The 1913 Synod Hall - Amsterdam Avenue and 110th Street

After the grounds of the former Leake & Watts Orphan Asylum were purchased by the Episcopal Church as the site of its planned cathedral, the asylum building took on the duties of Synod Hall--the meeting place of the Episcopal General Convention.  But in 1911 J. Pierpont Morgan, for years the chairman of the Committee on Place of Meeting, and William Bayard Cutting, a New York Deputy of the group, agreed that a permanent, proper hall should be built and that they would build it.

The northeast corner of Amsterdam Avenue and 110th Street was selected.  The new Synod Hall would be the only building in the complex other than the cathedral to face Amsterdam Avenue.  On November 29, 1911 The New York Times noted that the trustees of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine had ordered work to begin the following week on the $300,000 structure, the cost of which Morgan and Cutting had agreed to split.  (Each of their contributions would equal a little more than $4 million today.)

The article noted "The architecture will be that of the cathedral as changed by the new architects."  Ralph Adams Cram of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson had recently been appointed "consulting architect" and had changed the cathedral plans from Romanesque to Gothic.  The new Synod Hall would follow suit.

The plan was to have the hall completed in time for the next Episcopal General Convention, in October 1913.  The Sun explained that when the convention was not in session the structure would be used "for religious meetings of all kinds."  The general meeting hall would seat 1,200 persons and there would be a large banquet chamber for other gatherings, and a series of smaller committee rooms.  

Construction progressed according to schedule and on July 26, 1913 The Sun reported that it was nearly finished.  "Only the installation of the organ, the placing of the speakers' platform and the filling in of the seats remain to be attended to," it said.  "The new hall is Gothic within and without."  Over the main door were figures of five religious and historic figures, including Charlemagne, Constantine, Alfred the Great, Gustavus Adolphus and, perhaps a bit surprisingly, George Washington.

George Washington took center stage between the doors and directly below the figure of Christ.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

The newspaper noted it was built of "a new West Virginia sandstone, gray with pink tinges, which will mellow beautifully with age.  This is the first structure for which this particular stone has ever been used."  The stained glass windows were imported from England.

The building was dedicated on October 7, 1913 with Bishop David H. Greer officiating.  Notably missing from the ceremony were its donors.  William Bayard Cutting had died on March 1, 1912, and J. P. Morgan on March 31, 1913.  Greer called the building "a splendid memorial" to the men.  The New-York Tribune wrote "Mr. Cram's design has the right artistic salience and charm.  Perfectly adjusted to its surroundings, it also possesses a character and a beauty of its own."

Behind the newly-completed hall can be seen the rising Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York 

Inside, the main meeting hall featured an open-beamed ceiling with colorful stenciling and two massive hanging candelabra.  The Tribune opined "Between the dark and discreetly carved panelling of the main floor and the galleries and the stately, yet somehow very friendly, roof the bare stone walls strike a weighty note, the piers and windows which break them serving to lighten their austerity, without disturbing their essential character."  The critic summed it up saying "It is a fine monument, of importance to the Church and to American architecture."

A massive chandelier hangs before the organ loft.  Convention delegates sat in theater-type chairs. The American Architect, December 17, 1913 (copyright expired)  

Not every critic was as accepting of Cram's design.  In its January 1914 issue, The Architectural Review insisted that "modern architecture should strive to reveal the modernity of a building's construction by expressing a modern point of view in its design rather than literally reproducing architectural forms from which vitality has departed."  It called Cram's exterior design "cold repression" and said the hall itself "partakes of the same bare coldness; although the organ-case and the balcony-rail are modern--and English--in type."

The conventions within Synod Hall dealt with weighty matters of the Church.  In its first sessions the delegates so disagreed upon various issues that on October 14, 1913 The Evening World began its article saying "There was every prospect to-day that the session of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Synod Hall...would even more resemble a Republican national convention with Bull Moose trimmings than did the proceedings of yesterday."  The delegates grappled with the proposal to merge with the Church of England, the issue of intermarriage between Blacks and whites, and whether or not to have a "presiding bishop," or in effect a pope, over the Episcopal Church.

In the fall of 1918 The Most Rev. Meletios Metaxakis, Metroplitan of Athens and the primate of the Orthodox Greek Church came to New York.  On the afternoon of October 6 he was the principal speaker at a special service in the cathedral and the following evening he was guest of honor at a dinner in the banquet room of Synod Hall.

A special convention to elect a bishop was called for September 17, 1919 following the death of Bishop David Greer.  The Evening World noted that "If every clergyman and layman who has a right to vote is present, the convention will number 819."  That posed a problem.  Although Synod Hall could accommodate 1,200 persons, 500 of those would necessarily be in the gallery.  That, said the article, would resulting "great confusion in the casting of ballots."  Therefore the cathedral proper was used for the convention at which William T. Manning, rector of Trinity Church, was elected.

