St. Patrick's Cathedral -- 5th Avenue at 50th Street

The newly-finished, gleaming white marble Cathedral sat next to a yet-undeveloped plot.  Across Fifth Avenue is the lawn of a mansion -- photo Library of Congress

James Renwick, Jr. was 25-years old when he received the commission to design Grace Church in 1843.  An engineer, he had no training as an architect and had, to date, designed only a fountain in Bowling Green.  Renwick did not disappoint, however.   Completed in 1846, Grace Church was a masterpiece – the first major Gothic Revival structure in the U.S. 

Within the year he had designed the Smithsonian Institution Building, often referred to as the Renwick Castle.   The architect would, for the rest of his life, be a busy man.   But he would hold none of his designs in greater importance than the masterful St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The first Archbishop of New York, John Hughes, summoned Renwick in 1853 to start plans for a replacement to the Cathedral on Mott Street which had been completed in 1815.  Although the existing St. Patrick’s Cathedral was the largest church in the city, the Archbishop yearned for a more magnificent church.

The land Hughes had selected for the site, on 5^th Avenue between 50^th and 51^st Streets, was well north of the established city, resulting in skeptics calling it “Hughes’ Folly.”    Renwick went to work on the drawings which, according to Archbishop John Murphy Farley’s 1908 history of the Cathedral, “were changed several times until 1858, when they were definitely agreed upon.”

With the plans approved, the Archbishop presented Renwick and his assisting architect William Rodrique (who coincidentally or not married Hugh’s sister Margaret) with contracts.  Each would receive $2,500 a year for eight years and the Archbishop had the right to suspend or discontinue the building at will.  It was a highly unusual arrangement; although financially advantageous for Renwick.

The plans that were “definitely agreed upon” were for a soaring, white marble Gothic Revival structure that would compete with the great medieval structures of Europe.     The cost of construction was fixed with the Hall and Joyce Company, the builders, at $850,000 and a contract was signed on March 5, 1859 with the stipulation that the construction would be finished on or before January 1, 1867.

The cornerstone had been laid on August 15, 1858, half a year before the contracts were finalized.  The immense structure rose steadily filling the 5^th Avenue block towards Madison Avenue.  Then in 1861 the Civil War broke out.  As the conflict worsened more and more of the men of New York abandoned their jobs to fight for the Union.  Eventually work on the Cathedral stopped completed.

Archbishop Hughes would not live to see his magnificent Cathedral rise above 5^th Avenue.  He died in 1864, succeeded by Bishop John McCloskey who would take up the project as construction commenced again after the war.  Two decades after it was begun, St. Patrick’s Cathedral was dedicated on May 25, 1879. 

Harper's Weekly featured Archbishop Hughs' funeral in the unfinished Cathedral in 1864.

The new Cathedral had a seating capacity of 18,000 and every seat was filled at 10:00 when McCloskey, by now a Cardinal, and an entourage of bishops and priests processed up the aisle.  One hundred and twenty five policemen were positioned around the building to keep order.  A local newspaper described it as “the noblest temple ever raised in any land to the memory of Saint Patrick, and as the glory of Catholic America.”

The Cathedral as depicted in an 1890 print -- Library of Congress

The white marble church stretched 332 feet to the east, sitting on a base course of Maine granite.    Although the Cathedral was officially opened, the soaring spires – rising 330 feet above the avenue -- would not be completed until October 1888. 

In 1900 construction was started on the glorious Lady Chapel.   Designed by Charles T. Mathews, it was completed in 1908 and a year later the first of the chapel’s stained glass windows was installed.  It would be 25 years before the windows were completed. 

The original estimate of construction fell sorely short.  The spires alone cost $200,000 and by the time the Lady Chapel was completed Archbishop Farley estimated the cost at $4 million.

Generally hailed as a masterpiece of design, the Cathedral was not adored by everyone.   Art and architecture critic Helen W. Henderson was known to be brutally frank in her sometimes snobbish opinions.   

 The 75 stained glass windows were created, for the most part, in the studios of Nicholas Lotin at Chartes and of Henry Ely at Nantes.  Henderson complained “The modern French and Roman windows, which to the eye of the later criticism, impair the beauty of the simple interior, were considered something most desirable in their day, and their completion was hastened in order that they might be shown at the Centennial Exhibition, of 1876, where they were a feature much admired.”

She admitted that the St. Patrick window – donated by Renwick – “has at least an antiquarian interest.”  In the lower panel of that window is a depiction of Renwick presenting the plans of the Cathedral to Cardinal McCloskey.   She found the priceless windows of the Lady Chapel the “only windows of aesthetic interest in the church.”

Potted trees line the sidewalk as a well-dressed crowd watches the procession into the Cathedral for its consecration in 1911 -- Library of Congress

The Cathedral was the scene of a major scare when, on St. Patrick’s Day 1918, a crowd of thousands was assembled awaiting the parade.   Everyone remembered the bomb that had been discovered in the church on March 2, 1915 and anarchism was a constant threat.  Suddenly the throng was panicked by an enormous chunk of a stone spire that broke loose.  The largest piece crashed through the roof, breaking through the organ loft inside.  Outside, large stone fragments showered down on the masses.

“The crash and roar of the big missile caused fear that the whole great structure had been dynamited and might topple into the street,” reported The New York Times.  As the dignitaries in the reviewing stand stampeded to get away, Congressman Thomas F. Smith suffered a broken wrist as he was knocked to the ground.

