The Lost Church of the Heavenly Rest -- 551 5th Avenue

At the time of this photograph, around 1897, the clock had not yet made its appearance.  photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

On April 20, 1925, the Rev. Dr. Henry V. B. Darlington reminisced from the pulpit of the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest about its 57-year history.  “In 1868, when the Church was planted here,” he said, “the neighborhood presented a very different aspect from what you see today.  This and the adjoining blocks were for the most part unoccupied or used as cattle yards.”

Darlington was fairly accurate in his description.  When the congregation was formed in 1865, the hulking Croton Reservoir sat on the future site of the New York Public Library at 42^nd Street.  The avenue was graded and improved only up to that point.  A few houses and some buildings, most notably the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum between 51^st and 52^nd Streets, dotted the rocky landscape; and the construction of St. Patrick’s Cathedral at 50^th Street had begun.  But, indeed, the neighborhood was “for the most part unoccupied.”

The Rev. Dr. Robert Shaw founded the church along with a group of returning Union soldiers.  The name was intended to memorialize those who had died in the war.  For a few years the congregation worshiped in the Rutgers Female Institution across from the Reservoir.  Considered a “missionary church,” it was far above the established residential section of Fifth Avenue.

Land was purchased between 45^th and 46^th Streets as the site of the permanent structure.  The irregular plot was L-shaped—the main structure, originally 100 feet long and 75 feet wide and later enlarged to 150 by 95, would sit behind the building lots facing Fifth Avenue.  The Fifth Avenue exposure was the width of a high-class residential building lot at 32 feet.

Construction on the main structure, designed by Edward T. Potter, began in 1868 and was essentially completed by the beginning of 1869.  On February 7, the first services were held.  The New York Times noted, “It at present stands back upon its lot, but next year the front will be removed, and replaced by a richly ornamented façade of Dorchester stone, in line with the street, and surmounted by a figure of Jesus and two angels.”

Although the mansions of Manhattan’s millionaires were just beginning to appear above 42^nd Street, the building's appointments reflected the wealth of the congregation.  “The interior presents a most agreeable effect,” said The New York Times.  “It has no galleries.  The ceiling and immediately-adjoining sides are of ultramarine blue, supported by richly carved rafters of fawn color.  The lower walls are temporarily of a light yellow and will receive a final coloring on the enlargement of the church.  Beautiful windows of stained glass are to be found in every direction.”

The interior columns were of imported Irish marble and Aberdeen granite—alternating pale red and green.  The capitals were of carved white stone and incorporated gas jets for illumination.  Drawing inspiration from European cathedrals, Potter enhanced the chancel with a heavily carved black walnut Gothic-style baldacchino.  White marble columns with brass capitals supported its roof.

While much of the woodwork was Gothic-carved black walnut—the altar, pulpit, organ cabinet and choir seats for example—the pews were of contrasting butternut and upholstered in crimson.  Crimson carpeting ran up the aisles.  Potter’s playing of brilliant colors off the somber woodwork carried on to the organ pipes which were decorated with blue, crimson and gold.

By February 1870, the block was filling with brick and brownstone mansions.  The congregation desperately needed to complete the Fifth Avenue elevation before its church was completely lost behind houses.  The New York Times noted, “The unfortunate position of the church—setting back as it does from the avenue—and the homely temporary exterior, have also been drawbacks.  The church is not always found by those who seek for it, and those who see it from without have no idea of the exquisite beauty of its interior.”

Dr. Howland pushed to raise funds to erect the entrance vestibule to Fifth Avenue, telling the parishioners “to place their candle in a candlestick.”  The congregants responded generously.  On February 14, The New York Times noted, “The donations to the church have been unusually liberal.  Almost every beautiful thing upon which expense has been lavished has been a present.  One gift was of $3,000; another of $2,000; another of $1,800; another of $800.”  Donations had, to date, amounted to $12,000—nearly a quarter of a million dollars by today’s standards.

Later that year, in December, the church ladies did their part.  The most common method of raising money for churches and other charities at the time was the staging of a fair.  Church fairs were often elaborate affairs during which patrons could buy donated items and purchase refreshments.  The Church of the Heavenly Rest opened its fair in Lyric Hall.  “The tables are arranged in a truly harmonious and artistic manner,” reported The New York Times on December 22, 1870, “and are filled with every variety of fancy articles specially adapted for holiday presents.”

