The Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as Nuestra Señora de la Guadalupe is a Roman Catholic parish church under the authority of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York covers New York, Bronx, and Richmond counties in New York City , as well as Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester counties in New York state. There are 480 parishes...

, located at 229 West 14th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Union Square / Chelsea

Chelsea, Manhattan

Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, 30th Street to the north, the western boundary of the Ladies' Mile Historic District – which lies between the Avenue of the Americas and...

, section of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

The parish was established in 1902 by the Augustinians of the Assumption

Assumptionists

The Augustinians of the Assumption constitute a congregation of Catholic religious , founded in Nîmes, southern France, by Fr. Emmanuel d'Alzon in 1845, initially approved by Rome in 1857 and definitively approved in 1864 . The current Rule of Life of the congregation draws its inspiration from...

 as the first Spanish-speaking Catholic parish in New York City, serving working-class Spanish immigrants. At the time, that area of 14th street was considered “Little Spain.” The parish was closed in 2003 when it merged with St. Bernard's to create the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe & St. Bernard.

Building

The present (and now closed) church building is a former mid-nineteenth-century brownstone rowhouse. The conversion to a church at or near the founding of the parish created double-height sanctuary. The church also includes a "side chapel, tiny balcony, and clerestory." The monumental facade completed in the Spanish Baroque style or "classically proportioned Spanish Revival façade" was built 1921 to the designs of Gustave Steinback. The "transformation which makes Guadalupe extremely rare, if not unique, in the city spanned two decades and involved several notable architects...." The AIA Guide to NYC (Fifth Edition, 2010) called it "an extraordinary brownstone conversion.... Its Iberian ancestry is expressed both in the language of its services and in its Spanish Colonial facade."

The church remained popular with the various Hispanic communities of New York, serving Spaniards, Spanish-Americans, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. The expansion of the Mexican population, however, overwhelmed the small church necessitating the congregation's removal to nearby St. Bernard's.