The 1915 bomb would not be the last of the threats to the Cathedral.    In January 1951 a letter was received announcing that a bomb would be set off at a Sunday mass.   And between December 1951 and July 1952 there would be five more bomb threats.   On July 12, a deep-voiced male voice ordered the Rev. Edward Connors “get them out,” referring to worshipers in the Cathedral.  Thirty minutes later he phoned again, warning “your beautiful cathedral will be blown up before midnight.”

St. Patrick’s Cathedral has always been a work in process.   In 1927 Cardinal Hayes initiated an ambitious $2 million renovation project that included an enlarged sanctuary, rebuilt choir gallery, new organs in the gallery and chancel, new nave flooring and pews and a new baptistery.  Two decades later Cardinal Spellman added new upper windows, a new high altar and a replacement altar in the Lady Chapel and extensive exterior stone restoration.

Hayes also commissioned the great bronze doors  which were felt to be more “in keeping with the rest of the building.”  Seventeen of the 19 altars as well as the Stations of the Cross were repaired, cleaned and repolished.  

The great bronze doors weigh over 20,000 pounds each; yet they are so balanced that they can be opened with a single hand.  Sculptures of saints and "blessed people" grace the panels. -- photo by St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Restoration of the entire interior was done in 1972, the exterior was restored in 1979 and in 1984 a six-year structural repair process was begun.  This included replacement of much of the roof, resetting of the exterior steps, refinishing the doors, restoring the bells and rebuilding the organs.

Throughout the years the Cathedral has been the focal point of protestors railing against the Viet Nam War, the discontinuance of the Latin mass and, of course, the annual protests of Gay Rights advocates to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Despite Helen Henderson’s criticisms of the great cathedral, the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission said of it “St. Patrick’s Cathedral represents the epitome of the Gothic Revival in New York City” and called it “A marvel of architectural design for its day.”

The 1896 Grace Chapel (Church of the Immaculate Conception) -- West 14th Street

photo by Alice Lum

On Sunday March 12, 1893 the Rev. Dr. W. R. Huntington, rector of Grace Church, petitioned his wealthy parishioners to contribute to a new Grace Chapel.  In his sermon titled “Advance” he proposed replacing the existing chapel with a new $200,000 complex.

Since 1846, the year the magnificent Grace Church was consecrated, there had been a Grace Chapel in the 14^th Street neighborhood.  The present chapel was the third of these.  It was built in 1876 across from Tammany Hall.  While Grace Church tended to the social elite, Grace Chapel tended to the spiritual and physical needs of the poor, immigrant community.

“The present Grace Chapel is too near the mother church,” explained Huntington.  “It ought to be in the very thick of the population to whose needs it undertakes to minister…Again, as to surroundings, the present vicinage of Grace Chapel is full of influences in the highest degree harmful to the characters of the young people who go in and out at our doors.”

The parish spent $160,000 for a plot of land on 14^th Street, near 1^st Avenue, running through the block to 13^th Street.   Plans were laid for a complex of buildings to administer to the needs of the poor in the neighborhood:  a church, a parish house, a clergy house, and a “hospital.”

The New York Times was quick to explain that “This last is not a hospital in the usual sense in which the word is used in America."  The hospital would be a combined home for the aged, the infirm, and “a general asylum of refuge for children who may come upon the care of the parish, waifs and strays who find their home with us.”

The hospital was to be separated into three parts – the House of Simeon, the House of the Holy Child, and the House of Anna.  “Very likely there will be some sick persons there from time to time, but it is not to be a hospital in the ordinary sense of the word,” said The Times.

The parish contracted architects Stewart Barney and Henry Otis Chapman to design the complex.  They created a charming enclave of French Gothic buildings ringing a central courtyard filled with trees, grass and flowers.   Working in brown Roman brick and stone ornamented with terra cotta, they faced the chapel and hospital towards 14^th Street with the remaining buildings on 13^th Street, including the large parish house that contained the boys’ club, libraries, classrooms, gymnasium, reading room, Sunday School hall and a “swimming tank.”

In 1896 the American Architect & Building News presented the new building -- (copyright expired)

The cornerstone was laid with great ceremony on June 18, 1894.  A copper box was deposited within the massive brownstone cube, containing an incredible number of religious publications as well as United States coins.

The charming complex was completed in January 1896; its focal point being the striking central bell tower.  A series of arched entranceways undulated across the sidewalk level.  As the Chapel neared completion the wealthy banker George Coppell donated what would become known as the Coppell Windows – a complex grouping of stained glass panels 30 feet tall and 15 feet wide – in memory of his wife Helen Hoffman Coppell.   The five main panels of the window featured life-sized, full-figure depictions of saints.

photo Library of Congress

In March 1899 Roger Smith entered the vestibule of the Chapel and stole an oil painting from the wall.  Unfortunately for Smith, the policeman he passed at the corner of 14^th Street and 1^st Avenue, Officer Healey, regularly attended services at the Chapel and recognized the painting.  The art thief made it only half a block before being arrested.

The same year a sickly baby boy was found on the steps of the Chapel with a note pinned on his clothing:  “Be so kind and take care of my little boy, for I have no home and I am so sick in the hospital.  I will try to see you when I leave the hospital.  It might be two of four weeks before I can get my child, but please do me one favor and christen the boy.  Harry John is his name.  He is one year old.   G.R.”

