Meet 99th Street

St. Michael's Church, also sometimes known as the Union Church, is an Episcopal congregation that was established in 1807 on its current site. At the time, the neighborhood was referred to as "the Bloomingdale District" and was entirely rural. The present church is the third to be built on this same plot of land, but still has its original Tiffany stained glass.

Designed by Charles B. J. Snyder in 1898, PS 109 stopped functioning as a public school in the 1990s. A number of years later, it took a community-driven team to convince the city to take over the building and turn it into affordable housing. In 2015, the eighty-nine spaces became available to artists and their families to both live and work. On the main floor, there is a gallery for residents to showcase their art, as well as plenty of room for other cultural activities. El Barrio's Artspace represents a beautiful example of how the history of New York can be recycled and turned into something new.