A gift of 1,000 silver pieces from King Charles III of Spain through the prominent figures of the Spanish Diego de Gardoqui and D. Francisco de Murillo i Martinez, Count of El Ojuelo, topped off donations to start the construction of the church.

An example of Greek revival architecture. Classically monumental, with simple, smooth masonry walls, grand portico and six ionic columns, presents a temple-form building.The Renaissance-style stained-glass windows are of brilliant, flowing color in medallions and figures, against a background of gold and white. The left window group is devoted to four subjects connected with the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ - the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, and the Holy Family. The windows on the right are concerned with the closing scenes of Our Lord's ministry on earth - the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension. This view of the sanctuary displays the following statues (left to right) of Christ, St. Patrick, St. Therese of Liseux and St. Anthony.The pews have been restored to their original wood and refinished, originally installed in 1840 and made from trees that grew along the Hudson River.

This Greek Revival granite church is the oldest Roman Catholic church in New York. Inside one can find the painting "The Crucifixion" by Jose Vallejo.

placed over the main altar. Above the painting of the Crucifixion is another inscription which translates: "When I am lifted up, I will draw everyone to myself." (John 12:32)

An image taken from a 1914 publication entitled "The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X, Volume 3." The image can be found on page 360.

St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church

The Jay–Gardoqui Treaty of 1786 was a proposed agreement between the United States and Spain that would have granted Spain exclusive navigation rights on the Mississippi River for 25 years in exchange for opening Spanish ports to American trade. Negotiated by John Jay and Diego de Gardoqui, the treaty promised commercial benefits but was strongly opposed by southern leaders, including James Madison and James Monroe, who viewed access to the Mississippi as vital for western settlers. The treaty was ultimately rejected by the Continental Congress, highlighting the weaknesses of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation and helping fuel support for a stronger Constitution.

Federal Hall National Memorial

Jay-Gardoqui Treaty

Spanish Ambassador Diego de Gardoqui was given the distinct honor of laying the church's cornerstone.

A Spanish politician and Spain's first envoy to the United States.

The Skyscraper Museum continues its "Mass Timber Semester" lecture series, which brings together key voices in the Mass Timber movement to reflect on its short history, current condition, and promising future, with an&nbsp;IN-PERSON program at Thornton Tomasetti's lower Manhattan office at 120 Broadway.How do we increase and optimize the uses of Mass Timber in the building industry? One approach is taller buildings, another is many, many mid-rise structures. Optimizing the amount of wood incorporated in new buildings – while following the best practices of managed forestry and whole-life-cycle analysis – reduces the impact of the high “carbon cost” of the embodied carbon in the energy-intensive standard building materials, steel and concrete, in new construction.Yet concrete and steel have their own virtues in high-rise construction. A panel of experts will cap our lecture series The Short History and Promising Future of Tall Mass Timber Buildings with a discussion of Height &amp; Hybrids. Our speakers include structural engineers and Mass Timber specialists&nbsp;Benton Johnson&nbsp;of SOM,&nbsp;Alejandro Fernandez&nbsp;of Thornton Tomasetti​, and&nbsp;Eric Karsh&nbsp;of EQUILIBRIUM who will be engaged in discussion with&nbsp;Daniel Safarik, Director of Research at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ​and co-author of the recent CTBUH Technical Guides​ on Tall Timber. Join us for a review of a decade of research on timber towers and a discussion of promising new directions and territories.

Thornton Tomasetti's Office

Tall Timber: Height & Hybrids

Daniel Safarik&nbsp;is Director, Research and Thought Leadership at CTBUH, and has co-authored numerous of the Council’s Technical Guides, including "Tall Timber: Mass Timber for High-Rise Buildings" and the forthcoming "The Future Potential of Steel-Timber Hybrid Buildings." He has served as CTBUH’s Editor-in-Chief from 2013 to the present, and as the Director of the China Office of CTBUH at Tongji University, Shanghai, from 2015 to 2017, spearheading the Council’s efforts to expand influence and membership in China.

FAIA is a Brooklyn-based architect and Associate Professor of Architecture at the Parsons School of Design. He leads an eponymous firm responsible for a wide variety of projects. Bernheimer Architecture was named by&nbsp;The Architect’s Newspaper&nbsp;as Best of Practice 2024, medium-sized firm/Northeast. It is also currently the only private architectural firm in the United States with unionized labor.

Alejandro Fernandez&nbsp;is a Senior Associate in Thornton Tomasetti’s Chicago office. As a part of the Building Structure practice at Thornton Tomasetti, he has contributed to Ascent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, currently the world's tallest Mass Timber building.&nbsp;He specializes in the use of mass timber as a construction material and continues to explore his findings on several notable timber projects in the United States.

Joan Gonchar is deputy editor at Architectural Record. She joined RECORD in 2006, after working for eight years at its sister publication, Engineering News-Record. Before starting her career as a journalist, Joann worked for several architecture firms and spent three years in Kobe, Japan, with the firm Team Zoo, Atelier Iruka. She earned a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. She is licensed to practice architecture in New York State.

Michael Green is an award-winning architect and a leader in wood and bio-based construction. He is an advocate internationally for innovation in the built environment, having completed some of the most significant timber buildings in the world, and is the co-author of "The Case for Tall Wood Buildings" and Tall Wood Buildings: Design, Construction, and Performance. A Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, he founded Vancouver-based architecture and design firm MGA in 2012, which has now expanded to the US and Europe, and has been recognized with over fifty international awards for design excellence.