Someone else had scrawled on the note “The mother is poor and can’t take care of it.”

The boy was sent to Bellevue Hospital while the rector, Rev. G. H. Bottome, worked on provisions for him.

By 1943 the aged complex was no longer functioning efficiently and on April 2 Grace Church announced that the chapel would be merged with the Church and the buildings closed.  At the same time the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was laying plans for the gargantuan residential project, Stuyvesant Town, that would result in the demolition of several blocks of buildings.  Included in the area was the Immaculate Conception Church.

By August the church had purchased the Grace Chapel complex.  Renovations were made, including an architecturally harmonious new school on 13^th Street designed by Eggers & Higgins.  But on the whole, the assemblage of buildings remained essentially intact .  On May 2, 1948 a new cornerstone was laid by Auxiliary Bishop Stephen J. Donahue.

A complex ceiling adorns the sanctuary -- photo by Church of the Immaculate Conception

As the 20^th century drew to a close, the buildings showed the ravages of time and weather.  In July 1998 the parish initiated a $600,000 restoration project.  The slate roofs were replaced, masonry was repointed and stained glass windows were repaired.

In designating the complex a landmark in 1966, the Landmarks Preservation Commission remarked on its “rare charm and architectural beauty.”

A Rare Survivor of "Genteel" Apartment Living - No. 129 East 17th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1879 work was completed on an apartment building owned by Jane Scott, widow of the recently deceased Dr. J. Walter Scott.  Mrs. Scott’s project was a risky one.    Apartment living was a novel idea for upper middle-class families and one not being readily accepted.

After all, Mrs. Astor, who also refused to dine in public, derided apartment life as “living on a shelf.”

To ensure that her speculative investment succeeded, Mrs. Scott chose carefully.   To clearly distinguish her building from the more common tenements rising throughout the city that were intended for the lower classes, she built in a respectable neighborhood just three blocks south of fashionable Gramercy Park.  Hers would be a dignified building in which tenants would enjoy a full floor each, upscale touches like carved marble mantels and ornate plaster ceiling moldings. 

Scott commissioned Napoleon LeBrun to design it.  LeBrun had moved to New York just before the Civil War from Philadelphia where he had designed several noteworthy churches and civic buildings.  While he would become best known in New York for his elaborate fire houses mimicking French chateaux and Italian palazzos; for Mrs. Scott he produced a reserved five-story brick and brownstone structure with tantalizing touches of French Gothic.

Handsome French Gothic details enhance the facade -- photo by Alice Lum

Among the first residents was the “Police President,” Stephen B. French.  On March 1, 1881 French, who was ill, summoned the Police Board to his bedside here to conduct its meeting.

Retired merchant Samuel Collins lived here in 1885 with his dog, a handsome but large St. Bernard, and in 1893 Dr. Pedro Jose Salicrup was among the first physicians to move in.

Other residents would include music publisher Leo Von Raven and Dr. Nan Gilbert Seymour.  Seymour was renowned as an expert on tuberculosis and was the author of several reports on its treatment.  Dr. Seymour’s apartment doubled as his office.

Tenants tended to be well-educated and successful.  Earle Rosman Crowe, who lived here in 1911 with his wife Kathleen and their son Phillip, had graduated Yale.  Florence M. Johnson was an alumna of Smith and H. J. Forman was a graduate of Harvard.

While the other apartments took up a full floor, with two bedrooms each, Oscar E. Stevens’ apartment was larger.  The New York Times described it in March 1911 as “a duplex apartment on the top floor of the old-fashioned dwelling in Seventeenth Street.  Its additional rooms are in a superimposed story, which extends over the rear of the house, and is occupied as a laundry and as living quarters for two maids.”

The “two maids” were Margaret Shevlin, “waitress and nurse,” and Mary Molloy, the cook.  Their living quarters were accessed from the kitchen through a private hall and stairs; essentially a separate apartment.

Stevens was an engineer with the Western Electric Company.  He lied here with his wife, Caroline Morgan Stevens, and their two year old daughter Caroline.  On March 10, 1911 while the couple was away, thieves entered the apartment by raising a ladder to the kitchen window from the roof of the building next door.  They escaped with over $10,000 worth of Caroline Stevens’ jewelry.

Through some miracle of oversight, No. 129 East 17^th Street survived the 20^th century with essentially no changes – inside or out.  That it managed to escape the 1960s when vintage buildings and dated interiors were considered expendable is astounding.  Andrew Alpern contends in his 1975 “Apartments for the Affluent: A Historical Survey of Buildings in New York,” that No. 129 is the oldest extant “genteel” apartment house in the city.

In 1990 two couples, George and Patricia Back and Jane and Richard Perin, commissioned preservation architect Joseph Pell Lombardi to renovate the structure.   While cautiously updating the building, its interior details – mahogany doors and marble-tiled foyer, for instance – were lovingly preserved.

Today there are only four units in the building:  a triplex running from the basement through second floor, a duplex on the third and fourth floor, and two floor-through apartments above.

photo by Alice Lum

A charming building, No. 129 East 17^th Street survives intact as a page from the history of the development of apartment living in New York City.

