The Bowery Mission was founded in 1879 by the ReverendAlbert Gleason Ruliffson and his wife. It was the third rescue mission established in the United States, and the second in New York City. The Mission is currently administered by The Christian Herald Association. In 1895 the Mission was bought by Dr. Louis Klopsch, owner of The Christian Herald, to save it from economic distress; he also bought the building it was in, which up to that time had been leased. Klopsch became the president, and the Mission was formally incorporated in 1897. One prominent board member was Sarah J. Bird, a philanthropist who was known as "the Mother of the Bowery Mission" due to her long-time service to the organization from 1881 to 1914. Supervision of the Mission went to John Greener Hallimond, originally from England, who introduced many innovative services, such as a home for women in Brooklyn, an employment agency and a breadline, which began in 1902. With money left over from a food drive, Klopsch created a "Fresh Air Home" in Nyack, New York to get inner-city children into the countryside during the summer. In 2018, the Bowery Mission merged with the New York City Rescue Mission. The two organizations "provided more than 653,500 meals, 167,300 nights of shelter, distributed 46,380 articles of clothing, and offered 1,300 on-site medical, dental and optometry exams during 2017". The two missions received over 90,000 pounds of food a year from Rescuing Leftover Cuisine.
Locations
The mission began in a small room at 14 Bowery, where it offered prayer services, and moved to 36 Bowery in 1880. In 1887 it moved to 105 Bowery until that building was destroyed by fire in 1898, at which time they moved to 55 Bowery. When that building was scheduled to be demolished to make way for the approaches to the Manhattan Bridge, the mission moved to its current location at 227 Bowery. Today, the Mission also owns the building next door at 229 Bowery. In addition to the 227 Bowery location, Christian Herald Association, the parent organization, operates The Bowery Mission Transitional Center at 45-51 Avenue D in Manhattan's "Alphabet City", which provides services to working homeless men, in partnership with the New York City Department of Homeless Services. Commonly known as BMTC, or "Avenue D", it has been in operation for over 20 years and is regularly rated in the top 5% of the city's shelters, based on positive outcomes for the men serviced there. The Mission's building at 227 Bowery was designated a New York City landmark on June 26, 2012. It was built in 1876 for James Stolts, an undertaker and manufacturer of coffins, and was designed by William Jose in the neo-Grec style. It was altered in 1908-09 for the Mission's use by Marshall L. and Henry G. Emery, who added the stained-glass windows on the second floor and remodeled the interior of that floor into a chapel in the Gothic Revival style.
