1967Manhattan / New York CityInstitutional / Residential

Seamen's Church Institute — 15 State Street headquarters

Joseph helped build a seafarers' residence that lasted less than two decades; its 1985 sale and demolition then became entangled with New York's new protections for SRO residents.

New York City. Photographed in 1980.

1980 · Photo: Gerd Eichmann · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

01The story

Why this project matters

Project identity: Verified
Kelly connection: Family source
Masonry scope: Strong

Rita’s list

Rita Bartscherer’s handwritten entry: Seamen's Church Institute — 1967

Transcription: Seamen's Church Institute — 1967

Recorded by Rita Bartscherer · Bartscherer family record

Entry

KM-055

Sheet

1 of two

As written

“Seamen's Church Institute — 1967”

SCI sold 15 State Street for $29 million in 1985. The demolition raised questions under the city's new SRO anti-harassment law and the deal helped create a housing trust.

Why it matters

The building's brief life links Joseph's construction work to two different forms of urban change: the waterfront economy that made it obsolete and a housing-policy fight over how it could be demolished.

02What Kelly did

What Kelly did here

Kelly connection

Family source

Scope confidence

Strong

Substantial exterior brick masonry at the 15 State Street headquarters, plus likely interior CMU/block service, hotel, stair/shaft and fire-separation walls. The public claim should focus on the documented brick exterior rather than generic restoration language: this was new construction in 1967–68, not an alteration.

This scope is recorded as strong, not documented. It is a disciplined reading of the building and the trade practice of the period, not a contract-level record of Kelly’s work.

03Who built it