The Church of St. Dumitru

50 West 89th Street

by Tom Miller

The 20-foot-wide house at 50 West 89th Street was designed by Thom & Wilson in 1892 for Patrick Farley.  One of a group of five designed in the Renaissance Revival style, it featured a dog-legged box stoop that rose to a handsome, columned portico.  A bowed oriel dominated the second floor, and the openings of the top floor sat within a temple-like frame of engaged columns and pilasters and a classic pediment filled with intricate carvings.

Farley sold 50 East 89th Street to Julius and Regina Metzler in August 1895.  The couple sold it three years later to Dr. Jacob Eugene McMichael, Jr.  Born in Ontario, Canada, in November 1851, McMichael married Johanna Olivia Hammerstrom in December 1879.

The few social events held in the house mostly revolved around charitable and medical groups.  On March 2, 1904, for instance, The New York Times reported on “the annual meeting of the Guild of the Hospital for Women…which was held last night at the residence of Dr. and Mrs. J. E. McMichael, 50 West Eighty-ninth Street.”

Dr. McMichael, “has installed steel shutters over every window and every skylight in his house.” 

The McMichaels’ address appeared in newsprint in 1908 for far different reasons.  On February 27, The Evening World reported, “So many robberies have occurred on the upper west side in the section of the city bounded by Seventy-second and Ninetieth streets and Central Park West and Riverside Drive that several residents are to-day converting their homes into veritable fortresses.”  The article noted that “Dr. Jacob E. McMichael, of No. 50 West Eighty-ninth street, and E. C. Kirby, of No. 37 West Eighty-ninth street, had both been robbed within a week.”   In response, said the New York Herald, Dr. McMichael, “has installed steel shutters over every window and every skylight in his house.”

Johanna Hammerstrom McMichael died on New Year’s Day, 1921, at the age of 75.  Dr. Jacob McMichael survived her by 11 years, dying on August 31, 1932. 

Seven years later, on July 24, 1939, The New York Times began an article saying, “The first church for Rumanian-Americans in New York, in a four-story brownstone building at 50 West Eighty-ninth Street, was consecrated yesterday as the Rumanian Orthodox Church of St. Dumitru.”  The article said the church was “named for the patron saint of Rumanian High Commissioner to the World’s Fair, Dumitru Gusti.” 

The ceremony began on the stoop, where the Very Rev. Policarp Morusca, Bishop for the Romanians in North and South America sprinkled the steps with holy water.  About 250 persons attended the service, during which the bishop called the dedication, “the modest beginning” and said the house would become “a center of religion and culture” for New York Romanians.

The New Pioneer, in 1945, explained, “Since it was out of the question to build a new church, a five-story building was bought for $14,000 at 50 West Eighty-ninth Street.”  (The figure would translate to about $307,000 in 2024.)  The McMichael’s former dining room was converted to a “beautiful chapel,” as described by The New Pioneer, with an altar and seating for about 200.  The basement was converted into a social hall with a kitchen that could serve up to 250 meals.

Plans for ongoing remodeling, according to Horia Ioan Babes of the Romanian legation in Washington, would reuse “much of the material used in the construction of the Rumanian buildings at the World’s Fair” when those structures were demolished.  The Times said, “The present structure will house a library and reading room as well as a church.”

The renovations were completed in 1945.  Along with the social hall and kitchen in the basement was a classroom, and on the third and fourth floors was the caretaker’s apartment.

The Church of St. Dumitru received illustrious guests in the spring of 1948.  On March 11, The Norwich Sun reported that the 26-year-old, recently exiled King Michael I of Romania and his mother, Queen Helen, had arrived in America aboard the Queen Elizabeth.  Three days later, the Albany, New York Times-Union reported that the two royals, “stood near an altar for an hour today as they joined other worshippers at services at the only Romanian Orthodox church in the city.  The former monarch and his party attended the regular service at St. Dumitru Romanian Orthodox Church at 50 West 89th street.”  

[reused] “much of the material used in the construction of the Rumanian buildings at the World’s Fair”

The article noted that during the service, “the rector, the Rev. Vasile Hategan, turned to the former King and said: ‘We do not doubt for a moment that you will once again be smiling among your own people in your own land.  In this moment of great travail, the whole country suffers with you.”  The Times-Union added, “Several members of the congregation sobbed audibly as the pastor made his remarks.”

A terrifying incident took place on the night of May 5, 1956.  Tony Tudorache, a.k.a. Tony Savas, a.k.a. Costachi Mihalachi, lived in a rented room across the street from the church.  The 60-year-old had immigrated from Romania 30 years earlier.  That night, as congregants gathered in front of the church for midnight Eastern Orthodox Easter services, he aimed a rifle and fired.  Tudorache killed one person, 66-year-old church warden Vasili Cucuia, and wounded five others.  Two days later, Tudorache surrendered.  Police described him as “a disgruntled man known in the neighborhood as being ‘against everything.’”  He could provide no motive for the shooting.

Christmas services at St. Dumitru were especially poignant in 1989.  Earlier that month, Romanians had revolted against the Communist regime.  The New York Times reported on December 26, “At a special memorial service at St. Dumitru’s, a Rumanian Orthodox Church, for the thousands of people believed killed in Rumania [sic] in the last few days, many people say they felt joyful at the overthrow of the long-entrenched regime of Nicholae Ceausescu, but sorrow for their countrymen who were slain in the nation’s streets.”

St. Dumitru Romanian Orthodox Church remains in the former McMichael house.  Outwardly, it is little changed since the first occupants walked in the door more than 130 years ago.

Tom Miller is a social historian and blogger at daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com

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