Manning was installed on May 11, 1921 in the cathedral.  The New York Herald anticipated it would be "the most impressive ceremony of the kind ever witnessed in New York."  The outspoken and decisive Bishop Manning got straight to work.  The article noted that later that day he would be addressing the session of the diocesan convention in Synod Hall with his "declaration of policy."

On August 7, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt endorsed a program to scrap metal from public buildings and other locations for the war effort.  Bronze statues were melted down, copper trimming from the roofs of vintage buildings was removed, and other materials were pried loose to be remade into military implements.  On September 13 The New York Times reported that Bishop Manning had joined the cause by donating five tons of metal from the cathedral complex.  "The antique side rails from the steps of Synod Hall, more than 100 years old...were stripped away for scrap."

Bishop Manning looks on as workmen remove the vintage railings.  The New York Times, September 13, 1942

By now Synod Hall held the diocesan offices and exhibit space.  As the century progressed it was used as a concert space was well.  Admission went toward cathedral efforts like its homeless outreach program.  The main hall and the banquet room were available for rental by 1984.  An evening's rent for the hall that at the time was $1,250 (nearly three times that much in today's money).

Despite standing in the shadow of the magnificent Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ralph Adams Cram's Synod Hall holds its own; a striking example of Gothic Revival architecture.

photographs by the author

St. James' Episcopal Church -- 865 Madison Avenue

photo by Alice Lum

Following the Revolutionary War, the summer estates of Manhattan’s wealthy citizens on the northern reaches of the island were reopened as a sort of normality returned.   Small churches were erected to serve the seasonal communities, among them St. James’ Church on Hamilton Square at 69^th Street and Lexington Avenue.

What would become Lexington Avenue is unpaved and muddy -- print from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Paid for by Trinity Church and built in 1809 through 1810, the clapboard chapel served the residents with properties along the East River.   Its rector rushed between services here and at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, a similar wood-frame country church on the opposite side of the island, using the Harsenville Road (what is essentially now 71^st Street).

Within a decade several of the wealthy parishioners made the area their full-time residence.  The little church was opened year-round in the 1820s.  While the neighborhood remained rural for some time (in 1837 the city was renting much of the land as pasture); the city was moving closer.

During the Civil War Hamilton Square was used as a parade ground and in 1867 the city reduced its size to accommodate development.  Two years later, it eliminated the park altogether.   Despite the war raging to the south, development continued.  Engineers leveled Lenox Hill, laying out the cross streets and extending Lexington Avenue northward—necessitating the demolition of St. James’.

Now a heated discussion arose concerning a new building.  The neighborhood, known as Yorkville, had been filling with immigrants fleeing the overcrowded and unsanitary Lower East Side.  The rector pushed for rebuilding near the old site in order to serve this needy community.  The church trustees, however, preferred to retain the congregation’s upper-class tradition and move closer to the new mansions rising along Madison and Fifth Avenues.

Land was procured on East 72^nd Street and in 1869 the new church was dedicated.  The wealth of the congregation is evident in their choice of architects.  James Renwick, Jr. was responsible for the masterful Gothic Revival Grace Church, completed in 1846, and his monumental St. Patrick’s Cathedral was rising on Fifth Avenue when he was approached to design the new St. James’.    Renwick’s design would be less historically pure than the former two churches; its updated Victorian Gothic façade more charming than majestic.

But the Renwick church would not suffice for long.  Development of the Upper East Side boomed during the last quarter of the century and in 1884 construction began on a larger structure at the corner of Madison Avenue and 71^st Street.  Once again the parish had turned to one of the leading architects of the time—R. H. Robertson.

Horse-drawn street cars go north and south near the Robertson-designed St. James' with its never-completed, stubby corner tower -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Robertson embraced the newly-popular Romanesque Revival style, developing his own take with rough-cut stone and contrasting materials.   For the new St. James’ Episcopal Church he played all his cards.  Brownstone, granite, terra cotta and tiled shingles melded together to form connected, arched windows, towers and arcades.  Robertson turned the building around, putting the entrance down the block rather than on Madison Avenue as would be expected.  Now there was no chance that the glorious windows of the chancel would be blacked out by tall construction next door.

The new building was completed in 1885 and services began with a rather stumpy corner tower still uncompleted.  It never would be.

Robertson's church and parsonage were a delicious feast of materials, textures and shapes -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Unlike the Gothic Revival style favored by Renwick that became nearly synonymous with ecclesiastical architecture, the Romanesque Revival style faded.  By the 1920s Robertson’s robust design was not yet historical, it was merely old-fashioned.  Perhaps no architect of the day was more well-known for his Gothic designs than Ralph Adams Cram.

