The 1914 Church of St. Jean Baptiste - Lexington Avenue and 76th Street

An early postcard of the magnificent new building could have been set in Italy.

The parish of Saint Jean Baptiste was founded in 1882 to serve the Yorkville ndistrict's growing French-speaking population.  The congregation soon built what The New York Times later called "the little red brick French Church of St. Jean Baptiste" on 76th Street.   In 1900 the church was chosen to house a relic of Saint Anne, formerly located in Canada.   But the modest structure was hardly proper, prompting Archbishop Michael Corrigan to comment at the inauguration of the Solemn Exposition in December that year "Evidently this church is too small and not imposing enough for the requirements of perpetual adoration."

Despite its elaborate interiors the 76th Street church (seen here in 1908) was deemed "not imposing enough."  photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Thomas Fortune Ryan was among New York's wealthiest and most philanthropic citizens.   According to church legend, he often attended mass at St. Jean Baptiste, preferring it to the more pretentious society churches.   The story goes that he arrived late for mass and was disgruntled to find standing room only.  During the announcements a plea for donations for a new structure was made.

Afterwards, unaccustomed to standing and having no intentions to do so again, he approached Father Letellier, asking how much a new church would cost.   The priest threw out a figure from the top of his head.  "$300,000.00," he said.  Ryan told him to proceed with the plans.

Land was acquired at the southeast corner of Lexington Avenue and 76th Street.   Construction began in 1911 and about a year later, on April 28, 1912, the cornerstone was laid  An orchestra played as the choir sang before a crowd of 8,000 onlookers.  Cardinal John Murphy Farley smoothed the mortar with a silver trowel and the stone was set in place.  Inside was a copper box containing a medal from Pope Pius, a copy of that morning's newspaper, and a parchment bearing the names of the Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament connected with the church. 

While some might have expected such an important architectural commission to go to one of Manhattan's more famous architectural firms, it had been awarded to Nicholas Seirracino.  Primarily a designer of ecclesiastical structures, he had just completed the Roman Catholic St. Clare's Church on West 36th Street a year earlier.

His monumental design drew inspiration from several Italian Renaissance churches.  A classical portico upheld by free-standing Corinthian columns sat above a wide staircase.  Just below and on either side of the twin bell towers stood trumpeting angels.  Completing the Renaissance design was the 172-foot tall dome.

Serracino's rendering won the Gold Medal at the International Exposition at Turin.  Real Estate Record & Builders' Guide, February 18, 1911 (copyright expired)

As construction continued, The New York Times reported on November 3, 1912, that Ryan's gift had significantly increased from the original $300,000 estimate.  "It will be one of the largest and most imposing Roman Catholic churches in America," it said, "accommodating 7,500 persons.  The cost will be about $1,000,000."  The newspaper noted that Ryan had "determined to build for the fathers a church of cathedral-like proportions and of the highest artistic beauty."  The completed Church of St. Jean Baptiste was dedicated on January 6, 1914.


The quiet devotions of worshipers were dramatically upset on the evening of November 30, 1918.   There were a few women in the church that night when two blocks away a gun-wielding man named Charles Georges ordered Dr. Richard Kovacs out of his automobile and then drove off with it.  The doctor hailed police who joined him in chasing the car.

When Georges ditched the car near the subway entrance at Lexington Avenue and 76th Street, the police began firing.  The thief shot back then rushed up the stone steps of the Church of St. Jean Baptiste.  The New York Times reported "The chase continued up the central isle and shooting went on as Georges climbed the stairs leading to the choir."  When Georges ran out of ammunition, he was subdued and arrested.

The newspaper added "After he had left with the police some of the women who had not become hysterical continued their prayers.  No one was injured."

Almost a year to the day later another disturbing incident took plate.  French-born Cecilia Simon was 33 years and worked as a maid in the home of William Geenough on East 56th Street.   She was said to be devout and attended mass every morning.

On Sunday November 23, 1919 Cecilia dropped her envelope into the collection plate.  Later when the envelopes were opened, hers did not contain cash, but a note saying she objected to certain items being placed on the altar.   She apparently kept watch, but none of her perceived offenses were corrected.

The following Saturday she left the Greenough house, telling another maid that she was "going out to do some good work; to smash some statuary."   A funeral service had just completed when Cecilia walked into the church and approached the altar.  Before anyone could stop her she "swept several costly pieces of statuary and candelabra from the altar to the floor," according to newspaper reports.  The damage amounted to about $3,000 (nearly $42,000 today).  She was arrested and taken to Bellevue Hospital for observation.


