132 West 138th Street (between
Lenox & 7th Avenues)
The Abyssian Baptist Church was first founded in 1808, when visiting
Ethiopian merchants teamed up with black former members of the First
Baptist Church of New York City, who refused to accept segregated
seating in God’s house, and named their church in honor of the ancient
name for Ethiopia, Abyssia.
Founded on Anthony Street (later known as Worth Street), the
congregation grew dramatically during the administration of Rev.
William Spellman, and new churches were built on Waverly Place, and
then 40th Street, but by 1920, then minister Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., was
preaching about and promoting the need for a model church in
Harlem. A tithe program was set up in which 10% of each
parishioner’s income was given to a fund for the new church, and by
April 1922 the current Gothic and Tudor church was finished thanks to
95% of its 3,000 members being loyal to the tithe. When all debts
were paid off, Rev. Powell stated, “Not a ticket or a dish of ice cream
was sold to pay for the erection of Abyssian Baptist Church and
Community House. Every dollar of the money was brought in through
tithes and offerings, and God fulfilled His promise by pouring out a
blessing upon us that our souls were not able to contain.” As the
congregation grew to 7,000 throughout the 1920s, the church was able to
depend on tithes to open up a home for the elderly on St. Nicholas
Avenue and a mission to Africa. Throughout the 20th Century, the
church was committed to worldwide missions, such as the Suen Industrial
School in West Africa, as well as taking part in picketing and
boycotting demonstrations to eliminate racial discrimination in New
York City, and better healthcare and broader opportunities for black
people.
The current minister, Rev. Calvin O. Butts, has been committed to
cleaning up Central Harlem and other neighborhoods in the city by
campaigning to whitewash negative or offensive billboards, and against
vulgar and negative lyrics in music, particularly rap, and is committed
to ecumenicalism, such as when the church choir sang at the Vatican Art
Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Abyssian played an
important role in religious music during the Harlem Renaissance, and
remains at the center of the Harlem Gospel tradition. Jazz
musician Fats Waller’s father was once a minister at the church. Nat King Cole married his second
wife, Maria Hawkins Ellington here on Easter Sunday 1948, just six days
after his divorce from his first wife became final. The funeral
of “The Father of Blues”, W.C. Handy, was held here in March 1958.
St.
Andrew’s
Church
20 Cardinal Hayes Place (near Pearl
Street)
The sister church of the massive St. Jean Baptiste Church on
Seventy-sixth Street and Lexington Avenue, and serving “the
Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament”, an order founded by the French
St. Peter Julien Eymard, who state in their constitution that they wish
to “respond to the hungers of the human family with the riches of God’s
love manifested through the Eucharist”, the original structure, called
Carroll Hall, was built in 1842, but was replaced by what we see today
in 1939.
Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, when the City Hall area
became the center of the printing and newspaper industry, the church
received a special dispensation to say a mass at 2:30AM, a “Printer’s
Mass”, for printers and newsmen working the night shift. It later
became the first parish church to offer mass at noon, for the growing
number of businessmen in the area.
Now surrounded by Federal, State, County, and City courts, and in the
shadow of the Municipal Building, it can be recognized by its X-shaped
crosses carved on the front side (the shape of cross St. Andrew chose
to be crucified on because he didn’t feel worthy of being crucified in
the same manner as Jesus) and the Latin phrase on the frieze, “Beati
qui ambulant in lege domini”, that translates to, “Blessed are those
who walk in the Law of the Lord.”
St.
Anthony
of
Padua
Church
154 Sullivan Street (corner of West
Houston Street)
St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church was the first church built by and
for Italian immigrants, and only the second in the country (the first
being a parish in Philadelphia, made defunct in 2000).
Founded in
1859, its sole purpose was to cater to the spiritual needs of the
growing Italian immigrant population in New York City. While New
York’s Catholic cathedral was founded and run by the Irish, and named
for Patrick, their patron saint, the Italian community wanted to a
church that honored one of their own.
Led by Franciscan Friars,
the parish was originally located at the recently purchased Sullivan
Street Methodist Episcopal Church. The current Italian
Renaissance church, designed by Arthur Crooks, was built from 1886-1888
with three entrances surmounted by a statue of St. Anthony. In
the 1930s, Houston Street was greatly widened
to make room for the IND subway line, and tenements next store were
torn down, revealing the left wall, which is now used for an annual
nativity scene. If you walk south on Macdougal Street, you
will come across Father Fagan Park, named for 27-year-old Father
Richard Fagan, an associate pastor of the church who in 1938 escaped a
raging fire in the rectory, but returned twice to save two of his
fellow priests, and died five days later at nearby Columbus Hospital
due to complications. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini once taught in
the church’s religious education program.
The church is featured
prominently in The Godfather Part II,
when
members
of
the
Corleone
family
conspire
in
front
of
the
church
as well as during the Feast of
St. Rocco. St. Anthony’s can also be seen in Moonstruck with
Cher, Fatso with Dom Deluise, The
Pope of Greenwhich Village, Confessions
of
a
Shopaholic,
and when the bug goes on a rampage in Men
In
Black.
Church of the
Ascension
36–38 Fifth Avenue (corner of 10th
Street)
The Episcopal Church of the Ascension, designed by renowned Trinity
Church architect Richard Upjohn and consecrated in November 1841, was
the first church of many that would eventually be built on Fifth
Avenue, when the street was still just an unpaved trackway, terminating
at a board fence on 23rd Street, and the city’s population was still
centered much further south.
In the church’s early years, it
became an uncharacteristic center of concern and philanthropy for
social issues. The church played a vital role in
establishing the Five Points Day School, which helped to feed, clothe,
and educate the children of the Five Points District, one of the most
crime-ridden, poverty-stricken, area’s of the
city, and in 1888 the women of the parish set up the St. Agnes Nursery,
the first daytime nursery in New York City, providing shelter and
protection for the children of working mothers.
In 1889, the Rev.
