The 1907 Church of St. Thomas the Apostle - No. 260 West 118th Street



Photo Harlem Preservation Foundation

Harlem, just before the turn of the last century, was an up-and-coming neighborhood. Brownstone row houses, apartment buildings, and substantial middle-class homes lined the streets and avenues as developers drew residents northward.

Here, on March 17, 1889 St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church was established by Archbishop Corrigan. The Archbishop appointed Rev. John J. U. Keogan to organize the new congregation.  The priest soon hired the 29-year old architect Thomas Henry Poole to design the parish’s first structure, a small one-story church erected that same year which was, apparently, never intended to be a permanent home.

In 1904 Father John J. Keogan was still pastor and he called upon Poole again to design a much larger, much more impressive church for the growing congregation. Land was purchased on 118th Street near 8th and St. Nicholas Avenues. What came together on Poole's drafting board was astonishing, unique, and magnificent.

photo nycago.com

Dedicated on May 26, 1907, the church was without parallel. Freely melding styles like English Perpendicular Gothic, Moorish and Venetian Gothic, the architect slathered the façade with ornamentation. A spiky screen ran along the upper face of the building like a tiara, stealing attention from the colossal Gothic stained glass windows. A projecting porch with paired columns and Venetian arches spanned the width of the structure. It would be called by the AIA Guide to New York City a century later “berserk eclecticism” which is “unnameable but wonderful.”

A lacy fan-vaulted spans the organ loft -- photo nycago.com

Inside Poole continued his exquisite decoration. Gothic fan-vaulted ceilings in the over-sized space (the sanctuary stretched about one-and-a-half times longer than most), intricately carved woodwork, and priceless stained glass windows by Mayer of Munich, dazzled the worshipers. The 1914 edition of “The Catholic Church in the United States of America” boasted that “The organ, attached to which are 39 chimes of bells is very fine. The altars, of pure white marble, are in keeping the lines of the church, and are very restful to the eye.”

The ornately carved High Altar -- photo nycago.co

The main section could accommodate 1000 congregants, with seating for another 900 in the balconies.

The magnificent structure was the scene of weddings and funerals, many of them socially noteworthy. Hundreds of mourners crowded into the church in 1908 for the funeral of Justice John Henry McCarthy.

In 1920 Maurice G. St. Germain was stationed in Havre, France, working for the Guaranty Trust Company, when he met Loretta Harvey of 281 West 118th Street who was touring Europe. Two years later as he crossed the ocean on the Cunard steamship Mauretania, he sent her a radiogram asking her to marry him. A week later, on August 16, 1922 they were married at St. Thomas the Apostle.

The extension of the subway lines into Harlem, among other factors, changed the face of Harlem and by mid-century the population of the neighborhood was a rich mixture of racial and ethnic backgrounds. Unfortunately, there was also poverty and crime in the changing district. On February 15, 1955 14-year old James Mason entered a recreation center at 115th Street and 5th Avenue with two friends. The boy was shot and killed.

In the wake of the heartbreaking event the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle paid for all burial expenses and Rev. John Stewart offered a requiem mass for the boy.

Harry Belafonte’s family were members here, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was baptized here and the first black Borough President of Manhattan, Hulan E. Jack was buried from St. Thomas.

But time and the Catholic Church have little regard for historic structures.  As the 20th Century wound to a close the congregation of St. Thomas the Apostle had dwindled to about 250 parishioners and the structure itself was in need of repair. In 2000 structural repairs were estimated at around $1 million, the pipe organ no longer functioned (another half million dollars in repairs), and the roof continually leaked.

In 2003, with no advance notice, the church was closed.  By now the Archdiocese estimated restoration at $5 million and announced plans to demolish the building to make way for a senior housing project. Despite numerous pleas, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to designate the one-of-a-kind structure.

Former parishioners waged a lawsuit against the Archdiocese in 2004 as, in August, it began dismantling the intricate terra cotta spikes of the upper façade. The New York Landmarks Conservancy intervened and helped to temporarily suspend demolition.

The lawsuit was dismissed in 2005.  The son of the artist responsible for the stained glass windows wrote from Germany, pleading to keep the windows intact.  Instead, they were removed and shipped to the newly-constructed Church of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha in Lagrangeville, upstate New York.

The Church of St. Thomas the Apostle as it appeared in 2008 -- photo michaelminn.net

In the meantime, The Preservation League of New York State named St. Thomas one of the seven most important sites to preserve in 2005.  Yet despite the many advocates pleading for the salvation of the remarkable Church of St. Thomas the Apostle, it appears that only a miracle can save the architectural gem.

The 1904 Church of the Most Precious Blood

photo waatp.com

As the first half of the 19th Century drew to a close, Italian immigrants seeking new opportunities in America began settling in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Gradually, tens of thousands would come together forming what would be known as Little Italy.

Those new opportunities, however, proved more difficult to seize and families were crammed into dismal and often unsanitary tenement houses. Italian immigrants, shunned by established New Yorkers, were not permitted to worship in church sanctuaries, but were relegated to make-shift areas in the basements.

In response, the Vatican issued a decree in 1888 to establish a parish for the needs of Italians. A group of Scalabrini Fathers were given the task of founding the Most Precious Blood National Parish.