On May 29, 1921 the New-York Tribune reported stunning news.   Archbishop Patrick J. Hayes had returned from Rome, where he had petitioned the Holy See with an unlikely request--one which was granted.  At 4:00 that afternoon, said the article, St. Jean Baptiste would become a Major Basilica--the first in the United States.  As a matter of fact, it went on, only "three other churches, all of them in Rome, have been raised to the dignity of Major Basilica."

When the annual Novena to St. Ann opened on July 17, 1921 more than 5,000 persons were in attendance.  The New York Times reported that they "had the supposed relic, a bone of St. Ann, applied to their afflicted parts.  Some had only a headache, but others suffered from cancer, lameness, blindness and epilepsy."

The faithful related their miraculous stories of a year earlier.  "A boy of 8 appeared walking naturally before Father Pauzet and told him that he had been lame in one knee and had come to the shrine on crutches.  He had been instantly cured, he said.  A woman said that last year she had been cured of a growth; that all signs of this had since disappeared and now she had com again to give thanks.  Another woman said she had been instantly relieve a year ago of a bad sore throat."

With the new honor came a new altar--the costliest and second largest in the United States.  On October 30, 1921 the New-York Tribune reported that the $100,000 altar ($1.34 million in today's dollars) was set to be installed.

"The altar will be forty-seven feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, and twenty-six feet deep.  It is of Italian Renaissance design, the altar proper being approached by a flight of five steps of marble."   It was constructed in the United States by Gorham & Co., although the carvings were executed in Italy.   The central panel depicted a marble depiction of Di Vinci's "The Lord's Supper."  On either side were panels of St. Matthew and St. John. 

The massive altar was the most expensive in the U.S.  photo by James Primosh, via https://jamesprimosch.com/tag/church-of-st-jean-baptiste/

"Another base course is of Botticino marble, ornamented with mosaic panels containing ecclesiastic symbols, and the door of the Tabernacle is of bronze studded with precious and semi-precious stones.  The throne for the Monstrance is of bronze and is surmounted by adoring angels."  Above the altar rose the baldachino, supported by 12 red marble columns.  Mosaics of saints decorated the interior, and the canopy over the altar was made of velvet and ermine.

Over the years the magnificent church was the scene of elaborate funerals and fashionable weddings, but one of the most memorable and subdued was that of Thomas Fortune Ryan on November 26, 1928.  The tycoon had left an estate estimated at around $300 million, but he requested the simplest service that the church could perform.  The Times reported "A single priest officiated.  There was no eulogy, no honorary pallbearers, no flowers, except for a handful of red roses on the candlelit altar."

Millionaires and commoners crowded the church for Thomas Ryan's funeral.  photo from the collection of the Library of Congress

The church was packed--from titans of industry to servants from the Ryan household.  Among the mourners were J. P. Morgan, Otto H. Kahn, Charles M. Schwab, Elihu Root, Bernard Baruch, and Clarence H. Mackay.  There were politicians, like Senator Royal S. Copeland and James W. Gerard, former Ambassador to Germany.  Yet the entire service lasted only 25 minutes.

The congregation that had been formed to serve French speaking immigrants, most from Canada, had changed.   By the time of Ryan's funeral the membership included society leaders like Helena Woolworth McCann, the wife of millionaire attorney Charles E. F. McCann and daughter of Frank W. Woolworth.  Her funeral on March 18, 1938, was much less muted than Ryan's had been.  A solemn high mass of requiem was celebrated and floral tributes included two 8-foot crosses composed of lilies.

Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman presided at the pontifical mass to celebrate the Church of St. Jean Baptiste's 75th anniversary on October 27, 1957.  The service included several monsignors and two auxiliary bishops.   The New York Times reminded its readers of the stark differences that had occurred since the church's beginnings.  "The parish's first mass was said above a still-existing stable at 202 East Seventy-seventh Street on Washington's Birthday in 1882."

It was not only the parish, but the neighborhood which had changed.  Following Vatican II masses in French were discontinued.  By now the rowhouses of Lexington Avenue had been replaced by the sprawling Lenox Hill Hospital complex or converted to shops and apartments.  It remained, nonetheless, an upscale neighborhood.  So it was surprising when a worshiper was attacked within the church on October 28, 1970.

Anna King, a 63-year old widow, attended mass every morning.   That day she visited the St. Anne Shrine in the lower chapel just after 8:30.  As she made her way back up the spiral staircase to the church proper, she was attacked by three teens who tried to wrest her purse from her.   She steadfastly refused to let go of the purse and the youths fled, but not before stabbing her four times in the back.