The affluent visitors to the fair were not looking for pot holders and doilies.  “The gem of the Fair is the magnificent doll, ‘La Belle Helene,’ whose endless trousseau occupies one entire table.  This doll is to be raffled for, and is expected to realize $300.”  The price of the costly toy would amount to about $5,500 today.

Within the year, the Fifth Avenue entrance had been completed and the main church extended.  Squeezed between brownstone mansions, Potter's somewhat surprising design drew on Venetian Gothic—with alternating colored stone and a false arcade—and an arched stone hood supported by columns above the entrance steps.  A steep mansard with lacy iron cresting stepped away from the style.  It was flanked at the four corners by immense statues of trumpeting angels.  

Despite its eccentric architecture, the narrow 5th Avenue portion slipped into the fabric of handsome residences.  photo from "New York Sketches" 1902 (copyright expired)

While many members lived along Fifth Avenue, others traveled some distance to worship here.  Among those were Chester A. Arthur and his wife Ellen Herndon Arthur, who lived on Lexington Avenue near Gramercy Park.  On January 10, 1880, while Arthur was attending meetings in Albany, Ellen attended a concert.  She caught a chill waiting for her carriage in the rain and within 24 hours it had developed into pneumonia.  By the time Chester Arthur reached home, Ellen was comatose.  He remained at her bedside for nearly 24 hours until the moment she slipped away, never having regained consciousness.

On January 15, in what The New York Times called an “impressive burial service,” Ellen Arthur’s funeral was held in the Church of the Heavenly Rest.  Newspapers listed a seemingly endless list of dignitaries, military and political figures and prominent persons who attended the service.

The beautiful Ellen "Nell" Arthur died before Chester Arthur became President -- photograph Library of Congress

Happier events in the church were the high-profile society marriages.  On February 7, 1884, Stanford White married Bessie Springs Smith here.  The bride was from a socially-prominent Long Island family.  In December 1888, Englishman and White Star Line executive J. Bruce Ismay was married to Florence Schieffelin.  Called by The Times the “belle of the city,” the bride wore lace and diamonds and the church was filled with “a fashionable assemblage.”

Perhaps even more socially exciting than Florence Schieffelin’s wedding was that of Sarah Phelps Stokes two years later on February 11, 1890.  The Evening World reported, “To-day New York gives another of her fair daughters to enrich and infuse new blood into the effete nobility of Europe.  Miss Sarah Phelps Stokes, after elaborate services in the Church of the Heavenly Rest, emerged at noon my lady the Baroness Halkett.”

Seventeen hundred invitations had been sent out and “the ceremony was witnessed by such a brilliant assemblage as seldom gathers even in New York,” said the newspaper.  “The church was filled to the very doors with the people of the city’s most exclusive society circles.  The floral decorations were on a scale of magnificent splendor.”  The newspaper’s sub-headline read, “A Pretty Woman and Many Millions Won by a Scion of Nobility.”

Exactly one month to the day after the elaborate society wedding, a well-dressed James Hamilton Howells Jones entered the sanctuary around 3:30 in the afternoon.  During Lent the church was open all day so people could drop in a pray.  Jones was from Pittsburgh and had been in New York about a week.

He took a seat in a pew near the altar.  The silence was broken only by a sole singer.  After a few minutes there was the noise of something falling.  “The young man had slipped from the seat partly to the floor.  A moment later he dropped wholly on the floor,” reported The Sun on March 12, 1890.  “The noise he made would have been inconsiderable anywhere else, but in the silent church it was startling.”

As the doorman and choir singer ran to Jones’s aid, others in the church rushed outside for a policeman.  “The excitement spread outside the church at once, and people ran in from the street until they were obliged to close the doors.”

A strong odor of ether surrounded the unconscious man.  As Policeman Joseph Sontheimer and a doctor from Bellevue Hospital tried to rouse Jones, a letter fell from his pocket.  The policeman slipped it into his uniform pocket.  (It was later discovered to be a suicide note.)

“Then the policeman and the doctor shook him and walked him about in the church, and poked him, and did all they could to brighten him up.  Every now and then he would stiffen himself and say something," reported The Sun.  “I came in here to die.  I wanted to die in church close to the altar,” he mumbled.

