The 1886 Church of St. Anthony of Padua -- Sullivan and Houston Streets

photo nyago.com

In 1850 there were 4,531 Italian immigrants in the United States. Ten years later the number had more than doubled. With no Italian-speaking parish in New York, Archbishop Hughes worried about the growing number of Italian Catholics with no church. An Italian priest was given the charge of establishing a small chapel on Canal Street dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua.

Cardinal John McCloskey, in 1865, entreated the group of Franciscans who had settled in upstate New York to set up an Italian parish to replace the little chapel.  Father Leo Pacillo responded, establishing the Italian national parish of St. Anthony of Padua in 1866. The parish used the former Free Congregational Church at 149-151 Sullivan Street near West Houston Street.

Ironically, its first official act was the baptism on March 23, 1866 of an Irish baby, Elizabeth Kelly.

In 1882 the land adjacent to the church, formerly occupied by a brewery, was scheduled for auction. By now the church structure was inadequate for the quickly-increasing membership and the parish desperately needed the land in order to expand. On the day of the auction, January 31, the city was hit with a major blizzard. Father Anacletus DeAngelis was the sole bidder who made it to the auction through the snow and for a bid of $53,000 purchased the property.

English-born Arthur Crook, who would design several Manhattan churches, was selected as the architect. The Italian congregation asked for a structure of which they could be proud – one on a par with the Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.   Crook created a granite faced Romanesque building reminiscent of buildings the Italians remembered from their homeland. It would be the first church constructed by an Italian community in the United States.

On June 14, 1886 Archbishop Corrigan presided over the laying of the cornerstone. Inside was a tin box holding newspapers and several gold and silver coins.

As the church slowly took shape, marble artisans in Carrara, Italy were at work on the grand altar, communion rails and pulpit. The marble work alone would cost $12,000. The contract for the stained glass windows was finalized, costing $10,000, and the new 2,400-pipe organ was being built by George Jardine & Son at a cost of $8,000.

At last. on June 10, 1888, the church was dedicated. Stretching back 150 feet, it was 75 feet wide and rose 100 feet at its highest point. Above the central of the three entrances stood a life-size figure of Saint Anthony. Dominating the main façade was a 26-foot diameter rose window. Behind the church and connected to the monastery that fronted Thompson Street, was a campanile housing three large bells; the largest, weighing 5,000 pounds was dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua; the second weighing 3,000 pounds to “Blessed Virgin Conceived Without Sin,” and the smallest at 1,500 pounds dedicated to St. Francis of Assisi.

Inside the space soared to 86 feet. There were 33 stained glass windows – 14 in the clerestory, 14 along the side aisles and five in the sanctuary. 1500 worshippers could be accommodated. The total cost of the church and monastery was $200,000. Tall cast iron columns with gilded capitals were painted to simulate veined marble. According to The New York Times, “Boldness of outline and perfection of proportion have been relied on rather than gaudy decoration.”

The life-size status of St. Anthony stands beneath the 26-foot rose window -- photo by Michelle Rick

The Italian congregation had gotten what they asked for – something to be proud of.

Throughout the decades the parish would be known for its colorful Feast of Saint Anthony. Although the feast started out rather solemnly, it evolved into a carefree, week-long street fest of Italian foods.

In 1905 The New York Times reported on the feast. “Little Italy’s dark, dismal streets, with their towering tenements, many of which shelter thirty families of astonishing size, were transformed yesterday into a riot of color and gayety in honor of the feast of St. Anthony of Padua. All work was abandoned, men, women, and children donned their holiday attire, and everybody kept open house for visitors, who came from all parts of the city and State to participate.”

The newspaper described the “pinwheel and paper flower men,” the organ grinder with his pet monkey and musicians in colorful uniforms. But the most evident was the array of food. There was “fancifully molded cheeses made of goats’ milk. Pile of tomatoes and cucumbers were on the pushcarts. They were bought and eaten as they were, and it was no uncommon sight to see an Italian child just able to toddle about gnawing away at a big green cucumber with apparent delight and relish.”