E. Winchester Donald, who was friends with many of the artists who
lived in Greenwhich Village, and believed firmly in the idea that
beauty lifted the human spirit, was able, through a generous gift from
wealthy parishioners Julia and Serena Rhinelander, to hire John
LaFarge, Stanford White, Louis St. Gaudens, and David Maitland
Armstrong to turn the chancel into an extensively more decorative
space, surmounted by LaFarge’s mural, “The Ascension of Our
Lord”.
In November 1929, barely a week after the stock market
crashed, the pastor at the time, Rev. Donald B. Aldrich, proposed that
the front doors of the church be kept open at all hours of the day and
night, and Ascension became the first church in New York City to be
opened 24 hours a day. During the Depression, it was common to
see the homeless sleeping in its pews at night. The doors were
not locked again until October 1966, when heightened crime in the city
had made this an impossible rule to uphold.
In June 1844, then
U.S. President John Tyler secretly married Julia Gardiner here -- the
First Lady was thirty years his junior. The funeral of
globetrotting journalist Nellie Bly was held here in 1922. Such
prominent New Yorkers as August Belmont, William B. Astor, Frederick de
Peyster, and William C. Rhinelander were parishioners.
St. Bartholomew’s Church
St. Bartholomew’s Church
109 East 50th Street (east
side
of
Park
Ave.
between
50th
and
51st
St)
This Episcopal parish was founded in January 1835, in the Bowery on
Great Jones Street and Lafayette Place. With the growth of the
congregation, a larger structure designed by James Renwick was able to
be built on the southwest corner of Madison and 44th in 1872.
Much of Renwick’s original structure was then moved to its current
location in 1917. In the summer, tables
and umbrellas are placed outside, and, along with the neighboring
dining room, it becomes Café St. Bart’s. After the
original plan to build a giant spire atop the church was abandoned, a
much-debated-about Hispano-Moresque dome was built in its place, and
the church was completed in 1930.
St. Bart’s boasts one of the ten largest pipe organs in the world and
the largest in New York City, and its music ministry has been directed
by such noted conductors as Leopold Stokowski, David McK. Williams,
William Trafka and James Litton.
The church is home to the Center for Religious Inquiry (CRI), headed by
Rabbi Leonard A. Schoolman, an organization meant to provide a place
for people to study their own and other religious traditions in a
non-judgmental environment.
The church became a historic landmark in 1967, and in 1981 became the
center of a much publicized and long drawn out Supreme Court case
between the highly competitive city real-estate market and historical
preservation societies. When a real estate developer wanted to
build an office tower on the site of the adjacent community house, with
the promise of an endowment to the church and mission, the New York
Landmarks Preservation Commission refused, even though the parish
hierarchy wanted it. In the end, the preservation society won
over the parish, stemming the debate over whether or not religious
institutions should be declared historical landmarks.
St. Brigid's Church
St. Brigid’s Church
119 Avenue B (corner of 8th Street)
St. Brigid’s, also called Famine Church, was built
in 1850, as swarms
of Irish immigrants settled in the city during the Great Irish Famine,
and it’s name is a reminder that Alphabet City was long ago an Irish
neighborhood.
Through the years, as ethnic groups changed, the
church remained a safe-haven for Germans, Hispanics, and anyone else
that landed on its doorsteps, most notably in the 1970s and ‘80s, when
the neighborhood became notoriously dangerous due to its crime and drug
presence, and Tompkins Square across the street a virtual homeless
encampment.
The second pastor of this Famine-era Catholic church, with its
boat-shaped ceiling created by the dock-workers who built it, Reverend
Thomas Mooney, also served as pastor to the nearby 69th New York State
Militia, the first regiment of the Union’s “Irish Brigade”. Upon its
formation in 1851 it was called the 2nd Regiment of Irish Volunteers, a
citizen-militia made up of Irish-Catholic Diaspora from the famine. In
1860, Col. Michael Corcoran of the 69th refused to parade them past the
Prince of Wales to protest Britain’s response to the famine. Rev.
Thomas Mooney traveled with the 69th to Virginia and was beloved by the
men for his spirit and sagacious counsel. Father Mooney held daily
Masses and served as confessor for the largely Catholic regiment.
Capt. Maxwell O’Sullivan, formerly the choirmaster at the church,
headed the regiment’s choir. Mooney was lauded for his establishment of
a temperance society and for encouraging many wayward souls to return
to the Faith, but was recalled by New York Archbishop John "Dagger"
Hughes in response to his baptism of a 64 lb. Columbiad cannon.
Archbishop Hughes later suggested that, rather, Mooney was actually
recalled after climbing the flagstaff of Fort Corcoran. He was in the
process of straightening an American flag that became stuck during a
flag raising ceremony. Mooney's early return to New York was very
unpopular among the men of the regiment, but he was warmly welcomed on
his return to the city by 4,000 parishioners assembled in Tompkins
Square across the street. When the 69th returned to New York following
the Bull Run Campaign, Mooney marched at the head of the regiment. On
August 14th, 1861 a Requiem Mass was held for the men of the 69th New
York State Militia who had been killed in action. The St. Brigid's
choir sang Mozart's Requiem during the service. Rev. Mooney was
conspicuously present at all future Irish Brigade functions and was
much beloved by the men that survived to remember him.
The
churches large spires were removed in the 1960s, but it remained a
beloved parish and sight of social protest. During the Tompkins
Square riot of August 6, 1988, then Rev. Joseph Kuhn allowed protesters
and the homeless to assemble inside.
In the early 2000s, it
became the source of much debate. When the Archdiocese planned
to demolish the church and sell the property to NYU, claiming the old
structure was unsavable, many members of the now largely Puerto Rican
congregation protested.
The church remained in limbo for
years. It was finally saved by an anonymous ten million dollar donation
and is set to reopen soon. Unfortunately, though, not before the
wrecking ball destroyed some one-hundred-fifty-plus-year-old stained
glass windows, bearing names of church donors and victims of the Irish
Famine.
Central Synagogue
Central
Synagogue
652 Lexington Avenue (corner of
55th Street)
Constructed from 1870 – 1872, Central Synagogue is the oldest synagogue
in the city that is in continuous use.