In 1989, after limestone chunks fell to the Lexington Avenue sidewalk, a $6 million restoration was initiated headed by the architectural firm of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates.  The magnificent building was designated a landmark in 1969 by the recently-formed Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The 1903 Art Nouveau "New Amsterdam" Theatre

In the first days of the 20th Century New York architects were recreating Roman temples, Renaissance palazzos and Romanesque castles. At the same time Paris turned its back on the past and embraced the innovative Art Nouveau style introduced at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Sinuous Metro station entrances and floral apartment buildings and retail stores seemed to sprout from the pavement like vines.


New York architectural critic Charles De Kay described Art Nouveau design as “…the senseless curves which mar a good deal of the work embraced nowadays under that somewhat misleading title. Nine-tenths of the art nouveau we see in Europe emanates from men and women who mistake haphazard fantasticality for imagination. Their products have neither rhyme nor reason, confuse the mind, and add no real beauty to an object, while often they injure its usefulness. Spindling, swirling supports that do not support anything, grotesque decorations that have no meaning where they are applied, architecture treated like a piece of jewelry merely signify the artisan who seizes on a new movement without understanding it and tries to be in the fashion at any cost.”

Architects Henry B. Herts and Hugh Tallant thought differently.

When Abraham Erlanger and Marc Klaw chose 42nd Street for a new theatre in 1902 as the entertainment district moved uptown from 23rd Street, they commissioned Herts and Tallant to design it. What the architects produced was like nothing seen before in the country.



photo NYPL Collection


The deceptively narrow façade disguised the wide auditorium to the rear extending to 41st Street. The front elevation was a Beaux-Arts explosion splashed with Art Nouveau touches. The ornate sculpted arch over the entrance was a matter of legal bickering for months in 1903.  The arch would project four feet over the building line, a violation of code. The mayor chimed in saying “…if we are to have a beautiful city, we have got to allow ornamentation beyond the building line…Now, limit the style of ornamentation, and the extent to which it may project, and, instead of a beautiful city we will have a city as ugly as can be imagined.”

Eventually the mayor and the theatre owners got their way and the installation of the remarkable arch proceeded. Sculptor George Gray Barnard perched a grouping of Drama, Pierrot, Cupid, a Knight and a Lady, surrounded by wreathed flowers, scrolls and garlands. The arch was supported by columns of yellow marble with bronze capitals.

None of the lavish façade ornamentation, however, could prepare the visitor for visual impact of the interior. Designed by Richard Anderson it was the first example of Art Nouveau in the country. A floral motif in “silvery green,” mauve, lilac, pink, red and gold bombarded the theater goer with slinky ornamentation. Charles De Kay, who had held low esteem for Art Nouveau, praised the design. “To enter here is to get a horror of the red plush effects that still linger at the opera and in many a theatre,” he said. “The line of the proscenium arch is accompanied by a chain of conventionalized peacocks modeled in relief by St. John Issing, a decorative motif repeated in the ceiling and elsewhere.”

Herts and Tallant used an innovative cantilever construction that allowed the balconies to hang over the main floor with no visible means of support – giving unobstructed views from all seats in the house.

The pod-like boxes on either side of the stage, also designed by Issing, were each given a separate flower motif such as lily, buttercup, violet, and goldenrod. In the lobby, beneath an art glass dome, was a fireplace of Irish marble and Caen stone, two murals by George Peixotto of “Inspiration” and “Creation,” marble wall fountains with brilliant mosaics, and bronze busts of dramatists.

The men’s lounge, “The Amsterdam Room,” was decorated with a continuous mural by Edward Simmons, George Peixotto and R. W. Finn depicting the history of New York. Masculine oak and leather furniture rested on a terra-cotta tiled floor. The ladies’ lounge was outfitted in satinwood furniture under a ceiling fresco depicting classical figures.

De Kay admitted, “…one cannot refrain from praise to the firm, Messrs Klaw & Erlanger, that sought for our sculptors and painters, our terra cotta workers and carvers, our tapestry makers and embroiderers, mosaicists and modelers, in order to perfect a theatre by the hands of American artists. They have set an example which will be followed. And for having set it so well they deserve the thanks of the community.”