In April of 1914 two young women from St. Louis sent a small box of gold trinkets to the church “expressing the hope that they might be devoted to the honor of St. Anthony.” The following Sunday the gift was announced from the pulpit. Congregants immediately began showering the church with jewelry and precious metal items.

“Within two weeks we had 200 gifts,” remarked Father Silvione, “and in another month 500 had made donations. They were mostly gold rings, and some came from all parts of the East.”

By June the priest had had a gold reliquary, studded with gems, fashioned from the donated jewelry, which was put on view during the Feast of St. Anthony that month.

The church in 1930 as Houston Street is being widened -- photo NYPL Collection

The darkest time for St. Anthony’s occurred on November 4, 1938. On that morning the monastery caught fire and quickly spread. On young lay brother, here only one year from Italy, perished along with a cook. Priests were trapped, some jumping out windows to adjoining buildings or clinging to window ledges praying for help. Seven trapped priests were saved by firefighters.

One priest, Father Fagan, had escaped but rushed back into the blazing building to rescue Father Louis Vitale and returning again to rescue Father Bonaventure Pons. With flames surrounding him, Father Fagan jumped from a window to a roof below. He died of his burns five days later.

The Church of St. Anthony of Padua is still run by the Franciscan brothers and while its congregation is more ethnically mixed, the annual Feast of Saint Anthony goes on, memorialized in the an unforgettable scene in the movie “The Godfather.”

The Exotic 1893 First Baptist Church -- Broadway and 79th Street

photo by Jim Henderson

By the last decade of the 19th Century, the Upper West Side was rapidly developing. Roomy Queen Anne style row houses began lining the streets. Middle- and upper-middle class families, many of them members of the First Baptist Church at 39th Street and Park Avenue, flocked northward away from the congestion and expanding commercial district of residential areas around midtown.

The church, which had begun in 1745, was not only contending with a migrating flock, but with a burgeoning membership that taxed the limits of its current structure. Land was purchased in 1890 on the corner of Grand Boulevard (later to be renamed Broadway) and 79th Street and a design competition was held.

Architect George M. Keister won the commission with his exotic hybrid of Italian Romanesque and vaguely Byzantine styles.

On January 18, 1891, The New York Times reported on the winning plans. Calling it “unique in design” and “Byzantine in character,” the newspaper promised that “when completed will be one of the handsomest church edifices in New-York.”

“The church is to be built of yellow cream terra-cotta brick, trimmed with nearly white terra-cotta embellishments, on a base of Milford granite to be carried up to the first-story window sills, which will be on a broken line,” the paper said.

The roof was to be covered in plum-colored Spanish tile. Two strikingly uneven towers rose high above the main entrance. The taller one was symbolic of Christ; the smaller tower, designed to appear unfinished, was meant to represent the church whose work is unfinished until the return of the Messiah.

photo by Billy Hathorn

The interior, designed to accommodate 700 worshippers, was decorated in yellows and red browns; the woodwork painted cream with dark mahogany trimmings.  Approximately half of the ceiling was stained glass, flooding the sanctuary in soft filtered light. At its highest point, the ceiling rose 62 feet from the floor.

Adjustments to the design resulted in an Indiana limestone façade rather than the intended brick. Finished in 1893 at a cost of around $100,000 Keister sat the church on an angle, giving the building a marked visibility on Broadway.

Dr. Isaac M. Haldeman had been pastor of the church for six years before the move. His ultra-conservative and outspoken sermons were often reprinted in the newspapers and he never flinched at delivering his direct and sometimes controversial opinions.


The church in 1928 -  NYPL Collection


On May 6, 1894, a few months after dedicating the new building, Dr. Haldeman spoke from the pulpit against Women’s Suffrage. “If nature has denied woman the place of headship in the State, it has just as clearly shown her fitness for the home,” he said. “If woman is given the franchise its whole area will be flooded with unintelligence, superstition, and lawlessness, under the direction of alien forces.”