The building was designed by Henry Fernbach, a German immigrant and the
first prominent Jewish architect in the United States, and built by two
congregations, Shaar Hashomayim, founded in 1839, and Ahawath Chesed,
founded in 1846, both German Reform Congregations, that met on Ludlow
Street in the Lower East Side. It was built in the Moorish
Revival style in homage to the Jewish presence in Moorish Spain, and is
largely a copy of Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary.
The dramatic and ornate style of the building was the subject of much
debate among the congregation, as some felt its excess would inspire
envy and hamper assimilation in the city. At its dedication in
1872, Rabbi Adolph Heubsch described the synagogue as a “house of
worship in evidence of the high degree of development only possible
under a condition of freedom.”
The building became a New York City Landmark in 1966, and a National
Historic Landmark in 1975. In August of 1998, a fire was
accidently ignited as workers were concluding a three-year renovation
of the building, completely destroying the choir loft and organ, and
virtually
destroying the sanctuary. The prayer books were also severely
damaged and were buried in the synagogue’s cemetery the following
week.
During that time the congregation relied on the generosity
of other New York City houses of worship and the National Guard Armory
on Sixty-sixth Street and Park Avenue to conduct services, and the
reconstruction of the building and reestablishment of the congregation
was strongly supported by Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Governor George Pataki,
Cardinals John O’Connor and Edward Egan, local clergy, and Jewish
community leaders.
The synagogue was also visited by the
President of Israel and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The
building was reconsecrated on September 9, 2001, with new intricate
stencil work and stained glass, using close to seventy colors, that is
reminiscent of the original decoration of the synagogue and of
synagogues common in Hungary. Although most of the interior is
now very different from the 1870 design, upsetting some traditionalist
Jews, the reformed congregation believes in responding to “contemporary
Jewish life and religious practice”.
Grace Church
802 Broadway (corner of 10th Street)
Grace Episcopal Church, commissioned in 1843 and finished in 1846, was
the first church designed by James Renwick, Jr., who won a contest and
was hired by his uncle Henry Broovert at age 23, and would go on to
prominence in 19th-century New York City by designing the new St.
Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Nicholas of Myra Church on 10th and A, the
Smithsonian Institute castle, and St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn.
Like Trinity Church downtown, recently rebuilt and consecrated in the
same year, Grace Church was built in the gothic revival style, with
stone workers provided by the Sing Sing State Prison. The east window
over the high alter was created by the English firm Clayton and Bell,
one of the most prominent 19th-century stained-glass manufacturers, and
dominates the whole church. It is a “Te Deum” window, showing
prophets, apostles, and martyrs looking up toward Christ in the top
center. Renwick also designed the reredos and alter, which
depicts the writers of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
gazing up at the risen Christ who is giving the great commission, “Go
into all the world and make disciples …”. The chancel was
lengthened and the choir furniture added in 1903. The designers
of the 1829 grid-system made an exception here, as 11th Street does not
pass through Broadway, and Broadway bends at 10th Street, so as to save
Henry Brevoort’s orchard garden which was originally on the
property. After it’s 1846 consecration, it remained at the center
of high society and fashionable New York for the next twenty-plus
years, with its location near the posh shopping district “Ladies’
Mile”.
In 1869, Matthew Hale Smith wrote, “For many years Grace
has been the center of fashionable New York. To be married or
buried within its walls has been ever considered the height of
felicity.” The churchyard used to be the Fleishman’s Vienna Model
Bakery, whose daily donations of unsold bread gave rise to the term
“breadline”.
In 1863, at age 25, 3-foot tall Tom
Thumb was
married here to fellow circus act, 20 year-old Lavinia Warren after
touring around the world with P.T. Barnum. As thousands gathered
outside, Vanderbilt’s and Astors witnessed within. Barnum milked
the event as best he could, selling tickets to the reception at $75
dollars-a-head, displaying Warren’s hand-made miniature wedding dress
in a department store window, and selling souvenirs. Celebrated
civil-war photographer Matthew Brady,
who
had
a
studio
nearby,
was
the
wedding’s
photographer.
Newspapers
ran
headlines
about the
“loving lilliputians” and their “fairy wedding”. They remained
together until 1883, when Thumb died of a stroke, and had no children,
much to Barnum’s chagrin.
Newland Archer was married here in the
novel The Age of Innocence, and in 1885, the funeral of navy Commander Henry Honeychurh Gorridge,
who became a celebrity for transporting
Cleopatra’s Needle to New York, was held here.
In 1997, David
Duchovny married Tea Leoni
in the backyard.
Holy
Trinity Church
Holy
Trinity
Church
3 West 65th Street (corner of Central Park
West)
Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1868 by a group
which split from St. James Lutheran Church in Brooklyn. At the time,
the majority of Lutherans in New York City were German, but Holy
Trinity was one of the very few English-speaking Lutheran
congregations.
The present Gothic Revival church was built between 1902-04, as
designed by Schickel & Ditmars, offering the Lutheran Mass with an
emphasis on music and outreach. Holy Trinity is widely known for
its Bach Vespers series, begun in 1968 by then-organist John Weaver,
the first instance in America where the cantatas of Bach could be heard
on their appointed day (designated by Bach himself in the sixteenth
century) in the context of the liturgical calendar. Cantatas, as well
as other appropriate music, are performed by the professional Bach
Choir and Bach Players from Reformation Sunday in late fall through
Easter.
In 1990, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission made Holy
Trinity Church part of the "Upper West Side/Central Park West Historic
District".
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man steps on this church during his rampage
of the Columbus Circle area in 1984’s “Ghostbusters”.
The
apartment
building
next door, 55 Central Park West, also played an
important role in the movie.
St. James Church
32 James Street (near Madison Street)
St. James Catholic Church was dedicated in 1836. It has a Greek
Revival edifice, is the second-oldest Catholic church building in
Manhattan. Although now gone, the
fieldstone building had a domed cupola above the roof, with an
inscription along the façade that read, “D.O.M.S. JACOBO DEO
OPTIMO MAXIMO” – “TO GOD, THE BEST AND GREATEST”.