In 1924 Cram was the Supervising Architect of Princeton University where his Collegiate Gothic buildings had been going up since 1907.  He had received the commission for the gigantic Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1911 and was responsible, with Bertram Goodhue, for Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue.  He was now approached by St. James’ to remodel the outdated church.

Cram removed Robertson’s towers and round arches and completely reoriented the sanctuary.   The three entrances openings were positioned on Madison Avenue, affording a grander entry.  Above the central entrance door a large, lacy rose window burst forth.  Robertson’s squat corner tower remained; but now with a more complete-looking Gothic belfry added by Cram in 1926. 

The earlier church was unrecognizable after Cram's redesign.  In 1926 the newly-added belfry is evident in the contrasting color and texture of the stone -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Inside the architect embellished the space with exposed polished beams supporting the ceiling, a gilded reredos and soaring stone arches.

Cram designed the breathtaking gilded reredos -- photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Structural problems with the Gothic tower appeared in the 1940s, necessitating its removal.  Architect Richard Kimball was commissioned to design a replacement which was completed in 1950.  By current tastes, the mid-century addition is, at best, incongruous.  The modernistic steeple has been dubbed “the tin can.”

photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Considering St. James’ somewhat haughty history, its outreach to the homeless in the 1980s might have seemed ironic.   In 1981 the Rev. William E. Smyth became alarmed at the increasing number of homeless bedding down on church doorsteps, including his.   He helped form the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter with the support of other churches, synagogues and other institutions.  The coalition worked to find shelter for those truly in need.

Somewhat affectionately called the "tin can," Kimball's steeple marches to its own music -- photo by Alice Lum

The church opened a soup kitchen around the same time, offering meals to the homeless.  Well-dressed residents of the neighborhood would often see a line of up to 60 indigent men waiting patiently for a hot lunch.

A restoration of St. James’ was initiated in 1999 by architect Lee Harris Pomeroy.  Now half a century old, the anomalous Kimball steeple had become a familiar if quirky part of the architecture.  Rev. Brenda G. Husson reportedly explained “We all know it doesn’t fit architecturally, but it’s our steeple.”

photo by Alice Lum

St. Thomas Church -- Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street

Photo NYPL Collection

Shortly after 6:00 on the morning of August 8, 1905 the housekeeper of the rectory of St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, Mrs. Sandsbach, discovered a fire raging in the sanctuary of the church. Mrs. Sandsbach ran screaming into the street, alerting policeman Thomas Hewitt who pulled the handle of a nearby firebox.


By 8:00 the Richard Upjohn-designed church, the third building for the congregation, was a smoking ruin. Destroyed were the interiors by John LaFarge, including two important paintings, and sculptures by St. Gaudens.

Within 24 hours plans for a new church were being discussed. In the next day’s New York Times the rector, Reverend Dr. Ernest M. Stires, reported “Well, the people of New York may be quite sure that the congregation of St. Thomas will put up a church worthy in every way of the city and the site. I think I may say it will all be Gothic, and that no pains will be spared to make it of the purest architecture, for, to my mind, there is no style so fitting for divine worship.”

St. Thomas Church was perhaps the wealthiest congregation in the country, sitting on 5th Avenue at 53rd Street among the palatial mansions of New York’s elite like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. “One parishioner has already offered $50,000 toward the necessary expenses,” said Stires.

The new church would have risen quickly, given the amount of money donated by the moneyed members; however when in 1906 the San Francisco Earthquake devastated that city Reverand Stires sent the entire building fund to California to assist the victims. Fund-raising had to be started anew.

The congregation met in a temporary wooden structure on the site for five years before construction started on their new edifice. Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, principals in the firm Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson and both esteemed ecclesiastic architects, were given the commission. Their French High Gothic church would rival St. Patrick’s Cathedral a few blocks to the south.

In 1908 The New York Times exclaimed “The new St. Thomas Episcopal Church to be built at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-third Street, to replace the edifice burned two years ago, will outclass in cost and appearance any single Protestant Church in America, that is designed for parish and not cathedral uses…The new church will cost from $800,000 to $1,000,000.”

“The new church…will resemble Westminster Abbey in some particulars,” it said.

Ralph Adams Cram explained “Our prime intention is the construction of a parish church which in its design, its construction, and its decoration should represent, so far as we are able to produce this result, a model of ecclesiastical architecture conceived in the great spirit of the Middle Ages…” He added “Just because of this high ideal, St. Thomas’s Church will be, in all probability, the most expensive church per square foot built thus far in the United States.”

Goodhue and Adams insisted that no steel be used in the construction of the building, using only stone as in their medieval models. The stone was quarried in Kentucky, the interior being made of a “warm golden sandstone” and the exterior “a silvery limestone.” Guastavino tiles would be used for the high vault.