In 1910 he placed an advertisement in The New York Times denouncing the theatre as “an invention of Satan.” Haldeman later attested to never having attended a play in his life saying “They are out of my life along with dancing and card playing. All of them are worldly and do harm.”

At the age of 94 in 1930, he lashed out against liberals in the Baptist church and the “stench of modernism,” saying that “toleration” is the “most damnable” of words and a year later shocked many when he declared that the Lord’s Prayer “made him shiver with apprehension” and that it “fits another epoch.”

The colorful minister had been the face of First Baptist for 46 years when he died in 1933.

In January of 1902 the church had learned of the proposed subway station entrance only feet from the door of the building. The trustees estimated that the entrance would devalue the property by at least $150,000.

“Throngs of subway travelers,” they argued, “will pour in and out of the entrance. Crowds will congregate about the church steps, interfering with the services, littgering the pavement with rubbish, keeping the street in an unclean condition, and making the neighborhood generally unfit for religious observances.”

Dr. Haldeman threatened to abandon the building. “We seem to be in danger of another move,” he told the press.

The crisis came and went, however, and the congregation stayed on.

Early in the century repeated leaks made maintenance on the incredible stained glass ceiling financially and logistically burdensome. It was removed and the tiled roof was extended overall and in 1903 a balcony was added inside which increased the seating capacity to 1000.

Today the exotic-looking church continues, its many-faceted architecture essentially unchanged since 1893. The AIA Guide to New York City said of it “Like the life that swirls past it on this busy corner, this church's eclectic facade is restless and polyglot. Overexuberant Italian Romanesque."

The 1897 Church of the Ascension -- 107th Street off Amsterdam

photo by Alice Lum

In 1885 The New York Times noted “The west side of the city presents just now a scene of building activity such as was never before witnessed in that section, and which gives promise of the speedy disappearance of all the shanties in the neighborhood and the rapid population of this long neglected part of  New York.”

The next decade would see the flurry of development in the Upper West Side continue.  By now passengers could ride public transportation north all the way to Harlem.  Architects played with a mixture of styles, creating eccentric rowhouses adorned with stained glass, carved gargoyles, turrets or balconies.  It seemed like the burgeoning neighborhood had everything—except a Catholic church.

In response Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan established the Roman Catholic Church of the Ascension on October 27, 1895, naming as pastor Rev. Nicholas M. Reinhart.  Plans for a new church structure moved swiftly.  A perfectly square plot of land, 100 by 100 feet, was purchased midblock on 107^th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and the Boulevard (later renamed Broadway).  On February 1, 1896 The Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide announced that the church intended to build a “one-story Romanesque granite church thereon, and reported that architects Schickel & Ditmars “have been retained to draw the plans, which also include a rectory.” 

Bavarian-born William Schickel and his partner Isaac E. Ditmars were already responsible for many of the buildings of the New York Roman Catholic Diocese, beginning in 1879 with the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer.  For the Church of the Ascension, they would turn to Sicilian Romanesque for inspiration; while peppering the design with complimentary elements from other styles.

Two months later, on April 28 construction was underway when the Record and Guide announced the cost of the project would be around $60,000; or about $1.6 million today. 

By the end of June the basement had been completed and “the first tier of beams is laid,” said The Sun.  The elaborate cornerstone ceremonies were conducted on June 28 and The Sun reported the following day that “Five thousand people endured the rain yesterday to witness the laying of the corner stone of the Catholic Church of the Ascension.”  The New York Times noted that “The ceremony was performed with all the pomp that the ritual of the Catholic Church prescribes, but the occasion was rendered even more important by the presence of Archbishop M. A. Corrigan as the officiating clergyman.”