In 1836, the
year the church opened, the American branch of the Ancient Order of
Hibernians was founded in its basement, in response to much anti-Irish
and anti-Catholic sentiment in the city, including a nearby church
called St. Mary’s on Grand Street being burnt to the ground. In
1983, the A.O.H. funded the restoration of the building after city
officials ordered it closed down due to fear of the roof collapsing,
and saved it from being demolished by 1986. Alfred E. Smith,
former Governor of New York State and the first Catholic to run for
President, was an altar boy here as a child. In the 1880s, he
described the church as the “leading Catholic parish in New York, not
excepting the cathedral itself.” In 2007, work began to be done
to restore the 1889 organ. Although much work was done,
preservation needed to be halted and will resume once funding becomes
available. In 2008, the Organ Historical Society awarded it a
Historical Citation in recognition of it as an outstanding example of
organ building and worthy of preservation. It was declared a New
York City Landmark in 1966.
St. Malachy’s
Church
239 West 49th Street (between
Broadway and 8th Avenue)
St. Malachy’s Catholic Church, also called “The Actor’s Chapel” was
built in neo-Gothic style in 1902, and although it has seen drastic
changes in the surrounding area over the years, it has remained an
important part of the Theatre District, and committed to serving the
spiritual needs of Catholic actors, dancers, musicians, craftsmen and
tourists on Broadway.
By 1920, the Theatre District moved in, and a rather ordinary parish
rearranged its masses, confessions, and missions to accommodate the
unusual late night schedules of the theatre and nightclub scene,
constructed an “Actor’s Chapel” underneath the main church, and on
opening nights, many performers would often stop by to light candles
for the success of their shows.
As late as 1968, over 16,000 people visited the church monthly, but
into the 1970s, the neighborhood began to take a turn for the
worse. Madison Square Garden moved to its new location, and
nightclubs closed. Massage parlors, porn shops, x-rated theatres,
prostitution and drugs moved in. The neighborhood became
dangerous, and theatre people and tourists feared lingering in the
area. Much of the congregation moved away, and most who stayed
were elderly and poor. Many were held virtually under siege in
single-room occupancy hotels and tenements with tubs in kitchens and
shared bathrooms in hallways. The church and its people were
suffering, and vandalism and theft were weekly occurrences.
In 1976, Fr. George W. Moore was made pastor of the church, and created
a pastoral team, made up of priests, nuns, and caring people of
different faiths who set out to return St. Malachy’s to its original
mission of ministering to people of the neighborhood and finding the
answers to their needs. Members participated in a number of local
and community organizations, including Community Boards 4 and 5, the
Mayor’s Midtown Citizens Committee, the Broadway Association, the
League of American Theatres and Producers, the Theatre Development
Fund, Actor’s Equity, 42nd Street Civic Association, 42nd Street
Redevelopment Association, and the Clinton Planning Council.
In 1977, the parish created Encore Community Services to serve the
needs of senior citizens in the Times Square, Clinton, and Midtown
areas, by providing healthy meals, shopping escorts, and social
events.
St. Malachy’s has become well known on the national level for its
history and advocacy. Over the decades, Bob and Delores Hope, George M. Cohan,
Spencer Tracy, Perry Como, Rosalind Russell, Danny Thomas, Ricardo
Montalban, Gregory Peck, Irene Dunne, Hildegarde, Florence Henderson,
Elaine Stritch, and Lawrence Luckenbill all worshipped here
regularly. Fred Allen, Don
Ameche, Cyril Ritchard, Pat O’Brien and Jimmy Durante often
served as ushers at mass. In 1926, 100,000 mourners gathered
along West 49th Street as the funeral of Rudolph Valentino was held
inside. Durante married Jeanne Olsen here in 1921, Allen married
Portland Hoffa here in 1927, Douglas
Fairbanks married Joan Crawford here in 1929, Herb Shriner’s
children were baptized here, and comedian Chris Farley, a devout Catholic
despite his demons, spoke here a number of times in the ‘90s.
Both pairs of the author’s paternal great-grandparents were married
here in 1910.
Park East
Synagogue
163 E. 67th Street, bet.
2nd & 3rd Avenues
Congregation Zichron Ephraim, as it was originally called, was built in
1889 for Jews of the Orthodox tradition when Reformed Judaism was more
popular on the Upper East Side. It was designed by the firm
Schneider and Herter, who had designed many tenements in the Lower East
Side and Hell’s Kitchen, in the Moorish Revival style with a prominent
rose window, which was common among synagogues at the time.
Although bulbous domes were removed from the unusual asymmetrical
towers, it remains one of fewer than a hundred surviving 19th century
synagogues. Over the doorway engraved in granite, in Hebrew, is a
verse from Psalm 100, “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into
His courts with praise.” Its first rabbi, Bernard Drachman,
served until his death in 1945. He was succeeded by Rabbi Zev
Zahavy, who became a dynamic spokesman for Orthodox Judaism, with more
than 200 of his sermons being discussed in the New York Times. He
and his wife Edith, a noted educator, founded the Park East Day
School. The current rabbi, Arthur Schneier, has been in charge
since 1962. Born in Vienna, he lived under Nazi occupation in
Budapest and came to the United States in 1947. On March 16,
1957, Robert Briscoe, the Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin visited and
prayed at the synagogue. In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited
Park East, the first time a pope to visit a synagogue in the United
States.
St.
Patrick’s Cathedral
St.