But the would-be suicide fell short of its goal.  Jones had swallowed ether, and while it caused him to pass out, it did not threaten his life.  Along with the embarrassment of failing to kill himself, Jones was charged with attempting suicide and arrested.

In 1893, the church received “some important additions,” according to The New York Times on November 24.  Most significant was the immense stained glass window in the chancel, donated by Mrs. George Lewis, Jr. in memory of Mrs. Moses Taylor.  Executed by Heaton, Butler & Bain of London it was deemed “the largest and undoubtedly the finest window in the United States,” covering 588-square-feet of glass.  By now the large painting Christus Consolator (the Consoling Christ) had been installed and the window was planned around it.

The rich coloring of the window was “toned so as to be sympathetic with the beautiful painting of the ‘Christus Consolator,’ directly over the altar,” explained The Times.  “This picture is a copy of a great masterpiece in Holland.  In this copy the coloring is changed from the original blue and red to a white and brown.  All the decoration in the church is made subservient to this picture, and this rule is observed in the design and coloring of the window.”

A magnificent new pulpit was unveiled around the same time.  A gift of Mrs. J. Hall Browning in memory of her sister, it was constructed of antique oak with six bronze panels.  “The whole is quiet and in good taste, blending harmoniously with the rich, subdued air of the church,” said The New York Times.

At the turn of the century, the once-isolated church had seen the most exclusive residential district engulf it and then move past.  In 1900 mansions still surrounded the church, yet commerce was inching northward.  Still, high society weddings and funerals were the norm here.  In 1900, the fixed rate for a wedding was $238 (nearly $7,000 today).   And while the rector, Rev. Dr. D. Parker Morgan, told a New-York Tribune reporter that there were occasions when he married poor couples for free in his mission work on the East Side, he frowned on the practice.

“But I do think,” he said, “that unless the couple can pay $2 or $5 to the clergyman and $1 or $2 to the sexton, who has come a long way to open the church, they ought not to try to marry.”

A yearly spectacle on Fifth Avenue was the annual service for Squadron A.  The cavalrymen marched up the avenue four abreast, then into the church two by two.  As the first soldiers entered, the magnificent organ burst forth with the “Squadron A March” accompanied by a military band.  It was a pageant repeated year after year.

Squadron A files into the church on May 4, 1902.  New-York Tribune May 5, 1902 (copyright expired)

In 1908, the city widened Fifth Avenue, necessitating the removal of mansion stoops and bay windows and resulting in the removal of Heavenly Rest’s portico.  Now flat-fronted, the church was even more easily overlooked.  The New-York Tribune noted a few years later, “Hidden in the heart of a Fifth Avenue block, the Church of the Heavenly Rest attracts little attention…The façade is of ecclesiastical design; but it occupies only the width of a city lot, and the street widening regulations have taken away its distinctive and distinguishing marks.

Without its portico, the building looked even less like a church.  The once-grand mansions around it have been converted to businesses.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

“The building conforms so well to its environment that the mother of a preacher who was to occupy the pulpit on a Sunday morning last year passed by and missed the service because she could not find the church.”

While Father Francis P. Duffy, pastor of Holy Cross Church, is remembered as New York’s “fighting priest,” the Rev. Herbert Shipman would be equally involved in World War I.   Appointed chaplain of West Point when he was 27 years old, he was reappointed by Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt.  When he arrived at the Church of the Heavenly Rest to take over from Rev. Dr. D. Parker Morgan, “Fifth Avenue was changing,” said the New-York Tribune.  “Fine old residences were being transformed into business buildings.  A floating population filled the nearby hotels…It was freely predicted that Dr. Morgan’s successor could not hold the parish together in its present location.”

Rev. Shipman removed his clerical garb for the uniform of the U.S. Army -- photograph the New-York Tribune March 17, 1919 (copyright expired

But Shipman did.  Then, with the outbreak of war, he was sent to France as the chaplain of the First Army.  In war he not only counseled the soldiers and prayed over their bodies; he wore the uniform of a fighting man.  When Shipman returned to the Church of the Heavenly Rest in March 1919 the “church was filled to overflowing, and, despite the narrow, unpretentious façade, it is not a small building,” reported the New-York Tribune on March 17.

Within five years the church was smothered by commercial structures.  The property was valued at $2 million in 1924 and the decision to abandon the old building was made.  Heavenly Rest merged with the Church of the Beloved Disciple and laid plans to build a $4 million edifice on Fifth Avenue at 90^th Street.