Benton Johnson&nbsp;is a Structural Engineering Principal in SOM's Chicago office, where he leads the firm's timber tower research project, a multiyear initiative involving full-scale structural, fire, and acoustic testing of mass-timber systems. His work has advanced hybrid mass-timber systems such as timber-concrete composite floors through testing, published design guides, and built work.&nbsp;His innovative approach to structural engineering results in efficient and sustainable designs that are applicable to a wide range of building typologies from supertall buildings to single family residences. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer in multiple states and a LEED Green Associate.

Susan Jones, founder of the small, Seattle-based all woman-owned firm,&nbsp;atelierjones, leads a practice devoted to the idea that innovative lower-carbon construction technologies, applied at scale, can mitigate the carbon footprint of the building industry. In 2018, she published&nbsp;Mass Timber | Design and Research. She has been a visiting design critic at numerous universities and is Affiliate Assoc. Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington. Jones was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2010.

Eric Karsh&nbsp;founded Equilibrium Consulting in Vancouver, British Columbia&nbsp;in&nbsp;1998.&nbsp;An early&nbsp;leader in Mass Timber engineering and construction and sustainability-focused design,&nbsp;Karsh&nbsp;co-authored&nbsp;The Case for Tall Wood Buildings&nbsp;(2012, 2017)&nbsp;with architect Michael Green, which spurred global discussions on the topic of timber high-rise construction of 20 to 30 stories in seismic zones. Karsh is a part owner of BC Passive House, a prefabricator of wood-based, high energy efficiency building systems.

David Lewis&nbsp;is principal of LTL Architects, founded in 1997 with twin brother Paul Lewis and Marc Tsurumaki. He is co-author of the only book on the architectural section,&nbsp;Manual of Section. He holds academic positions as Professor at Parsons School of Design and Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the University of Limerick, Ireland. He also served as Conference Chair of "<a href="https://sce.parsons.edu/timber-in-the-city-template/">Timber in the City 3: Opportunities for Architecture and Urbanism Conference</a>" at Parsons School of Design.

Tanya Luthi, the Director of Engineering at Timberlab,&nbsp;manages&nbsp;mass timber structural engineering strategy, analysis, as well as industry research and development.

Alan Organschi&nbsp;is a principal and partner at GOA, an architectural practice in New Haven, Connecticut. He continues as a senior member of the faculty at the Yale School of Architecture and directs the Yale Building Lab. He has written and lectured extensively on the carbon storage benefits of biogenic material substitution and circular economic strategies in urban building. He is a co-author of the recently published book&nbsp;Carbon: A Field Manual For Building Designers&nbsp;and the scientific paper “Buildings as a Global Carbon Sink."

Thomas Robinson&nbsp;is the Founder and Principal of LEVER Architecture. Prior to establishing the firm, Thomas led cultural and institutional projects for Allied Works and Herzog &amp; de Meuron. He received an MArch from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Michelle Roelofs&nbsp;is an Associate Principal and Structural Engineer in Arup’s New York office. Her expertise in mass timber dates back a decade to the early days of Mass Timber construction on the team for 475 W 18th St., one of winners the 2014 the US Tall Wood Competition, which is featured in our current exhibition

Christopher Sharples&nbsp;is a founding principal of SHoP, an architecture firm in Lower Manhattan, New York City, with projects located on five continents.&nbsp;Currently, Chris’s concentration is on revolutionary models of building that embrace next-generation environmental and materials systems such as bio-based material systems, as well as process-driven innovation utilizing offsite manufacturing to achieve more efficient and environmentally responsive building delivery.

Kristin Slavin&nbsp;is an architect with more than a decade of experience in Mass Timber. She is currently Director of Product for Intelligent City, a company devoted to innovative and sustainable urban housing solutions.

Jeff Spiritos&nbsp;is the principal of Spiritos Properties, a commercial and residential developer that for the past nine years has turned to build only with mass timber. Spiritos has multiple ongoing mass timber principal development, consultancy, and advocacy projects underway in the Northeast US.

Andrew Waugh&nbsp;is a founding director of Waugh Thistleton Architects, a London based architectural practice that is a world leader in engineered timber and a pioneer in the field of tall timber buildings. In 2010, Waugh was awarded the Presidentʼs Medal of the Royal Institute for British Architects (RIBA) for his research into high-rise buildings in timber. The firm has won many subsequent awards, including the 2024 RIBA London Award for The Black &amp; White Building.

Lindsey Wikstrom is the Founding Partner of Mattaforma, a New York-based design practice that draws on a parallel project of material and environmental research. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and has taught and lectured at numerous universities. Wikstrom holds an M.Arch from GSAPP, where she was awarded the Charles McKim Prize, Visualization Award, and Avery 6 Award. She is the organizer and moderator of Material Worlds, a speaker series hosted by MoMA's Emilio Ambasz Institute.

This event is free. Upon registering, you will receive instructions for check-in. Priority RSVP is given to Museum Members and Corporate Members. If you have questions, please call the Museum's office at (212) 945-6324.

Registration is Required

Courtesy Family Cano Gardoqui.&nbsp;

Exact location unknown. Southern end of Broadway in Manhattan, near Bowling Green and Wall Street.

Diego de Gardoqui

Related Sites