Patrick’s Cathedral
460 Madison Ave.
(east side of 5th Ave. between 50th & 51st Streets)
St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the see of the Catholic Archdiocese of New
York, and symbolized the rise of the Catholic community in the city as
it moved uptown from more humble origins on Mulberry Street. It
was designed by renowned Gothic-style architect James Renwick, Jr., and
the cornerstone was laid in 1858, when the Diocese of New York became
an archdiocese, and the first Archbishop, John Hughes, from County
Tyrone, Ireland, proposed a new gothic cathedral in a mainly wilderness
area uptown. Although most thought it would be a bad location
because it was too far away from the majority of New Yorkers, the
Archbishop predicted that it would someday be the heart of the
city. Although construction was halted during the Civil War, it
resumed afterward and doors were first opened in 1878. Since
then, it has been gradually added onto to produce what we see
today. The spires were completed in 1888, the Lady Chapel in the
back was added in 1906, and the large Kilgen organs up above were added
in 1929. The land, purchased on March 6, 1810, was originally the
New York Literary Institution, a short-lived Jesuit school for young
men, but by 1814 was sold to French abbot Augustin LeStrange and his
Trappist monks, who were fleeing persecution after the
revolution. Across the street, they ran a school for thirty-three
orphans. When Napoleon was overthrown in 1815, the Trappist monks
returned to France, and the orphanage was looked after by the
archdiocese well into the late 1800s.
The cathedral’s crypt
entombs the eight past Archbishops of New York, as well as Pierre
Toussaint and television and radio show host Bishop Fulton Sheen.
In April 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald wedded Zelda Sayre in the Cardinal’s
residence on Madison Avenue (they couldn’t have the ceremony at the
altar because the marriage was mixed).
Pope Paul VI said mass
here in October 1966, on the occasion of the first time a Pope visited
the United States, and Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI would follow
suit in the years to come.
The funerals of William Tecumseh
Sherman, Al Smith, Babe Ruth, Arturo Tuscanini, Billy Martin, Vince
Lombardi, Celia Cruz, Robert F. Kennedy, and Wellington Marra were held
here, and special memorial masses were held here upon the deaths of
Andy Warhol, Joe DiMaggio, and William F. Buckley, Jr.
Front
of
Old
St.
Patrick's
Back of Old St. Patrick's
Old
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
260-264 Mulberry (between Prince
& Houston Streets)
This church, built from 1809-1815, was the original see of the
Archdiocese of New York, designed by Joseph Mangin, the architect of
City Hall, and although St. Patrick’s has a more ecclesiastical Gothic
design, similarities can be seen between the two buildings.
When it was dedicated, the New York Gazette described it as “a grand
and beautiful church, which may justly be considered one of the
greatest ornaments of our city,” but the church’s early history
reflects the high degree of anti-Catholic sentiment in New York City at
the time. It was built behind high walls, and the stained-glass
windows were placed to be more than rock-throwing distance from the
sidewalk.
In 1835, New York’s first bishop, John “Dagger” Hughes, was forced to
assemble the Ancient Order of Hibernians and other members of the
parish in front of the building against anti-Catholic and
anti-immigrant vigilante mobs who, while chanting derogative slurs such
as “Paddys of the Pope” threatened to “burn her to the
ground”. Mob-violence toward the cathedral was a common
occurrence, as groups like the No Nothing Party assembled Protestants
to march on the cathedral, prompting Bishop Hughes to write to Mayor
James Harper, “Should one Catholic come to harm, or should one Catholic
business be molested, we shall turn this city into a second Moscow.”
During the Civil War, President Lincoln asked Bishop Hughes to be his
envoy to France, Spain and England, to dissuade those nations from
aiding and abetting the South. In 1866, a fire gutted the
building, and although construction of a new cathedral uptown was
already underway, restoration was undertaken by architect Henry
Engelbert and the cathedral was reopened in 1868. In 1875, New
York Archbishop John McCloskey was made the first American cardinal
here, in a ceremony attended by future President Chester A. Arthur,
Mayor William H. Wickham, and other prominent leaders.
On May 25, 1879, with the completion of the new cathedral on Fifth
Avenue and Fiftieth Street, old St. Patrick’s was downgraded to a
parish church, which it remains to this day, with masses in English,
Spanish, and Chinese.
The church’s walled off graveyard can be
seen in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. The baptism scene from
The Godfather was filmed in the church (see link below) as well as the
scene from The
Godfather, Part III, in which Michael Corleone receives a Papal
knighthood. The funeral of John F. Kennedy, Jr., was held here in
June of 1999.
St.
Peter’s
Church
16 Barclay Street (corner of Church
Street)
Founded in 1785, St. Peter’s is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in New
York State. The parish was founded almost as soon as the American
Revolution was won, for before Catholic worship was forbade under Dutch
and British rule, and the parish founded the first Catholic school in
1800.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, a former Episcopalian, widow and mother
of five, founder of the Sisters of Charity, and the first American to
be made a saint in 1975, converted to Catholicism here in 1805.
She
often prayed before Mexican artist Jose Vallejo’s painting The
Crucifixion, located above the main alter, a gift from the Archbishop
of Mexico City in 1789.
Pierre Toussaint, a black man born into
slavery in present-day Haiti, was brought to the city as a slave and
educated by the wealthy Berard family, who eventually gave him his
freedom. He was a well-known parishioner for sixty-six years, who
went
on to become a prominent hairdresser, businessman, and devout Catholic
who was known for his great generosity to the poor. In 1990, John
Cardinal O’Connor, New York’s Catholic Archbishop, took up his cause
for sainthood, and moved his remains to the crypt under the high altar
of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Along with radio and television host
Bishop Fulton Sheen, he is one of only two people who were not
Archbishop of New York to be buried there.
On September 13, 1841,
Father Edward F. Sorin and six brothers from the Congregation of the
Holy Cross arrived in America from France and celebrated mass at this
church the next day. Soon after they migrated to South Bend,
Indiana
and founded the University of Notre Dame.
On September 11, 2001, the
church suffered some minor damage from the terrorist attacks of that
morning, including a landing gear from one of the planes hitting the
roof, but was able to resume full service soon, and like St. Paul’s
Chapel, became a center of rescue activities in the months to
follow.
FDNY Chaplain Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan Friar, well known as
the first recorded death on 9/11, was removed from the rubble and
reverently carried here and laid before the altar by firefighters after
dying in the North Tower. He laid here for a few hours before two
of
his fellow Franciscans came to bring him back to the fire station
across the street from his friary.
St
John the Divine Cathedral
St.
John the Divine Cathedral
1047 Amsterdam Ave. (between West
110th and West 113th St)
The see of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, it is nicknamed “St. John
the Unfinished” because it is continuously added onto, and claims to
have by now surpassed St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome as the largest
Christian church in the world.