On April 19, 1925, the Rev. Dr. Henry V. B. Darlington preached the last sermon from the old church.  At 9:30 that night the doors were closed for the last time, and demolition began the following morning.  Most of the stone was shipped to Queens to rebuild St. John’s Episcopal Church in Flushing which was damaged by fire the previous November.  The large painting of Christus Consolator was removed to be installed in the new uptown edifice.

Two years late the 38-floor Fred F. French Building, designed by H. Douglas Ives and Sloan & Robertson was completed.

photo by Ian Gratton

St. John the Baptist Church -- No. 207 West 30th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Until 1840—before waves of German immigrants would cluster within the Lower East Side neighborhood that earned the nickname Little Germany—there was only one German language Roman Catholic church in Manhattan.  But a growing population of Catholic Germans on what was then deemed the upper west side (today’s Penn Station area) necessitated a second German Catholic Church.

On September 20, 1840 the small wooden St. John the Baptist Church at 125 West 30^th Street was dedicated with Rev. Zachary Kunze as its first pastor.  The parish would have a rocky start.  A church historian would later deem the trustees “overbearing” and volatile disagreements between them and Rev. Kunze came to a head four years later.

According to The Catholic Church in the United States of America in 1914, “In 1844 dissensions arising from the trustee system caused lack of prosperity as well as of harmony, and forced Father Kunze to resign, as part of his congregation following him to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, which he founded.”  St. John the Baptist Church was put under interdiction for a year until Rev. J. A. Jakop was installed as pastor. 

The change in leadership did not solve the problem and a short year later, in June 1846, the church was closed again.  Then, six months later on January 10, 1847 the church burned to the ground.  A new brick church was constructed and Father Joseph Lutz was appointed pastor.  The stubborn German members and trustees continued being difficult and just four months after his appointment, Father Lutz wrote in the parish books, “On account of the obstinacy of the parishioners this church was closed and the administration of the Sacraments prohibited." His Grace, November 24, 1851.”

A few months later Bishop Hughes tried again, appointing Rev. P. J. Matschejewski as pastor.  He lasted two weeks.

An uneasy period of stability came with the arrival of Rev. Augustine Dantner, who stayed from 1852 until his retirement in 1869.  The archbishop then closed the church for a few months, turning it over to the control of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin led by Father Bonaventure Frey.

With the church in the hands of the Capuchins, the infighting and dissention came to an end.  Almost immediately after Father Frey took the pulpit, he laid plans for a new church building nearby at 207 West 30^th Street.

Twenty-five years earlier architect Napoleon LeBrun had designed the Cathedral-Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia.  In 1864 he moved his family and business to New York City where he would be responsible for a wealth of memorable churches and civic buildings.  He now received the commission to design the new St. John the Baptist Church.

On June 11, 1871 Father Bonaventure Frey laid the cornerstone of the new church with what The New York Times called “the most imposing ceremonies."  The newspaper predicted it would be “one of the most beautiful churches in the City…The style of architecture will be pure French Gothic.”

The impressive dimensions of the church stretched 182 feet long and 63 feet wide.  Inside, the nave soared 60 feet upwards.  LeBrun chose varying shades of brownstone for the façade which The New York Times said “is designed to be elaborately decorated with fine carved work.”

photo by Alice Lum

The deep Gothic arch of the entrance porch pointed upwards, leading the eye up the dramatic mass of the steeple, rising like a crescendo to the tip 225 from the sidewalk. 

The New York Times predicted that the interiors would "be very imposing on account of the lofty proportions of the nave and clerestory," adding, "[The] post choir will be the chapel for the community, who will here assemble for their devotions, and will be fitted up with superbly carved stalls, after the manner of the old conventual establishments in Europe…The ceiling will be groined and painted blue with gold stars.  The clerestory walls will be supported upon clustered columns, and will be almost entirely filled with fine stained-glass windows.”

photo by Alice Lum

Walnut, chestnut and ash were used throughout the church, which the newspaper said “will be furnished in first-class style.”  The new church would accommodate 1,300 worshipers.  By the time of the dedication on June 23, 1872, $75,000 had been raised towards the total construction cost of $175,000—about 3 million in 2014 dollars.

