{"id":"01KG8AMYHJS0MK0W0M07BQSCRF","cid":"bafkreiami73csh4v6jo2ahqzjvnqy2rkvlqxidk76xrlt4ycw2d2jnys5i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11797,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":11744,"text":"I.\r\n\r\nIn the lower old-fashioned part of the city, in a narrow street--almost\r\na lane--once filled with demure-looking dwellings, but now chiefly with\r\nimmense lofty warehouses of foreign importers; and not far from the\r\ncorner where the lane intersected with a very considerable but\r\ncontracted thoroughfare for merchants and their clerks, and their carmen\r\nand porters; stood at this period a rather singular and ancient edifice,\r\na relic of the more primitive time. The material was a grayish stone,\r\nrudely cut and masoned into walls of surprising thickness and strength;\r\nalong two of which walls--the side ones--were distributed as many rows\r\nof arched and stately windows. A capacious, square, and wholly\r\nunornamented tower rose in front to twice the height of the body of the\r\nchurch; three sides of this tower were pierced with small and narrow\r\napertures. Thus far, in its external aspect, the building--now more than\r\na century old,--sufficiently attested for what purpose it had originally\r\nbeen founded. In its rear, was a large and lofty plain brick structure,\r\nwith its front to the rearward street, but its back presented to the\r\nback of the church, leaving a small, flagged, and quadrangular vacancy\r\nbetween. At the sides of this quadrangle, three stories of homely brick\r\ncolonnades afforded covered communication between the ancient church,\r\nand its less elderly adjunct. A dismantled, rusted, and forlorn old\r\nrailing of iron fencing in a small courtyard in front of the rearward\r\nbuilding, seemed to hint, that the latter had usurped an unoccupied\r\nspace formerly sacred as the old church's burial inclosure. Such a fancy\r\nwould have been entirely true. Built when that part of the city was\r\ndevoted to private residences, and not to warehouses and offices as now,\r\nthe old Church of the Apostles had had its days of sanctification and\r\ngrace; but the tide of change and progress had rolled clean through its\r\nbroad-aisle and side-aisles, and swept by far the greater part of its\r\ncongregation two or three miles up town. Some stubborn and elderly old\r\nmerchants and accountants, lingered awhile among its dusty pews,\r\nlistening to the exhortations of a faithful old pastor, who, sticking to\r\nhis post in this flight of his congregation, still propped his\r\nhalf-palsied form in the worm-eaten pulpit, and occasionally\r\npounded--though now with less vigorous hand--the moth-eaten covering of\r\nits desk. But it came to pass, that this good old clergyman died; and\r\nwhen the gray-headed and bald-headed remaining merchants and accountants\r\nfollowed his coffin out of the broad-aisle to see it reverently\r\ninterred; then that was the last time that ever the old edifice\r\nwitnessed the departure of a regular worshiping assembly from its walls.\r\nThe venerable merchants and accountants held a meeting, at which it was\r\nfinally decided, that, hard and unwelcome as the necessity might be, yet\r\nit was now no use to disguise the fact, that the building could no\r\nlonger be efficiently devoted to its primitive purpose. It must be\r\ndivided into stores; cut into offices; and given for a roost to the\r\ngregarious lawyers. This intention was executed, even to the making\r\noffices high up in the tower; and so well did the thing succeed, that\r\nultimately the church-yard was invaded for a supplemental edifice,\r\nlikewise to be promiscuously rented to the legal crowd. But this new\r\nbuilding very much exceeded the body of the church in height. It was\r\nsome seven stories; a fearful pile of Titanic bricks, lifting its tiled\r\nroof almost to a level with the top of the sacred tower.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKVZ09030VMMG7Q94ZV50","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMYHJXHFVS04QTQ7CTGCX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.810Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:28.346Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}