The original St. George's was a chapel built in 1752 by Trinity Church on Chapel Street (now Beekman Street) in Lower Manhattan, for the convenience of its congregants who lived on the east side of the city. That building had a columned portico, arched windows and a hexagonal steeple. In 1811 the congregation became independent, and in 1846-1856 they built a new church uptown, on very fashionable Stuyvesant Square.
The architects of the new church were Charles Otto Blesch and Leopold Eidlitz. The exterior design, attributed to Blesch, was influenced by the Rundbogenstil (round-arch style) Ludwigskirche in Munich and the plain hall churches of Germany. Eidlitz designed the interior spaces. He also designed the rectory, also known as the Henry Hill Pierce House, which was built in the early 1850s. The spires on each tower of the church were completed almost a decade after the remainder of the building.
The church was gutted by fire in 1865, and was rebuilt within the next two years. In 1889, more than twenty years after the church had been rebuilt, the spires on the two towers were removed.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.