The 1910 French Gothic Nos. 150-154 West 22nd Street

In the first years of the 20^th century West 22^ndStreet, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues saw the rapid-fire demolition of old row houses—many built within the past 30 years—to make way for expansive loft buildings.  The garment industry was engulfing the former residential neighborhood and developers quickly seized the opportunity.

In 1910 alone more than a dozen houses were purchased and demolished on both sides of the block.  Among them were Nos. 150 through 154 on the south side, purchased by the Marmac Construction Company.    In January of that year The Bridgemen’s Magazine reported that a 12-story loft and store building was slated to replace the old residences.  “The cost will be $225,000,” it said.

The owners/builders chose as their architects Brown & Almiroty—a partnership that had so recently been formed that this was assuredly one of their first—if not their first—commission.   They could not have been disappointed.

While utterly modern, Brown & Almiroty’s loft building took its inspiration from the French Gothic.  Twelve stories of granite, terra cotta, cast iron and buff-colored brick were lavished with Gothic motifs while avoiding being over-done or preposterous.  Gothic arches, quatrefoils, and heraldic shields were joined  by a host of gruesome gargoyles—carved from limestone above the entrances and cast in metal at the cornice.   The purely utilitarian building, completed in 1910, was a delight to the eyes.

Stone, terra cotta and molded metal burst forth in Gothic motifs.

Even before construction was completed, apparel firms were signing leases for space in the up-to-date structure, which included electric elevators by Gurney.   On November 15, 1910 The New York Times reported that Columbia Button Works had taken the seventh floor and D. Saltzman & Co. took the eighth—a total of 12,000 square feet.  Saltzman, manufacturers of “cloaks,” would stay on in the building for years.

It appears that all of the building’s tenants were apparel manufacturers or related trim companies.  Other early tenants were Horwitz & Levy, makers of dresses; The Mutual Skirt Company; Lindenman Gross and Hindes, manufacturers of ladies’ coats; and Flaster and Bleier.  In 1914 Lindenman, Gross & Hindes’ business was doing so well that they took a second floor in the building, doubling their factory output.

By placing its models at the exclusive New York Horse Show, Mutual Skirt hinted at the quality of its garments -- American Cloak and Suit Review, January 1914 (copyright expired)

When Benjamin Benenson purchased the building in August of 1916, it was fully rented.  Benenson paid $425,000 for the structure—about $6 million in today’s dollars.   That same year Rose & Frank Company took over the street level retail store and the basement.    The 1916 equivalent of a Staples store, Rose & Frank sold typewriter ribbons, “paper tissues,” carbon paper and other office necessities.

Benenson’s tenant list included apparel companies like Kaplan & Weinstein, who had the entire sixth floor; Wolfberg & Co.; and Schwartz & Finkel, dealers in silk items.   Schwartz & Finkel had a close call with thieves on February 25, 1918.

Since January 1 that year silk dealers, mostly those who sold finished goods, had been plagued with break-ins and thefts.  In the less than two month period over $150,000 of silk had been stolen.    The New-York Tribune noted that “Steel doors, specially constructed shutters and burglar alarms have proved unavailing against the burglars, and the system of employing special watchmen has been abandoned as useless.”

On Saturday February 25 Detectives Fennelly, Oliver, Dowling and Hoffman, who had been assigned to work the burglaries, were made aware that four men had purchased jimmies at a local hardware store.  The cops followed them to No. 150 West 22^ndStreet.  There the thieves broke into the building and forced their way into the Schwartz & Finkel loft.  When they began loading $15,000 worth of silk into their waiting automobile, the detectives were on hand to arrest them.

Stylish coats were manufactured here in 1914 --American Cloak and Suit Review, January 1914 (copyright expired)

Although by the time of the Great Depression the Garment District was firmly entrenched above 23^rd Street, the building continued to be filled with apparel companies.   In the 1930s Blossom Products, Inc. was here, “manufacturers of ladies’ underwear,” as was the Drago Garment Company, makers of dresses.  Aggripino Drago, president, would have a major run-in with the East Thirty-fourth Street Vehicular Ferry, Inc. the summer of 1935.

The 38-year old Drago drove his car onto the ferryboat Mount Hope on the afternoon of June 21, heading to the East 34^th Street ferry slip on the Manhattan side.  Drago sat in the automobile, the first in line, ready to drive off when the boat landed and the gates were opened.   Just before docking, the boat lurched and, according to The New York Times, “Timbers creaked as the engines were reversed and the boat came to a stop.”

Drago’s car crashed through the folding gate and chain and plunged into the East River.  While onlookers screamed for help for the man, Drago managed to swim to a piling and clamber up to the dock.   The ferry boat docked, the other automobiles drove away, and Drago’s car lay on the bottom of the riverbed.

Deckhands insisted they had wedged wooden stops under Drago’s wheels.  He said they had not.  The ferry company said the boat stopped suddenly because the car drove into the river.  Drago insisted the car plunged into the water because the boat stopped short.   Because the ferry company was a private concern, “and as there was no one else in the car and no apparent injuries to Drago, the police did not raise it.”

The Times explained “Raising the car will be a matter for Drago, the ferry company and the insurance agents to work out the police decided.”   Aggirpino Drago did not show up for work that day.  Instead he went home wet, angry and carless.

As they had in 1918, suspicious police foiled another robbery attempt at the building in 1960.  An employee went to the bank at Fifth Avenue and 23^rd Street on August 26 and walked back with “a bulging envelope,” as described by The Times.  Two detectives, Russell Zacka and Daniel Santora “of the safe and loft squad” became suspicious of two men who appeared to be following him.