Proposed in 1888 to tend to the growing immigrant population, the
cornerstone was laid on St. John’s Day, December 27, 1892, on the
heavily wooded property that used to be occupied the Leake and Watts
Orphan Asylum, after an open design competition. When it was
first built, the cathedral immediately ran into problems with the
foundation, but New York Bishop Henry Potter refused to change
locations, and financier J.P. Morgan, one of the cathedral’s trustees,
donated $500,000 to fix any structural problems.
The choir and crossing with four immense arches were completed in 1911,
and architect Rafael Guastavino constructed a 162-foot-high tile dome
to cover it. Although it was meant to be temporary until a spire
was built, the dome still remains there to this day.
Throughout World War I and the Great Depression, construction
continued. By 1918, the seven “Chapels of the Tongues”, dedicated
to seven different immigrant groups, were completed to represent the
city’s diversity. The nave was virtually completed in less than
ten years in Gothic style, and the vaulting of the choir and the
sanctuary were reconstructed in the same manner to match.
On November 30, 1941, a service was finally held for the opening of the
cathedral, and worshipers could view the 601-foot length down the
aisle, or as the saying went, “Two football fields, end to end, with
room left for the football.” Unfortunately, exactly one week
later, on December 7th, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, brining theUnited States into World War II,
and further construction was completely halted. In one area of
the cathedral, one can see the “Pearl Harbor Arch”, which shows
incomplete masonry where a stonecarver never returned to work.
Work on the cathedral would not be started up again for another
thirty-two years. Despite the city being virtually bankrupt by
the 1970s, the dean at the time, James Parks Morton, felt that the
cathedral and the city would benefit from the Stoneworks Program, in
which the cathedral would hire the unemployed and underemployed and, by
importing experts from England, train them in the art of
stonecraft. Through this program, which is still in place, both
the north and south towers progressed upward, and gothic-style
sculpture continues to be added to this day. A stoneyard was
dedicated on June 21, 1979, and one September 29, 1982, aerielist
Phillipe Petit crossed Amsterdam Avenue on a 150-foot wire to deliver a
silver trowel to Bishop Paul Moore.
The cathedral is a major venue for music concerts, and saxophonist Paul
Winter and the members of the Paul Winter Consort are the
artists-in-residence. It is also famous for “The Blessing of the
Animals”, when animals of all shapes and sizes are brought to the
cathedral to be blessed on October 4th, the feast of Francis of Assisi,
their patron saint. The cathedral’s bronze doors were cast by
Berbedienne, who also cast the Statue of Liberty, and there is a
“Biblical Garden” on the cathedral’s grounds in which flowers and herbs
mentioned in the Bible are grown. Side chapels include such
unconventional icons as drawings by Keith Haring, a memorial to the
FDNY, and a “Poet’s Corner”, paying homage to great authors in American
history.
St. Nicholas of
Myra Church
288 E. 10th Street (corner of
Avenue A)
The same way St. Paul’s was built as the missionary chapel to Trinity
Church downtown, this neo-Gothic structure was built from 1882 – 1883
as the missionary chapel of St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery on Tenth Street
and Second Avenue.
Rutherford Stuyvesant, a direct descendant of Petrus, who originally
owned the land occupied by St. Mark’s, commissioned the chapel in honor
of his recently deceased wife, Mary Pierrepont Rutherford Stuyvesant.
The building was designed by James Renwick, Jr., one of New York City’s
most renowned architects in the nineteenth century, and acted as an
Episcopal chapel until 1909. It was then rented out to the Holy
Trinity Slovak Lutheran Church until 1911. The original Russian
Orthodox congregation, a group of immigrants from the Rusyn region of
Slovakia, started renting the chapel out to the Episcopal Diocese of
New York in 1925, and finally bought it in 1937, changing the name to
St. Nicholas Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, or simply
St. Nicholas of Myra Church, in honor of the original Santa
Claus.
The building is unique in that the Gothic-arch-headed entrance is
asymmetrically placed in front of the church along Tenth Street.
Many Russian Orthodox crosses were added after the purchase, but some
old motifs still remain, such as a lion on the north side (the
traditional symbol of St. Mark), and on the north and east side are
faces made of leaves, or foliate masks, common in Romanesque
architecture and believed to be a pagan holdover representing the Green
Man, a vegetation god.
St. Sava’s Cathedral
20 West 26 Street (between Broadway
& 6th Avenue)
This Serbian Orthodox cathedral began as an uptown satellite chapel to
Trinity Church on Wall Street, designed by Richard Upjohn in
1851. Some of the exquisite stained glass windows are in perilous
condition, but they remain along with intricately carved interior
fretwork, and the beautifully designed inlaid tile floor. Unusual
examples of polychrome decorative painting surround the altar area, and
an impressive, hand-carved wooden pulpit with superb religious carvings
can also be seen.
As the neighborhood changed, people moved to more fashionable areas,
and as uptown became more populated, the parish went into
decline. There was a noble effort to revitalize it, but by the
1940s the decision was made to sell the building.
In 1943 the small Serbian Orthodox community won out, and in June of
1944 the name was changed from Trinity Chapel to the Cathedral of St.
Sava, the first Serbian Orthodox church on the East Coast, and the
spiritual center of the Serbian people and other Orthodox
Christians. In keeping with Orthodox church architectural
tradition, a large altar screen carved at the Monostary of St. Naum in
Yugoslavia containing forty icons was installed. Outside one can
see a round mosaic of St. Sava, first archbishop of Serbia and its
patron saint, above the center doors, adding a Byzantine note to the
imposing Gothic façade, and completing the combination of two
great traditions.
Boss Tweed’s daughter was married here in 1871, and received an
estimated $700,000 in wedding gifts. Some say the display of
excess led to his downfall. Author Edith Wharton unhappily
married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton here in 1885, and immortalized
the chapel in her novel about New York Victorian life, The Age of
Innocence. Yugoslavia’s King Peter II regularly attended mass
here in the 1940s, shortly after he was exiled.
