St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery stands on a foundation of Dutch colonial history that shapes the very way it sits on the land today. Because the church was built on the site of Peter Stuyvesant's original family chapel, it is oriented to face true south rather than aligning with the grid of city streets that developed around it years later. Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Director-General of New Netherland, purchased this land as a farm or bouwerie in the seventeenth century and lies in a vault beneath the building to this day. This location holds the record as the oldest site of continuous religious worship in New York City.