When the man entered No. 150 West 22^nd Street, the would-be thieves disappeared into the building behind him.  The detectives closed in. 

Before the robbers, carrying .45 caliber and .22 caliber pistols, could attack the employee, they were in a scuffle with the policemen.    As 24-year old Isaac Hicks, Jr., tried to pull his weapon, he was shot in the abdomen; his cohort Ferman Wray surrendered and confessed they had followed the man from the bank.

Miraculously, the wooden panels at street level remain intact, displaying their tiny Gothic details.

Today the ground floor, once a World War I era stationery store, is home to Geoff Howell Studio.  The visual merchandising, prop fabrication and “events décor fulfillment” firm was established around 1997 and has respectfully co-existed with the astonishingly intact ground floor details.  Although the flanking entrances have been altered and gray granite slabs have been pasted on; the retail store section is intact—including one set of Gothic Revival doors.  Overall, other than replacement windows, the delightful Gothic façade of Brown & Almiroty looks much as it did when apparel manufacturers scrambled to rent space in 1910.

Astoundingly, one set of the original Gothic Revival entrance doors survives.

 photographs taken by the author
many thanks to reader Bob Andrews for suggesting this post

The Travesty of St. Ann's Church 120 East 12th Street

LeBrun's 1870 sanctuary nestled up against the original 1847 facade, seen here before the 2005 dismemberment -- photo nyago.com

In 1870 St. Ann’s Catholic Church was the religious equivalent of a hermit crab – having successively taken over structures built by previous congregations.

The parish was formed in 1852 by Bishop Hughes in the fashionable Lower East Side – the Bond Street neighborhood – with Rev. John Murray Forbes as pastor. Forbes secured a church on East 8th Street, opposite Lafayette Place, built by an Episcopalian group and later used by Presbyterians.

“Its purchase by the Catholics gave rise to much comment," noted The Times.

By the time the Civil War had ended, St. Ann had outgrown the building and also needed to build a school. Rev. Thomas S. Preston, finding no suitable property in the immediate area, purchased the 1847 church at 120 East 12th Street. The 1914 edition of “The Catholic Church in the United States” maintains the church was built by Episcopalians while The New York Times maintained it was erected by Baptists. In either case, it was subsequently renovated into a synagogue, the Temple Emanu-El, before Preston acquired it.

The land stretched through the block to East 11th Street, allowing for the construction of a school building.

The church fathers had big plans for the structure. Saving only the 1847 façade and tower, they commissioned architect Napoleon Le Brun, who would become most remembered in New York for his elegant and fanciful firehouses, to demolish the main portion of the building and start over.

Le Brun drew up plans for what The Times pronounced would be “in the pure French Gothic style of the thirteenth century;” 166 feet long by 63 feet, 8 inches wide.

In 1914 St. Ann's sat behind a handsome fence.  The unusual open-work spire has Gothic touches -- The Catholic Church in the United States (copyright expired)

On Sunday, July 10, 1870 at 6:00 pm, the cornerstone was laid with great fanfare. A procession from the 8th Street church, headed by the 7th Regiment Band, marched to the construction site. There were 100 young girls in white dresses and veils, members of the Societies of the Blessed Virgin, the Men’s Society of the Immaculate Conception, the Young Men’s Society of St. Aloysius, acolytes, thirty clergymen, the Very Reverend Vicar-General (“dressed in a splendid cope”), and more. Inside the cornerstone was placed a box containing United States coins and currency, the names of the church leaders as well as national, state and city executives and a parchment history of the church.

Within a few months the building was completed. On New Year’s Day, 1871 St. Ann's Catholic Church was dedicated; The Times calling it “among the most beautiful and costly churches in this City.” The church, not including the land, cost a staggering $160,000. Inside, the altars and communion railings were carved marble and the gallery fronts and pews were constructed of chestnut and black walnut. Slender clustered columns rose to a soaring Gothic-groined ceiling. The church could comfortably seat 1600 worshipers with standing room for an estimated total of more than 2300.

The nave soared majestically to Gothic groining -- photo nycago.com

Along with Grace Episcopal Church on Broadway, St. Ann’s was counted among the wealthiest congregations. The famed restaurateur Lorenzo Delmonico made note of his pew rent being $575. New York historian Thomas J. Shelley wrote that “On special occasions, when Preston was the featured preacher, carriages lined East 12th Street from Second Avenue to Fifth Avenue,” and noted St. Ann’s “reputation as a bon ton parish.”

The New York Times, in 1887, credited St. Ann’s professional choir, “among the best of the Catholic churches in this city,” as adding to the church’s attraction among the wealthy. The choir, it said “has always been esteemed one of the causes which drew a fashionable congregation there.”

A handsome late Victorian organ case filled the rear wall -- photo nycago.com

That moneyed reputation may have been what urged 26 year-old Robert Meldron, “a brutal-looking fellow,” to sneak into the church on a Sunday afternoon in February 1885 and break into the poor box, stealing $27.37 in pennies and small coins. Rather than make a fast getaway, however, Meldron hid in a confessional box and was discovered by the assistant sexton at 4:00 in the morning.

The $27.37 did not cover his $1,000 bail.