St. Thomas Church
1 West 53rd Street (corner of 5th
Avenue)
Due to a few fires, this building is actually the fourth to serve the
congregation of St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Founded in 1824 on
Broadway and Houston Street, it burned down in 1851 and was quickly
rebuilt by 1852. A beautiful 1837 painting by George Harvey
entitled Nightfall, St. Thomas Church, Broadway, New York, depicts the
original church, and is on display at the Museum of the City of New
York. Throughout the 1850s and ‘60s, the congregation felt the
neighborhood had, to put it in one parishioner’s words, “degenerated
into anchorage for cheap dance halls and ‘concert salloons’”, and a new
building was begun uptown at the current location, completed in 1870,
and designed by Richard Upjohn. The new church featured reredos
by Augustus St.-Gaudens and murals by John LaFarge.
Surrounded by mansions of the city’s upper class, St. Thomas’ was the
scene of many high-society weddings and funerals, including Consuelo
Vanderbuilt to the Duke of Marlborough – Winston Churchill’s cousin –
in 1895. After his first wife died, former President Benjamin Harrison,
married Mary Scott Lord Dimmick here in 1896, his first wife’s niece
and 25 years his junior. Most of the church was burnt down by
fire in 1905, leaving only its prominent tower remaining. In
1906, the architectural firm Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson won a contest
to redesign the church, beating out other prominent architects such as
George Brown Post and Robert W. Gibson, and it was completed in
1913. The magnificence of the present structure is the result of
a great deal of charity from many different people. The
devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake so troubled the
church’s rector, Rev. Ernest Stires, that he gave all the money in the
rebuilding fund to aid the stricken city. The public from New
York and beyond were so moved and impressed by his generosity that
plentiful donations were made that more than replenished the
fund. The wedding of later New York State Governor Thomas Dewey
to Francess Hutt was held in the current structure in 1928. After
the September 11th attacks, the parish invoked its Anglican roots by
reaching out to the British community, who had also lost more people on
that day than in any other terrorist attack in its history. An
interfaith service was held here on September 20, 2001, in which
then-Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke, and was broadcast throughout the
United Kingdom. The church is home to the St. Thomas Choir, an
English-style choral ensemble made up of men and boys which performs
music of the Anglican tradition at worship services, and offers a full
concert series during the course of the year. While the men are
professional singers, the boys are enrolled at the Saint Thomas Choir
School, the only church-affiliated boarding choir school in the United
States.
Riverside Church
Riverside
Church
400 Riverside Drive (Riverside
Drive
and
Claremont
Ave.,
and
120th
to
122nd
St.)
From the outset, the mission of this church was to be an
interdenominational house of worship and center for social justice and
political debate. During the early twentieth century, many
modernist Christians began to debate the direction their faith should
take, with some fundamentalists believing in a strict interpretation of
the Bible, and other Christian leadersbelieving in following the example of Jesus as a
social revolutionary. In 1922, with the major financial support
of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and modernist Baptist Minister Harry
Emerson Fosdick, a new Gothic-style church dedicated to these values
was under way.
Fosdick and Rockefeller, the latter of whom felt St. John the Divine
was taking to long to build, advocated three main principles: an
interdenominational setting (it serves the American Baptist Church and
the United Church of Christ), a large church in an important New York
City neighborhood, and open to anyone who professes a faith in
Christ. Unlike St. John the Divine, which is built completely of
stone in the traditional gothic style, Riverside has an underlying
steel structure, which allowed it to be built much quicker.
Begun in 1927, and despite a major fire, it was open to the public
three years later. The church was designed by the architectural
firm Allen, Pelton, and Collens, who were commissioned by Rockefeller
to travel across Spain and France for inspiration, and is mainly
modeled after Chartres Cathedral in France. It is the tallest
church in the United States and the twenty-sixth tallest in the
world. The massive single bell tower that dwarfs the rest of the
church is based on one of the towers of the Church of Laon, France, and
its carillon is the largest in the world, with a total of seventy-four
bells, including the twenty-ton bourdon, the largest cast and tuned
bell in existence. In addition, its organ is the
fourteenth-largest in the world.
In the spirit of social consciousness, the church has had many notable
speakers at the pulpit, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who
spoke here in opposition to the Vietnam War, Nelson Mandela during his
first trip to the United States after being released from prison,
Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan after the 9/11
attacks, and Fidel Castro during one of his rare visits to the United
States in 1999.
The flying buttresses on the outside are purely decorative, as the
church is supported by its steel frame. The main entrance, at the
base of the tower, is based on the Porte Royale of Chartres, with the
seated figure of Christ in the tympanum, flanked by evangelists.
The figures sculpted in the concentric arches of the doorway represent
leading personalities of religion and philosophy, joined by great
scientists.
Trinity Church
79 Broadway (at
Wall Street)
This is a prime example of how churches used to
dominate the skyline in New York, and seemed to reach to the heavens,
but are now dwarfed by skyscrapers. Designed by Richard Upjohn,
when it was dedicated on May 1, 1846, Trinity Church was by far the
tallest building in Lower Manhattan, and served as a welcoming beacon
for ships coming into New York Harbor for decades, as can be seen in
pictures of the nearby Brooklyn Bridge being built in the 1880s.
The large bronze front doors were an 1890s memorial to John Jacob
Astor, III. In 1696, New York Governor Benjamin Fletcher approved
the land in lower Manhattan for a new Anglican Church, with a rent of
sixty bushels of wheat a year. When Queen Elizabeth II visited
New York in the bicentennial year of 1976, she was presented with a
“back rent” of 279 peppercorns.
The church also owns the only cemetery still in use in Manhattan, which
includes many graves-of-note, including that of Alexander Hamilton,
William Bradford, Robert Fulton, Captain James Lawrence, and Albert
Gallatin. Since 1969, Trinity Church has conducted its Concerts
at One series, which provides professional classical and contemporary
music for the Wall Street community. Tours are held every day at
two, and a museum dedicated to the church’s history is also on the
premises. A 1705 grant by Queen Anne gave the church ownership of
all land west of Broadway from Fulton Street to what is now Christopher
Street, as well as the rights to all shipwrecks and beached
whales. Until 1908, the ball dropped here on New Years Eve.