Following the dedication The New York Times gave its readers a more detailed description of the interiors:

The three altars are made of white polished marble, the arches filled with a background of dark-veined marble, which contrasts favorably with the delicate carving of the lilies and other flowers faintly traced upon the white.  The altar railing is of walnut, with alternate panels of curled maple; the pulpit of carved black-walnut, the canopy being finished with a dove in the centre of a halo cut in white maple.  The floors and pews are of black-walnut and oak, the floor of the sanctuary and the altar-steps are covered with a carpet of rich Persian pattern.

photo by Alice Lum

Nearly two decades later the church was still attempting to pay off the construction debt.  Nevertheless a magnificent display attended the celebration of the golden anniversary of the parish on January 18, 1891.  “Two Archbishops, one Bishop, three Monsignors, one mitred abbot, several Capuchin Fathers, and many secular priests took part yesterday in the celebration of the golden jubilee of the establishment of the Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist, in Thirtieth street, near Seventh Avenue,” reported The Sun the following day.

A procession “headed by a band and the uniformed rifle company of the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer” marched around the block and into the church.  Inside, music was supplied by an orchestra and the organ while “a long procession of acolytes, priests, and prelates entered the sanctuary.”

After a half century of existence, St. John the Baptist remained a German-language church.  “Archbishop Katzer delivered a sermon in German,” said The Sun. 

As was often the case with public events at the time, a patriotic theme was evident.  “In the decoration of the church American flags were freely used.  From points on the tower and spire dozens of them floated, and they were grouped around the capitals of every pillar. They occupied prominent places even within the sanctuary.  Two of them waved above Archbishop Corrigan’s throne.”

That the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer had a “uniformed rifle company” to join in the procession may seem peculiar to modern readers; however rifles and churches were sometimes odd bedfellows in the 19^th century.  And so on October 14, 1895 with the women of St. John the Baptist Church opened their fair in the church hall, The Sun reported that “In the basement is a rifle range and prizes will be given to those who make the highest scores by the time the fair closes.”

The women were disappointed when Mayor Strong, who was supposed to open the fair, failed to show up.  Instead, he sent his private secretary, Job Hedges to do the honors.  Hedges diplomatically explained the Mayor’s absence to the assemblage.

“Mr. Hedges told his bearers that it was usual for the Mayor to attend only gatherings of men, and that he (Job) was usually assigned to look after the ladies,” said The Sun.  The newspaper added that “At the conclusion of his remarks a bevy of young women stormed him with appeals to take chances in various schemes.  He took a few chances in a tea set in the name of the Mayor.”

Despite the women’s efforts, the debt of the church was barely reduced.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1905 an aspiring artist lived a block away in a furnished room at 320 West 30^th Street.  Evelyn Cashman had been an actress until about three years earlier, when she devoted herself to her art and signing her watercolors Evelyn Temple.  She sold her works to small local art dealers, and also designed covers for sheet music.

The 35-year old Evelyn was married to actor Harry Cashman who was traveling with the Frawley stock company in San Francisco that February.  Although Evelyn, whom The Sun said “was of dark complexion and looked like a French woman,” was not a Roman Catholic, the newspaper reported that “she had leanings toward that faith,” and she frequently stopped into St. John the Baptist to pray.

On the morning of February 3, 1905, Evelyn Cashman entered the church just as the 8:00 mass was ending.  She slipped into the last pew, knelt and began to pray.  As the congregation filed out, Evelyn’s head fell forward over the back of the pew in front of her. 

One of the last worshipers to leave the church stopped to see if anything were the matter.  She found the kneeling Evelyn dead.  A responding ambulance surgeon diagnosed the tragedy as “probably caused by heart disease.”

An even more bazaar incident befell Hannah Moran on November 10, 1913.  Every morning at 7:00 the 50-year old seamstress knelt for her morning devotions in the church.  This morning, when her prayers were completed, she realized she could not rise.  Stricken with paralysis, “Her hope, then, was in prayer, and she continued with bowed head hour after hour,” said The New York Times.

Oddly enough, while other worshipers came and went, thinking nothing was unusual in the kneeling woman, Hannah continued to pray rather than to ask for assistance.  After 14 hours, someone finally noticed.

“It was not until 9 o’clock last evening,” reported The New York Times, “at the close of a service held in the church, that several women noticed how weak Miss Moran was, and, going over to her, found her faint for want of food.”