The ceremonies had begun at the Lion Park Hall, where the congregants were temporarily worshiping.  Then a march proceeded to the Home of the Little Sisters of the Poor on East 106^thStreet where a service was held in the chapel.  Then the rain-drenched participants marched to the building site where a temporary floor had been laid and “a platform decorated with flags and flowers built,” said The Sun.  According to The New York Times “The houses in the vicinity of the church and along Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues were decorated in honor of the event, and on every side was to be seen the Papal colors—yellow and white—twined with the American flag.”

More than 50 priests from the surrounding area assisted the Archbishop, whom The Times described as being “robed in the rich vestments of his office, together with a magnificent cope and jeweled mitre.”  There were altar boys and acolytes “in their bright cassocks and lace surplices, and with burning tapers.”  Twenty-six church societies were among the crowd and a band played music “that helped make the occasion more enjoyable,” opined The Times.

Two sermons were given, one in English by the Rev. Thomas Campbell; the other in German by the Rev. Jerome Henkel.  Finally Archbishop Corrigan blessed the cornerstone and the copper box was sealed within it by Rev. Reinhart who used a silver trowel.

Inside the box were United States currency “of this year’s mint,” copies of New York daily newspapers, plans of the church with a sketch of the completed structure, and a parchment document with the names of the Archbishop and various dignitaries of the archdiocese.

At the end of the ceremonies, Rev. Reinhart envisioned “to have his church finished a year hence,” said The Times, which predicted “The church will be one of the most magnificent on the upper west side.”  The newspaper got the construction facts slightly wrong saying “It will be of Romanesque type of architecture, the front being of white marble and the interior of pressed brick over a skeleton of steel.”

By the middle of December construction had advanced to the roof.  To help pay for the expensive project, the women of the church held fairs in the basement—a common fund-raising tactic throughout the city.  On December 15 just before supper time, the afternoon fair was over and at 5:00 the roofers went home.  The men placed their “furnace” filled with hot coals into the stone cupola for safety where the coals would burn themselves out.  But an hour later high winds arose and showers of sparks from the furnace eddied out of the cupola against the darkening sky.

A passerby, seeing the red embers flying from the cupola, believed the building was on fire and sent out an alarm.  Firemen arrived and anxious neighbors rushed from their homes onto the sidewalk.  The firemen used an extinguisher on the little furnace and the temporary tumult was over.

The following day The Times reported “A fair is in progress in the basement of the church, but at the time the alarm was sent out the afternoon crowd had gone home, and there were not more than a dozen ladies and gentlemen in the building.  There was some excitement in the neighborhood, but none in the church, and the fair went on as usual last night.”

As the Rev. Reinhart had predicted, the church and its abutting parish house were completed in 1897.  The medieval, rigidly-symmetrical façade was faced in rough-cut gray granite   Three recessed entrances within connecting arches were accessed by a short flight of stone steps.  Above this base a simple bracketed cornice supported the upper portion, the focal point of which was a large rose window.  The window sat on a delicate blind arcade of stone columns.  A stone corbel table, twin cone-topped towers and decorative buttresses completed the church's Southern Italian complexion.

The parish house shared the 100-foot plot -- photo by Alice Lum

The interior featured a soaring barrel-vaulted ceiling and stencil-decorated arches supported by plaster columns expertly painted to resemble marble.  Above each arch a circular stained glass window streamed light into the space.

The early congregation was composed of a mixture of nationalities and social ranks.  But a large number of the parish were German and Irish immigrants who rubbed elbows in the pews with more upscale members.  One of these was Hugh McNulty, a wholesale butcher.

McNulty was 60 years old when he entered the church on Sunday morning October 4, 1903.  He had risen early that morning, left home to attend to some business and returned around 9:00 for breakfast.  In seemingly good health, according to his family, he went to church.