In 1920 French stained glass windows were added -- up-to-date, straight-forward designs in lush primary colors.

The great treasure of St. Ann was its relic: a finger bone of the saint. After many years of possessing the bone, on December 8, 1929 a papal designation was handed down making St. Ann’s Church a shrine. Auxiliary Bishop Dunn celebrated a solemn pontifical mass inaugurating the Archconfraternity of the Motherhood of St. Ann.

Just two years later, on July 24, 1931, the New York World-Telegram reported of the miraculous cure of the young son of Hugh F. Gaffney. The boy, who lived at 348 East 18th Street, was stricken with paralysis. The bone of St. Ann was brought from the church to his hospital bed at the Medical Center Hospital where, the newspaper claimed, after being touched with the bone, the invalid was cured.

One of the surviving, 1920 French stained glass windows -- photo lonelyplanet.com

As the neighborhood changed, so did its ethnic make-up and in 1983 the church was re-established as St. Ann’s Armenian Rite Catholic Cathedral. It was one of the three last Manhattan churches to offer traditional, pre-Vatican II, Latin masses.

To the despair of the neighboring community and the parish, in 2003 the Archdiocese of New York announced it would close the church and sell the property. A year later the doors were locked for good.

Pleas went to the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission to landmark the historic structure, but the Commission balked, sealing the fate of the century-and-a-half old church.

Hudson 12th Development LLC purchased St. Ann’s for $15 million in 2005 and later that year New York University announced plans for yet another dormitory building; this one 26 stories tall.  Despite protests by concerned citizens and the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, and despite NYU’s promise to integrate community concerns into the designs, in July 2006 plans were filed and construction started on what is universally panned as an eyesore.

Referring to the controversy, Alan Bell, a principal with Hudson 12th, simply said that “the church was not landmarked and the space was fair game,” according to The Real Deal.

In an effort to console preservationists, the 1847 façade was chopped off, left to stand like a post-apocalyptic ruin. “The effect,” said the AIA Guide to New York City, “is of a majestic elk, shot and stuffed.”

Like a stage set, a thin section of the facade sits awkwardly and isolated before the new high rise -- photo by Alice Lum

The Perkins Eastman-designed dorm was opened in 2009 and has been variously described as “monstrous,” “Soviet-inspired,” and simply “ugly.” Alan Bell, himself, admitted “At the end of the day it’s a pretty innocuous 26-story building.”

In the meantime, the beautiful and notable façade of St. Ann’s Catholic Church stands in its shadow as a mute symbol of callous disregard for historic structures.

The Mansion in the Shadow -- No. 28 East 72nd Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1885 the architectural tradition of Manhattan’s great houses was changing.   William Kissam Vanderbilt’s wife, Alva, broke the tedious mold of brownstone mansions when she instructed Richard Morris Hunt to design a gleaming white limestone chateau at No. 660 Fifth Avenue, completed in 1883.

But despite the Vanderbilt vote of confidence in “Millionaire’s Row,” already wealthy Manhattanites were abandoning the neighborhood for sites uptown, away from encroaching commerce.    Among them would be the wealthy widow of Francis Waldo, the former Gertrude Rhinelander.

A stockbroker, Waldo had died in 1878 just two years after the marriage, having lost his own fortune in the Panic of 1873.   Gertrude, however, had her own millions.  Born into a venerable New York family that traced its roots in America back 200 years, she began planning a mansion just four years after her husband's death that would outdo even Alva Vanderbilt’s palace.

Gertrude chose the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and 72^ndStreet for what would be one of the largest private mansions in the city.  But she stalled.  The plot remained vacant; and in 1887 she purchased the side lot at No. 28 East 72^nd Street.

Finally, in 1894—a dozen years after planning had begun—construction started on Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo’s massive French Loire Valley chateau designed by Kimball & Thompson.  At the same time the mansion next door that would be dwarfed by its hulking big brother began rising.

Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo's massive French-style mansion stretched along Madison Avenue -- photo by Alice Lum

Gertrude traveled throughout Europe purchasing artwork, tapestries, sculptures and other decorative furnishings for her new mansion.  Packing crates were stacked in the rooms and hallways but were never opened.   The somewhat eccentric socialite lived with her sister across the street at No. 81 East 72^nd Street, directly opposite her vacant mansion.

The smaller mansion, somewhat hidden by a tree here, looked much like part of the Waldo residence -- photo by Alice Lum

Meanwhile, the smaller house at No. 28 East 72^ndStreet, too, sat empty.  The harmonious architecture blended so smoothly with the massive corner structure that it lost its own identity.  Without close inspection, it could be mistaken for an elegant service wing to the Madison Avenue house.

On May 7, 1908 a sign was nailed to the door of one of the houses, announcing that they were for sale. The New York Times reported the following day that “For more than thirteen years there have been at the southeast corner of Madison Avenue and Seventy-second Street two fine mansions which in all those years have never housed a tenant.”  The newspaper said that despite their remaining “empty and gloomy” and the dirty “from the constant beating of wind and rain,” the “houses are said to be in all material respects in good shape.”

photo by Alice Lum

Nevertheless, Gertrude Waldo did not seem over-eager to part with either house.  “The price asked is said to have been put at such a figure that buyers have not been eager to take over the property from Mrs. Waldo.”