Three years later the Fathers, of the St. Charles Borromeo Society, had purchased land at 113 Baxter Street and commenced construction of the church. Architects William Schickel & Company were given the commission for the design. Bavarian-born William Schickel worked in partnership with Isaac E. Ditmars and Hugo Kafka and, beginning with the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in 1879, was responsible for many buildings for the New York Diocese. Shickel’s German background was reflected in the facades of many of these structures.

By the time the basement level was somewhat completed, however, the Fathers realized they were in over their heads.

With a debt on the property of about $100,000, the Archbishop approached the Provincial Minister of the Franciscans in 1894 .  The friars took over the parish and the construction.

In the meantime, the basement level was roofed over and services were held below ground while the necessary funds were amassed. Realizing that Saint Januarius (or San Gennaro) was important to the parishioners, many of whom were from Naples, the friars supplied the church with a relic of the saint’s 1,700-year-old dried blood.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood of the parish was crime-ridden and dangerous. The Five Points area, just south of Baxter Street, was notorious for “disorderly houses,” crime and gang activities. James D. McCabe, Jr., in his 1882 "New York by Gaslight" noted "Baxter street is another scene of misery, and, alas, of crime...It is a terrible neighborhood, and at night even the police venture into it with caution. Drunken rows, fights, and stabbing affrays are of nightly occurrence."

In July of 1898 Father Buonaventura Piscopo had had enough. The priest visited the landlords who rented rooms to “disorderly ladies” and threatened to make their names public if they did not stop the practice. The landlords knew that respectable tenants would then leave.

Italian immigrants crowd Baxter Street in 1893 during the time when parishioners worshipped in the basement of the unfinished church -- photo from author's collection

“Not only that,” the priest promised the press, “but I shall prosecute them in the courts, which I find I can do, and I have already secured a lawyer for that purpose.”

At the time the Church of the Most Precious Blood was baptizing around 2,000 Italian babies every year and there were about ten weddings every Sunday. With his growing flock, Father Piscopo was serious about stamping out the immoral atmosphere in his parish.

Almost immediately the Reverand Father received an anonymous letter warning that if he did not stop his crusade he “would meet his fate from the assassin’s knife when answering a call to some dying member of his parish on a dark night.”

The police, however, urged the priest to fight vice from the pulpit rather than on the street. While Father Piscopo raged against the “many immoral people among the Italians of the district,” Captain Albertson of the Mulberry Street Precinct felt differently. Crime and prostitution were not a problem here, he said. “The trouble we have to contend with among the Italians is that they are always killing one another.”

Indeed, that was a problem. The day before Father Piscopo revealed his death threat from the pulpit, Angelo Gabrieto had gone to the home of his former companion, Carmella Lamaa, who was now living with Antonio Corruso. After harsh words, Carmella urged her new boyfriend to attack Gabrieto with a hatchet. Gabrieto produced a knife. Both men died.

Finally, although the debt had been reduced only to $65,000, construction of the upper church began. On July 7, 1901 Archbishop Corrigan laid the cornerstone which contained U.S. and Italian coins, the names of the Archbishop, other clergymen and President William McKinley, and other documents.


photo by Alice Lum

Three years later the church was completed. The Apostolic Delegate from the Vatican, Monsignor Falconio was present at its dedication on April 17, 1904 along with visiting clergy, civic and religious societies and the Italian Rifle Guards. In 1909 Ray Stannard Baker would write about it in The American Magazine. “It is a large new church, with a lively able priest at the head of it. It is attended exclusively by Italians—the poorest people in the neighborhood, and yet that church as been built complete in fifteen years out of the pennies of poor people: and it is supported to-day by their offerings.”

photo by Church of the Most Precious Blood

Temperament of the neighborhood, unfortunately, was unchanged by the impressive new structure. One month after the dedication, as Father Bernardino Politz emerged from the confessional early in the evening, he was approached by 40-year old Giacomo Gerolmini who explained his niece, Camilla, had married Cavallero Ruggiero in a civil service a few days before. He asked the priest to arrange a church ceremony. The groom was present along with several of his family members.

Suddenly Ruggiero yelled out “That man is not the girl’s uncle as he says he is!”

When Gerolmini hollered back “What do you mean?” the 22-year old Ruggiero answered “I mean that I have been deceived and that this girl is not your niece!”

With that the uncle pulled out a pistol and shot the young groom in front of the altar, emptying the church of worshippers. Ruggiero recovered and the pair was later married in the church ceremony.

By the late 20th Century the building was suffering from water leakage and general disrepair. A complete two-year renovation was initiated in 1995. Frescos and oil paintings inside were restored, the building cleaned and the exterior cleaned and repaired.

The restored, cleaned facade gleams again -- photo by Alice Lum

Today the Little Italy neighborhood has shrunken as, over the decades, second and third generation Italian Americans have moved away. Chinatown slowly encroaches on its borders, yet Italian restaurants, stores and social clubs still abound. Here every summer the Church of the Most Precious Blood sponsors the Feast of San Gennaro. Originally a solemn holy day to remember the parish’s Patron Saint, it is now a week-long street festival, reportedly the largest religious festival in the country.