The cornerstone was laid in 1910, sitting squarely atop the two former cornerstones. Construction was not without problems, however. The millionaires’ mansions around the site were shaken daily by dynamite blasts as the foundation was prepared. On September 7, a particularly severe blast sent showers of rocks onto the roofs and conservatories of the houses nearby; one boulder piercing the roof of William A. Kissam’s residence.

“A shower of stones, some as big as paving blocks, fell on some of the best houses in the neighborhood,” reported The New York Times.

The stone that pierced Kissam’s roof “frightened Mrs. Kate Scully, the caretaker, almost out of her wits,” the paper said. “She ran to the street, thinking that the house had been blown up, and continued her dash down the avenue…”

photo by Eric Hunt

The church was completed in 1913 and despite Reverend Stires’ protest that “I wish to especially emphasize the fact that the new church has been planned without any attempt at display,” its proportions were cathedral-like, the nave soaring upwards 95 feet. Visually staggering was the magnificent 80-foot high carved stone reredos, one of the largest in the world, pierced to expose Chartes-like stained glass windows high above the altar.

The breath-taking windows were designed by the English stained glass artist, James Humphries Hogan.

Outside, the bell tower rises 15 stories. The triple-arched entrance way, the immense central rose window and the sumptuous, overall carvings and Gothic ornamentation immediately cast St. Thomas Church as one of the foremost architectural treasures on the Avenue and in New York in general.

In 2007 a painstaking $20 million, 3-year restoration of the windows was initiated. The windows were, one-by-one, dismantled and each of the 9 million small pieces of glass was hand-cleaned and replaced.

St. Thomas's Church survives on a much-change Fifth Avenue.  Gone are the brownstone mansions of 1911, replaced by glass and steel skyscrapers.  The sumptuous beauty of the edifice, however, remains.

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Byzantium on Park Avenue - Christ Church

Timing is everything.  And if the leaders of Christ Church, Methodist Episcopal did not know that in September of 1929, they found out very quickly.

In the early 20s, the congregation, originally called the Madison Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church was rapidly outgrowing its Romanesque 1882 R. H. Robertson-designed structure on Madison and 60th Street.  A plot was purchased one block away on the northwest corner of Park Avenue and 60th Street in 1929.  The title was signed in September -- exactly one month before the Stock Market crash and the onset of the Great Depression.

Using the funds from the sale of the former church and land, plans went on.  The church, now officially renamed Christ Church, Methodist Episcopal, of New York City retained architect Ralph Adams Cram --reknowned for his ecclesiastical and collegiate buildings -- to design the new structure.  Having just finished a 22-year position as Supervising Architect of Princeton University, Cram had earned his reputation with such commission as The Cathedral of St. John the Divine and 5th Avenue's St. Thomas Church.

While Cram was highly recognized as a master of Gothic design, he chose a combination of Romanesque and Byzantine styles for the Park Avenue church.  Protestants, he explained, were "adverse to Medieval Catholicism both by inheritance and doctrine."

Anything but light and airy, Cram's building -- at once sophisticated and rough -- combined brick and stone, pillars and arches to create the illusion of a venerable, centuries-old structure.  Its solid mass is softened by the deep 60th Street arches and the pillared gallery of the top-most level.

Cram's plans included a sanctuary seating 800 congregants, a chapel that could accomodate 110 and a parish hall large enough to hold 250.  Included in the complex was a parish house incorporating a gymnasium, clubrooms, a men's lounge and women's parlors.  The nave and chapel were dedicated November 26, 1933 however the Depression finally took its toll.  Funds ran out and no interior work could be done.  Unadorned grey concrete walls would surround the congregation for years.

Timing is everything.  Just as the Great Depression started to ease it's grip, World War II broke out in Europe and two years later in 1941 the United States was drawn in with the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The resulting shortages in materials prevented any interior work being done on Christ Church until 1948.

Finally in the summer of 1949 the breath-taking sanctuary was complete.  Drawing on the Byzantine mood of the architecture the interior was encrusted with over 7 million Venetian mosaic tiles covering 14,000 square feet.  Thirty-four separate types of marble were used.  The generous use of gold tiles is visually staggering.  There is not a new visitor who enters the sanctuary without gasping in awe.

The Episcopal roots of the church are evident in several physical aspects.  A decorated choir screen hides the choir from the congregation -- unheard of in Methodist tradition.  Behind the altar are 16th Century icons from the collection of Czar Nicholas II; flanking the choir screen are a pair of 17th Century doors removed from a Russian Orthodox cathedral; and filling the half-dome above the altar, rather than the expected Methodist cross, is a majestic seated figure of Christ.

Interior photographs via Christ Church United Methodist

Now called Christ Church United Methodist, it took nearly 20 years to complete, but the result is one of the most remarkable churches and visually overpowering interiors in the city.  The church conducts tours of the sanctuary on Sundays after 11:00 services.

non-credited photographs taken by the author