James Traub in his “The Devil’s Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square” said “The sinuous line and stripped-down ornamentation of art nouveau was the very look of modernity for the forward-thinking aesthetes of the early years of the century, and the New Amsterdam was considered a building of the first importance—a building that might well 'mark an epoch in the history of art,' as one penetrating if breathless account put it. This was also, of course, an era of opulence and show, and the New Amsterdam was intended to dazzle even the most blasé theater-goer."

The architects stressed while designing the building that they wanted to elicit the magic quality of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Appropriately, the opening play on October 25, 1902 was, indeed, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

An architecture critic present on opening night called it “the most airy, fairy beautiful thing in the way of a playhouse that the New York public has ever seen.”  On the roof a second, enclosed theatre offered entertainment in the summer months.

The road ahead for the theater would not always be smooth.

A complaint by the Health Board nearly closed the theatre on March 21, 1907, when police stopped ticket sales. Curtains that had been hung over the exit doors as decoration were deemed a fire hazard by the Board. Joseph Brooks, one of the owners, called the action “uncalled for.” “They closed us up tight and turned away hundreds of persons…There’s not the slightest doubt that there’s something back of the whole thing, but I don’t know what it is.” Whatever “it” was, the theatre was back in operation a day later after removing the curtains.

In 1908 The New Amsterdam was enjoying a smash hit with The Merry Widow. To celebrate the 275th performance, the management announced it would give away “Merry Widow hats” as souvenirs to all the women in orchestra and balcony seats during the matinee. Between the second and third acts, however, the women rioted when a rumor broke out that hats were being given away early.


“There was a small stampede,” reported The New York Times, “a mere hint of what was to follow…One woman, jammed tight against the one table that still stood in place, tackled the woman next to her with a vim that would have done credit to the world’s champion female wrestler. Then the battle was on in earnest. The older women did themselves credit. The remarks which some of them exchanged and the ardor with which they threw themselves into the melee made their daughters look like the veriest molly-coddles.”

The skirmish lasted for about thirty minutes. “At 5:30 o’clock,” said The Times, “only the debris and the memory of the struggle remained.”

The worst problem came in 1930 when the play “Vanities” was raided by police and nine of the cast members were arrested for “giving an indecent performance.” The theatre was reopened when the scene that the police censors found objectionable was removed.

photo 3Dmovingpictures.com

Between the hat riot and the police raid, Florenz Ziegfeld moved his famous Follies from the Moulin Rouge. The Follies presented an annual review at The New Amsterdam until 1927 when Ziegfeld opened his own Ziegfeld Theatre. Through the Follies The New Amsterdam hosted stars like Bert Williams, Fanny Brice, Will Rogers, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor and Marion Davies.

The Great Depression hit the theatre district hard. At the beginning of 1931, Variety reported that 31 theatres had closed. The rooftop theatre became NBC Times Square Studio, a radio studio and feature film studio.

Despite its valiant struggles, the theatre was unable to keep afloat. On May 7, 1936 the Dry Dock Savings Institution foreclosed citing $1.6 million inpaid interest and taxes. Max Cohen purchased The New Amsterdam for $500,000 to convert the theatre to a movie house.  The elaborate Beaux Arts entrance arch was stripped off to accomodate a sleek Art Deco neon sign.  The movie theatre opened in 1937 ironically screening A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The rooftop theatre became the NBC Times Square Television Theatre in 1951; but as 42nd Street degraded, so did the New Amsterdam. In the early 1980s the once-magnificent theatre was boarded shut. Although the Nederlanders bought the building for $5 million in 1982, a string of problems prevented its renovation. The theatre sat abandoned for a decade while its lavish interiors deteriorated.

Finally New York City and State pushed for the resurrection of the 42nd Street Theatre District. The 42nd Street Development Project took over the building in 1992 for $247,000. The architectural firm of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, known for rejuvenating historic properties, was hired to stabilize the theatre. Water was pumped from the basement, the spread of mold and loss of decorative plasterwork was halted, and the building was ridded of vermin and vagrants.

In 1995 the Walt Disney Company formed the New Amsterdam Development Corporation to renovate the building as a live theatre venue once again, using partial financing from tax incentives offered by the National Park Service. The renovation, lasting a year and a half, cost $36 million.

The New Amsterdam officially reopened as a live theatre on April 2, 1997 with a concert staging of King David, followed later that year by the long-running stage version of The Lion King.

Today the sumptuous façade of The New Amsterdam is gone. However, to enter the theatre is to step back to 1903. The sinuous, entwining designs are fresh and renewed. One of the greatest Art Nouveau interiors in the country -- and a true rarity in New York City -- has been salvaged from nearly inevitable destruction.