The church also presides over the Trinity Churchyard and Mausoleum on
Riverside Drive and 155th Street, formally the location of John James
Audubon’s estate, in which are interned Audubon, Alfred Tennyson
Dickens, John Jacob Astor, and Clement Clarke Moore.
Additionally, it presides over the very old churchyard of its chapel
originally built for those living further north, St. Paul’s. One
of the largest land-owners in the city, its claim was contested in the
courts for much of the first two hundred years of its existence, mainly
by those descended from a Dutch woman who claimed original title to the
land, Anneke Jans Bogardus.
St.
Paul’s Chapel
209 Broadway (Church
Street
to
Broadway,
and
Fulton
Street
to
Vesey
Street)
A chapel of the Parish of Trinity Church, St. Paul's
was built on land granted by Queen Anne, and Andrew Gautier served as
the master craftsman. Upon completion in 1766, it stood in a field some
distance from the growing port city to the south. It was built as a
"chapel-of-ease" for parishioners who lived far from the Mother
Church.
It is arguably most famous for holding a thanksgiving service for
George Washington on his Inauguration Day, April 30, 1789, and for
being his regular house of worship throughout the two years New York
City was the nation’s capital. To this day, one can retrace
Washington’s steps from the Federal Building where a statue of him
marks the spot of his inauguration, up north to the chapel.
Built of Manhattan mica-schist with brownstone quoins, St. Paul's has
the classical portico, boxy proportions and domestic details that are
characteristic of Georgian churches such as James Gibbs' London church
of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it was modeled. Its octagonal
tower rises from a square base and is topped by a replica of the
Choragic Monument of Lysicrates (c. 335 BC). Inside, the chapel's
simple elegant hall has the pale colors, flat ceiling and cut glass
chandeliers reminiscent of contemporary domestic interiors. In contrast
to the awe-inspiring interior of Trinity Church, this hall and its
ample gallery were endowed with a cozy and comfortable character in
order to encourage attendance.
On the Broadway side of the chapel's exterior is an oak statue of the
church's namesake, St. Paul, carved in the American Primitive style.
Below the east window is a monument to Brigadier General Richard
Montgomery, who died at the Battle of Quebec in 1775 during the
American Revolution.
In the spire, the first bell is inscribed "Mears London, Fecit [Made]
1797." The second bell, made in 1866, was added in celebration of the
chapel's 100th anniversary.
The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960, in part
because it is the oldest public building in continuous use in New York
City. The chapel survived the Great New York City Fire of 1776 when a
quarter of New York City (then the area around Wall Street) burned
following the British capture of the city in the Battle of Long Island
in the American Revolution.
The Hearts of Oak, a militia unit organized early in the American
Revolutionary War, and comprised in part of King's College (later,
Columbia University) students, would drill in the Chapel's yard before
classes nearby. Alexander Hamilton was an officer of this
unit. Above Washington's pew is an 18th-century oil painting of
the Great Seal of the United States; adopted in 1782.
The chapel contains several monuments and memorials that attest to its
elevated status in early New York: a monument to Richard Montgomery
(hero of the battle of Quebec) sculpted by Jean-Jacque Cafieri (1777),
George Washington's original pew and a neo-Baroque sculpture called
"Glory" designed by Pierre L’Effant, the designer of Washington, D.C.
The pulpit is surmounted by a coronet and six feathers, and fourteen
original cut-glass chandeliers hang in the nave and the
galleries.
With the Twin Towers located across the street, it was considered
almost miraculous that the church was untouched by the damage of
September 11th. After the attacks, the chapel became a hospital
and shelter for victims and relief-workers, and later a memorial to
those affected by the events of that day, which it remains presently.
St.
Mark’s
on
the
Bowery
131 East 10th Street (intersection of Stuyvesant Street and 2nd Ave.)
In 1651 Petrus Stuyvesant, Governor of New
Amsterdam, purchased land for a bowery, or farm, from the Dutch West
India Company, and by 1660 built a family chapel at the present day
site of St. Marks Church.
Stuyvesant died in 1678 and was interred in a vault under the chapel,
and his great-grandson, Petrus, donated the chapel property to the
Episcopal Church in 1793, stipulating that a new chapel be erected, and
in 1795 the cornerstone of the present day St. Mark's Church was laid.
The church was completed and consecrated in 1799. Alexander
Hamilton provided legal aid in incorporating St. Mark's Church as the
first Episcopal Parish independent of Trinity Church in the United
States. In 1828, the church steeple, designed by Martin E.
Thomson and Ithiel Towne was erected. Soon after the two-story
fieldstone Sunday school was completed.
In 1838, St. Mark's Church established the Parish Infant School for
poor children. Later, in 1861, the church commissioned a brick
addition, designed and supervised by architect James Renwick, Jr., most
famous for St. Patrick’s Cathedral of Fifth Avenue and Fiftieth
Street. The St. Mark's Hospital Association was organized by
members of the congregation, and, at the start of the 20th century,
leading architect Ernest Flagg designed the rectory.
While the 19th century saw St Mark's Church grow through its many
construction projects, the 20th century was marked by community service
and cultural expansion. Several Dutch dignitaries made stops by the
church on their visit to the States. In 1952, Queen Juliana of the
Netherlands visited the church and laid a wreath given by her mother,
Queen Wilhelmina, at the bust of Petrus Stuyvesant. Later, in
1981 and 1982, Princess Margriet and Queen Beatrix, both of the
Netherlands visited.
On July 27, 1978, a fire nearly destroyed St. Mark's Church, and The
Citizens to Save St Mark's was founded to raise funds for its
reconstruction. The Preservation Youth Project undertook the
reconstruction, supervised by architects Harold Edleman, and
craftspeople were provided by preservation contractor I. Maas &
Sons. Restoration was finally finished in 1986. The Landmark Fund
emerged from the Citizens to Save St Mark's and continues to exist to
help maintain and preserve this historic Dutch landmark for future
generations.