In the middle of the service “the congregation was startled by a sudden groan that sounded from a pew at the rear of the church,” said The Times the following day.  A nearby doctor was called as ushers pulled McNulty to the vestibule.  When Dr. James Duffy arrived, Hugh McNulty was dead of a heart attack.

photo by Alice Lum

A year after McNulty’s tragic death in the church, all of New York City was terrorized by an epidemic of meningitis.  In 1905 it continued and already by March 18, 1905, the Health Department reported that 386 persons had succumbed to the disease that year.  That same day the New-York Tribune wrote that “Meningitis is still on the increase.  Last week the records of the Health Department show that it caused 99 deaths.”

Alarmingly, the Tribune reported “The latest well known sufferer from meningitis is the Rev. Dr. Edwin M. Sweeny, pastor of the Roman Catholic Church of the Ascension, in 107^th-st.  He has been ill for three weeks, and although his life has at times been despaired of he now is believed to stand a fair chance of recovery.”

Two days later the newspaper updated its readers, saying “It was said at his home that he was ‘holding his own,’ and was, if anything, a little better.  He is being attended by Drs. McAneny, Janesway and Booth.”  Despite the panic caused by the uncertainty of the cause of the horrific disease, officials of the Catholic Church, Monsignor Edwards, Monsignor Mooney and Father Lavelle, risked their own health by visiting the ailing priest.

Within the next year the meningitis epidemic was over and Rev. Sweeny had fully recovered.  By 1908 he was fully able to participate in the extravagant celebrations surrounding the visits to New York of Cardinal Logue, Primate of All Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh.  Three years later he oversaw the construction of the church’s four-story school on 108^th Street.

photo by Alice Lum

Of the many weddings and funerals held in the church at the time, perhaps none was more notable than that of Edward Harrigan, actor and impresario.  Born of Irish immigrant parents, he started his career as an Irish comic singer in a San Francisco saloon in 1867.  By the mid-1880s he was well known as half of the Harrigan & Hart vaudeville team.  Following their breakup, he continued on as an actor and theater owner.  In 1891 he opened his grand Harrigan’s Theatre at the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 35^thStreet, just off Herald Square.

Edward Harrigan took his last bow on stage on March 16, 1910.  Less than a year later, on June 9, 1911, his funeral was held at the Church of the Ascension.  The New York Times reported that over 1,000 mourners attended the solemn requiem high mass.  The church was filled with luminaries from the theatrical field, along with a Supreme Court Justice, former Borough President and former Police Captain and an Assemblyman.

Just before the services began, a blind man “about 70 years old and led by an aged woman” appeared at the door of the church.  The man asked permission to touch Harrigan’s coffin.  The Times recounted “He said that he had come from Yonkers, and that before he lost his sight he had seen the actor in every play he had produced.”

In a heart-warming gesture, as the pallbearers brought Harrigan’s casket up the aisle, they paused long enough for the blind man to put his hand on it.

In the first half of 1919 the country was torn by the debate over Prohibition.  Five months before enactment of the National Prohibition Act, known as the Volstead Act, Father William B. Farrell was making his stance undeniably clear.  Charles E. Hughes was a former Justice of the United States Supreme Court and had run for President in 1916.  He now had his own legal practice.  Father Farrell had no intention of someone with Hughes’ credentials swaying public opinion to the side of alcohol.

He made a formal statement to the press on Tuesday night, February 4, 1919 saying “he had been told on ‘excellent authority’ that Mr. Hughes, Elihu Root and Louise Marshall had been retained as counsel to oppose national prohibition.”

Hughes was quick to refute the priest’s charges.  “I ought to say that there is no truth in the statement that I have given an opinion to the effect that the prohibition amendment is unconstitutional.  I have given no opinion upon the subject.  There is also no trust in the report that I have been retained to assail the amendment.  I have no connection with the matter.”

photo by Alice Lum

Today the interior has been restored and, despite a few alterations like replacement entrance doors, the Church of the Ascension is little changed after over a century of serving the Upper West Side.