After food was brought to her from the rectory, an ambulance took Hannah Moran to her home at 361 West 30^th Street, just steps away from where Evelyn Cashman had lived.  The doctor reported that “It is believed that she will be able to walk again.”

The light-flooded interior of the church in 1914.  "The Catholic Church in the United States" (copyright expired)

As unnerving as the two incidents were, they were nothing compared to the terror thrust upon the congregation by Gorilla Tom Cooney on December 30, 1906.  The thug, a member of the Razor Alley Gang, left his home at 304 West 37^th Street that Sunday morning intent on killing another gang member, Bill Coyne, described by The Sun as “one of the strong arm men of the Razor Alley outfit.”

Conney went to the Tiger, “a ginmill that is patronized largely by the Razor Alley gang,” and found Coyne drinking beer “with two or three husky grafters,” said the newspaper.  Conney told Coyne “I’m a’goin’ to kill you, Bill” and shot at his target, hitting him in the leg.  Coyne played dead and Conney, thinking he had killed him and realizing a crowd was rushing towards the bar, fled towards Eighth Avenue.

“Gorilla” Cooney commandeered a street car as Policeman John O’Dea (“a young, clean cut cop with a first rate record on the force,” according to The Sun), closed in on him on foot.  Cooney held a pistol to the head of the conductor and ordered him to run the car at full speed.

When the street car was not going fast enough for Cooney, he fired a shot that whizzed past the conductor’s ear.  David Shaw, the motorman, was now so unnerved that he cut the power to the controller box and threw the brake.  Cooney shot at the conductor one more time, again missing, and leaped off the car running along 30^th Street just as services at St. John the Baptist Church were over.

Officer O’Dea and Gorilla peppered their foot chase with gunfire.  “The congregation of the Church of St. John the Baptist at 209 West Thirtieth-street was pouring out of the church doors and there was a good sized crowd on the sidewalk when Cooney burst into it, yelling like a madman. 
The company on the sidewalk scattered in a hurry, women screaming and men remembering something they had left behind in the church.”

Two parishioners, however, held their ground.  Frank Flanagan and John Costello both tried to detain the fleeing gangster.  “Cooney smashed Flanagan on the head with the butt of his gun, knocking him down, and as Costello grabbed at him Cooney hit him a crashing blow in the jaw with his fist.  Costello dropped, half senseless.”

The delay caused by the two valiant churchgoers was enough for O’Dea to catch up with the criminal.  And although the officer was nearly beaten senseless, Detective Sullivan arrived in time to take control of the situation.

It would appear that Gorilla learned that beating a patrolman in 1906 was a bad idea.  “There wasn’t much left of Cooney when the sergeant took his pedigree,” noted The Sun.

Crime of a less-violent nature visited St. John the Baptist in 1918 when Brother Anselm suspected someone was rifling the poor box.  Armed with a police whistle, Brother Anselm laid in wait for the thief in a confessional.  Peering out at the poor box, he watched as Otto Feriendo, a bartender, entered the church and attempted to rummage though the box.

The friar blew loudly on his police whistle and the bartender was quickly apprehended. The New-York Tribune reported that “Feriendo was sentenced to sixty days in the workhouse.”

By now the church had a membership of 1500 with a debt of about $44,000.  The neighborhood, once on the northern fringe of the city and inhabited by German immigrants, had become a bustling commercial area.  McKim, Mead & White’s massive Roman-inspired Pennsylvania Station had been completed at the rear of the church in 1910.  Business buildings quickly rose all around the area.

photo by Alice Lum

The beautiful Gothic church continued serving its parishioners throughout the 20^th century, as it was engulfed and eventually hidden by its soaring neighbors.  On January 10, 1997 a three-alarm fire broke out in a confessional that destroyed the organ and choir gallery with its “rich tracery arcade,” as described by The Times in 1871.  Although the damaged was repaired, the vintage pipe organ was replaced with an electric organ.

As the Great Jubilee Year of 2000 approached, a restoration of the tower was initiated with funds donated by Antonio D’Urso and his wife, Giovanna Parpo.  Sitting in the shadows of the tall office buildings around it, St. John the Baptist is easily overlooked.  The AIA Guide to New York City said of it “Lost in the Fur District is this exquisite single-spired brownstone church, a Roman Catholic midtown Trinity.  The interior, of white marble, radiates light.  Worth a special visit.”