Indeed, neither house sold.  And in the meantime, Gertrude Waldo’s millions were slipping away.  On October 17, 1910 a lis pendens to foreclose on the 72^nd Street house was filed against her.  The Times noted that “The house adjoins the famous Waldo mansion….and has never been occupied.”  Gertrude lost the empty mansion to the County Holding Company in foreclosure.

Finally on March 7, 1914, nearly two decades after the mansion was completed, The New York Times reported that “negotiations are pending for the sale of the dwelling at 28 East Seventy-second Street.”   Less than three months later, on May 27, the once-wealthy Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo died penniless—her estate was in debt of $135,329.

photo by Alice Lum

Brown Bros., builders, purchased the house under the corporate name of the 784 Sixth Avenue Company.   The contractors “rebuilt” the mansion that had stood vacant and deteriorating for so long.  The renovated building was resold in April 1922 for $85,000—about $1 million today.

The buyer was James Butler, the founder of the first American chain of grocery stores.  Butler had amassed a fortune through his James Butler Grocery Company and one-by-one he presented his four children with a house.  No. 28 East 72^nd Street went to his daughter Beatrice.

Beatrice Katherine Butler had married Dr. Daniel Phillip MacGuire in 1914.  The busy doctor not only installed his practice in the house, but acted as Associate Professor of Surgery at St. Vincent’s  Post Graduate Hospital, and served on the faculty of the Physicians and Surgeons College as well.  Like his father-in-law MacGuire had a passion for horse racing.

In 1900 James Butler had purchased the Empire City track at Yonkers and later bought interests in Laurel Park, the horse-racing track in Maryland, and another in Mexico.   He was a prominent owner of race horses.  Following his death in 1934 MacGuire became a vice-president of both the Laurel Park and Empire City tracks.

On May 22, 1951 when this photograph was taken, Dr. MacGuire was still living in the house -- photograph by Wurts Bros., from the collectino of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GH54NMB&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894&PN=1#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UP1GH54NMB&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894&PN=1

The MacGuire's son, James Butler MacGuire, grew up in the house.  Then, following Beatrice’s death, Dr. MacGuire gave up his private practice in 1951.  On June 16 of that year while he was still living in the house, the estate of Beatrice MacGuire sold the property for around $50,000.  It was purchased by Mrs. Marion Zeckendorf and Mrs. Franciska Bator who, probably not coincidentally, owned the house next door at No. 30.

Dr. MacGuire moved to Staten Island and continued to spend his summers at Saratoga Springs.  In the meantime the new owners converted the old house to apartments and a first floor art gallery.  High-end art was sold from the space throughout the 1950s and 60s.  Then in 1973 another conversion resulted in a two-story beauty parlor on the basement and first floor level, with two apartments on each floor above.

Despite the bunker-like addition that replaced the mansard roof, the skinny mansion at No. 28 East 72^nd Street survives reasonably intact.  It still plays second fiddle to the massive Waldo mansion on the corner, most often mistaken for a part of that grand structure.

photo by Alice Lum

James Renwick's Masterful 1846 Grace Church

Grace Church before the addition of Catherine Lorillard Wolfe's chantry in the south lawn -- photo NYPL Collectio

According to New York City lore, Broadway swerves sharply to the northwest at East 10^th Street because the wealthy and influential Henry Brevoort refused to have the thoroughfare demolish his orchard.

The fact that his tavern stood on the site is rarely mentioned.  But for whatever reason, that Brevoort is responsible for the dramatic turn in the road is uncontested.

By 1841 when Brevoort died the parish of Grace Church downtown at Broadway and Rector Street was rapidly growing and his land was developing into one of the most fashionable residential neighborhoods in the city.   In 1843 land was sold to the church by Henry Brevoort, Jr. and plans initiated for a new structure.

Whether  Brevoort had anything to do with his nephew being given the commission to design the church is unclear; however 23-year old James Renwick, Jr. had no actual experience as an architect.  The single job he had completed to date was a fountain downtown in Bowling Green.

Rector Thomas House Taylor had spent extensive time in Europe touring the great Gothic cathedrals and it was mostly he who influenced Renwick in his design.  Gothic Revival architecture was unheard of in New York at this time with most churches designed as Greek temples.

Grace Church was completed in 1846, three years after the cornerstone was laid, and was a masterpiece.  Although the main building was constructed of white marble quarried by inmates at the Sing Sing prison in Ossinging, New York, the steeple – high above street level and not so noticeable—was wooden to reduce expense.  

Its ideal location in the elbow of Broadway gave the structure dramatic visibility along Broadway looking uptown.  In 1891 Gustav Kobbe wrote “Hardly any building in the city occupies so advantageous a position from an architectural point of view, for it faces obliquely down Broaday, effectively ending off the vista from down town.”

As seen here in around 1890, the site at the abrupt turn of Broadway provided an advantageous setting -- photo NYPL Collection

Renwick had studied copybooks and etchings of the great cathedrals to design a remarkably perfect structure.  King’s Handbook of New York City would say of it “Few if any of the churches surpass Grace in beauty of interior design and decoration.  It is impressive and magnificent.”

The plain, wooden steeple is evident in an 1850 etching -- NYPL Collection

The year that the church was completed, construction began on Renwick’s rectory, finished in 1847.  The church sat on a broad lawn behind a cast iron fence.  “In front of the parsonage is a pretty garden,” wrote Kobbe, “with well-kept lawn, flower-beds and shrubbery, the whole forming a most picturesque break in the line of business houses.”

