Chapel Center, Building 55 (site) (New Rochelle, New York)

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Building 55 was constructed about where the post’s cemetery was located until 1887, when the Army disinterred the remains of around 60 people and transferred them to Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn. Analysis of historic maps suggests that the cemetery was located immediately southeast of the building, so the rear walls of the building’s two dependencies would have just touched the cemetery’s northern and western edges.

Although the Army’s Quartermaster General had introduced standardized plans for wood barracks in the 1870s, little development of such plans for brick barracks had taken place at the time Buildings 55, 68, and 69 were authorized. Responsibility for planning for the three barracks and the mess hall between them thus fell to Capt. George H. Cook, the post’s quartermaster, and thus the designs were unique to Fort Slocum.

These buildings showed the strong influence of the Romanesque Revival movement, which was a popular style for public buildings during the 1870s to 1890s. The robust, blocky massing and decorative allusions to military fortification that was characteristic of the style made it particularly appealing for use on an Army post. Though in civilian construction, Romanesque Revival buildings characteristically made extensive use of large, quarry-faced stone blocks, the buildings in this style at Fort Slocum were almost
entirely of brick. In addition to Buildings 55, 68, and 69, Building 1 was another example of Romanesque Revival architecture at Fort Slocum.

Building 55 originally consisted of two wings (north and west) extending from a central octagonal tower in the northwestern corner. By 1894, the two wings had been expanded by the addition of short dependencies to the east and south, providing additional dormitory space and a bath and toilet room. In its earliest phase, the roofs of the main wings also each had a monitor along its ridge, apparently to ensure good (or perhaps drafty) ventilation. These seem to have been removed sometime prior to 1920.

The building’s function changed substantially beginning in the Second World War, when it started to be used for administrative purposes and other support activities. It later became the Chapel Center for All Faiths with the arrival of the U.S. Army Chaplain School at Fort Slocum in 1951 until the school left for Fort Hamilton, NY in 1962.

Fort Slocum Architectural Documentation Volume 3, Part 1 of 2: davidsisland.westchesterarchives.com/index.php?option=c...