaper business, the church received special dispensation to say a “printer’s Mass” at 2:30AM for the night shift of newspapermen and printers. It later became the first parish church to offer a noon mass for the growing number of businessmen in the area. The Latin phrase on the frieze, Beati qui ambulant in lege domini, means ‘Blessed are those who walk in the law of the Lord.’ (An appropriate inscription, given the many courts surrounding the church.) Information from Gerard Wolfe, New York: 15 Walking Tours.
Patrick Cardinal Hayes (November 20, 1867 – September 4, 1938) was from the Five Points area and attended this church as a youth. He was an American Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of New York from 1919 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1924. A boys’ high school in the south Bronx bears his name, and a bust of the Cardinal is further down on Cardinal Hayes Place.
City Hall Place, which runs from Duane Street to Pearl Street, was renamed for him.
Duane Street curves southeast here, as it followed a stream that issued from Collect Pond. The street was closed east of Centre Street a couple of decades ago.
According to Church ecclesiastical tradition, St. Andrew, the brother of Peter and one of the twelve Apostles, was crucified on an X-shaped cross, and he is depicted with one on the church exterior.
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