In 1888 Renwick was called back to design a replacement steeple, this one in marble.    He produced a lacy stone spire that magnificently complimented the original structure; although the stone came from Vermont and, upon close examination, is noticeably whiter.

Upon inspection, the difference in color of the Vermont stone is evident -- photo by Alice Lum

The congregation of Grace Church was composed of some of the wealthiest families in the city.  It was the second wealthiest Espicopal Church in New York, after Trinity.  In his 1882 “New York by Gaslight,” James D. McCabe, Jr. wrote “At the morning service a greater display of wealth and fashion is presented here than at any other city church.  Grace Church has been the scene of more fashionable weddings and funerals than any other place of worship.”

Indeed, it was considered the greatest of prestige to have either a “Grace wedding” or a “Grace funeral.”   Attending the funeral of Mary Rogers Rhinelander, for instance, were Mr. and Mrs. William, K. Vanderbilt, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Vanderbilt, Mrs. William Astor, Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Astor, Chauncey M. Depew, M. Roosevelt Schuyler, J. Pierpont Morgan among others of New York’s most socially elite.

Renwick's picturesque 1847 rectory -- Photo by Alice Lum

To prevent the common gawkers from ruining a Grace wedding, long awnings were erected from the entrance to the curb, with cloth panels extending to the ground.  These enabled the bride and the privileged guests to alight from their carriages and enter the church in privacy.  This highly-sought privacy scandalously collapsed, however, during the wedding of the Earl of Craven to Cornelia Martin in April of 1893.

“The disgraceful scenes which followed the opening of the side doors of Grace Church…was the main item of conversation of the ladies of fashion at luncheon and of the gentlemen of fashion at the clubs yesterday,” reported The New York Times.

Inside the church 1,500 refined guests witnessed the ceremony, while outside crowds gathered hoping to catch a glimpse of the affair.  The sextons prematurely unlocked the side doors and were rushed by the crowd, many of them jumping the fence and leaving “portions of their clothing on the pickets.”

“Ladies and gentlemen whose dress and bearing showed a certain amount of refinement and good breeding disregarded every rule of etiquette in their mad desire to see the inside of the church,” reported The Times.

The wealthy guest, Mrs. S. Van Rensselaer Cruger, was repulsed.  “They talked in loud, vulgar voices,” she said, “Ladies forgot the modesty of their sex in elbowing their way to the front.  Men forgot their manliness in pushing others aside, and even used the backs of the pews as a highway to reach the front, and in the crush my dress was nearly torn from me.”

But despite the spectacle of the Earl’s wedding, no nuptial at Grace Church would ever attract more attention than the 1863 wedding of General Thomas Thumb and Queen Lavinia Warren.   P.T. Barnum’s famous show attractions, whom The Times dubbed “The Loving Lilliputions,” were married before a mixed audience including the Civil War luminary Major General Burnside and “each and every strata of New York’s respectable society.”

photo by Alice Lum

Broadway between Union Square and 19^th Street was packed with onlookers and from every window and door of nearby buildings people craned their necks.   The line of carriages dropping off wedding guests continued, unbroken, for over two hours preceding the arrival of the bride and groom.  After the ceremony, hundreds of people ran after their couple’s carriage on its way to the Metropolitan Hotel.

Renwick's graceful tracery of the rose window is unusually sinuous -- photo by Alice Lum

Gustav Kobbe pointed out that “there is an idea prevalent that [the congregation] is a self-satisfied collection of worshippers, partaking of religious stimulants in commodious and elegant quarters, and not caring very much what becomes of the souls of the rest of the world.”  On the contrary, he insisted, the church was engaged in a “vast amount of arduous mission work,” supporting its own missions, a library and reading room and a nursery.

Church member Catherine Lorillard Wolfe donated the chantry and two organs “connected by electrical machinery,” in 1879 as a memorial to her father.  Adjoining it, Grace House was erected two years later.   Wolfe additionally donated the chancel window, the altar and the lofty reredos.  Then, in 1903 architects Heins and LaFarge were commissioned to extend the chancel fifteen feet.

The chancel, donated by Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, with spires matching the main building, rises behind the elegant Gothic cast iron fencing -- photo by Beyond My Ken

Upon completion of the chantry, the rector hired Gotthelf Pach to photograph it.  When the magnesia powder was ignited to take a flash picture, the resulting explosion blew out some of the stained glass windows.

Grace House connects the Rectory to the main building -- photo by Beyond My Ken

As the 20^th Century drew to a close, the iron plate that anchored the iron rod running down the center of the spire, pinning the stone together, had substantial rusting.  The result was that little-by-little the steeple began leaning until, in 1993, it was at a noticeable 6-inch tilt.

As correction of the problem began, “sugaring” of the stone was apparent – the powdering away of the surface due to weather and pollution.  Architect Robert Bates supervised a $3 million restoration that included removing and rebuilding 20 feet of the steeple, repairing the leaking roof and stone reparation.

In 2011 restoration of six complex stained glass windows was completed by Michael Padovan’s Jersey Art Stained Glass Studio.

photo by Alice Lum

Grace Church sits regally at the crook in Broadway as it did in 1846, a charming and magnificent assembly of historic buildings.  It is, as the AIA Guide to New York City called it, “One of the City’s greatest treasures.”