SOUTH CHURCH/ PARK AVENUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH A History and Analysis of the Church Complex

Andrew S. Dolkart 2013 SOUTH CHURCH/ PARK AVENUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH A History and Analysis of the Church Complex

Report prepared by Andrew S. Dolkart Report prepared for 1000 Park Avenue 2013 The South Church complex, now the Park Avenue Christian Church complex, designed and built in 1909-11 by the South Dutch Reformed Church, is one of the most significant buildings on Park Avenue dating from the period of major development along that premier New York City boulevard. It is also a major example of Neo-Gothic church architecture and a significant design by Bertram Goodhue, the New York City partner in the firm of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, one of the preeminent American designers of the early twentieth century. The South Reformed Church complex consists of the impressive Gothic-inspired church on the southwest corner of Park Avenue and East 85th Street, and the adjoining parish house (sometimes referred to as the parsonage). The church building remains almost exactly as designed by Goodhue, while the parish house was partially altered in a surprisingly sensitive manner in 1962. Together, the church and parish house create an important unified architectural ensemble on the corner of Park Avenue and East 85th Street. They share a Gothic-inspired architectural vocabulary and both are faced with locally-quarried Manhattan schist with Indiana limestone trim. In scale and design, the two related structures play off of one another providing an important, low-scale visual anchor to this section of Park Avenue. The significance of the South Church was widely recognized at the time of its design and at the time of its completion. Images and critiques were published in almost all of the east coast architectural magazines and in several books as well. It was also recognized as an “architecturally distinguished structure” by the Municipal Art Society in 1957 and received a New York Community Trust bronze plaque in 1960. The complex is unquestionably eligible for individual listing as a New York City landmark and the church and parish house would be a highly contributing element within a Park Avenue Historic District.

South Church What became the South Church was the second congregation established by the Collegiate Reformed Dutch Church, the church established by the Dutch upon the founding of the settlement of New Amsterdam.1 The first church was established in circa 1628 and ministered to all of the Dutch Calvinist in the small town. As the population grew and as the area of settlement in New Amsterdam (New York after 1664) expanded, a new church was needed. Thus, in 1690, the Garden Street Reformed Protestant Dutch Church was established on what is now Exchange Place, just south of Wall Street. The original church was replaced by a larger

1 stone structure in 1807. In 1812, the congregation separated from the Collegiate Church and became entirely independent. The church building was destroyed in the Great Fire of December 1835. Rather than rebuild within the surviving walls, the congregation chose to move north, to Murray and Church Streets, closer to where members lived, dedicating its new Greek Revival style church building in 1837.

The church did not remain long on Murray Street. The city was expanding northward with great rapidity and the church needed to keep pace with its members or they would leave and join more conveniently located congregations. Indeed, the history of South Church in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is one of constant northward relocation. In 1848, the final service was held on Murray Street and a year later, a new church, designed in a fashionable Gothic Revival style, was completed on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 21st Street, in the heart of an area that was developing into the city’s wealthiest residential neighborhood. But the Madison Square neighborhood where the church had relocated was destined to become increasingly commercial, with department stores and office buildings erected in the years following the Civil War. Thus, in 1890, South Church purchased the former Zion Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue and East 35th Street.

By the early twentieth century, Madison Avenue and 38th Street was losing its residential character as commerce impinged on the area, especially along nearby Fifth Avenue. The Upper East Side was rapidly developing as the city’s premier residential district and, in 1908, the congregation of South Church decided to follow this move north. In July 1908, the church announced that it had purchased property for a new church on the southwest corner of Park Avenue and East 83rd Street.2

Development on Park Avenue Development on Park Avenue, originally Fourth Avenue on the 1811 Commissioners’ Plan that created New York’s street grid, lagged behind that on parallel avenues due to the presence of the tracks of the New York Central Railroad which ran down the middle of the street. Although the tracks were below street level, conditions were not conducive to substantial real estate

2 investment because of steam venting on the street, noise, and vibrations. Thus, by 1900, many sites on Park Avenue north of 59th Street were vacant and others were filled with modest row houses and tenements. A law passed by the New York State Legislature following a serious accident in the tunnels in 1902 banned steam trains from Manhattan, resulting in the electrification of the rail line, the complete decking of the tracks, and the creation of the street’s distinctive landscaped malls. This was the impetus for change on the avenue; as the Real Estate Record and Builders Guide noted “the mainspring of the movement was the elimination of locomotive smoke and noises, leaving what was naturally a broad and handsome parkway in peace and quietness.”3 Park Avenue was now poised for a transformation from a street of modest row houses and tenements into a grand boulevard of mansions, apartment houses, and institutions for the wealthy. One of the unique aspects of development along Park Avenue is that mansions, low-rise institutional buildings (largely churches), and apartment buildings of twelve or more stories rose simultaneously.

The earliest apartment houses on Park Avenue, between 59th and 96th Streets, are no. 865 at East 77th Street and no. 925 at East 80th Street, both erected in 1907-08. This was followed by one building in 1909, no. 563 on the northeast corner of 62nd Street. Apartment house construction expanded in 1910, with at least three new buildings in that year and at least four more in 1911. Townhouses and mansions were also erected at this time: Percy and Maud H. Pyne built their townhouse on the northwest corner of 68th Street in 1906-12 and Jonathan and Sarah Bulkley built a house on the northwest corner of 64th Street in 1910-11. Thus, while the apartment building is the dominant building type on the avenue, the scale of buildings along Park Avenue is quite varied, lending a sense of excitement as lowrise and midrise buildings coexist, all with their facades hugging the lot lines, creating a strong street wall. This is made even more interesting by the survival of some modest middle- and working-class dwellings from earliest period of development, including the row houses on the southeast corner of 95th Street and the northeast corner of 91st Street, and the tenements at 821 and 957 Park Avenue.

Church complexes have been an important part of Park Avenue’s character since its development as a wealthy residential neighborhood began. By the mid-twentieth century seven important

3 church complexes had been erected on the avenue, six of which are extant. Four of these six buildings are protected by landmark designation – one church, St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic, is an individual landmark; two, Third Church of Christ Scientist and Park Avenue Baptist (now Central Presbyterian Church), are in the Upper East Side Historic District; and one, Brick Presbyterian Church, is in the Carnegie Hill Extension Historic District. Only South Church (now Park Avenue Christian Church) and Christ Methodist, on East 61st Street, remain unprotected. Ironically, both of these buildings were designed by the leading church architecture firm of the early decades of the twentieth century – Ralph Adams Cram designed Christ Methodist in 1931, while his earlier firm, Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, designed South Church, with partner Bertram Goodhue in charge.

South Church on Park Avenue South Church was in the vanguard of church construction on Park Avenue for the new class of wealthy New Yorkers moving to the area. In 1908, South Church purchased land on the corner of Park Avenue and East 83rd Street, but that was not destined to be the site of the congregation’s new home. In early 1909, South Church participated in a complex real estate deal that resulted in their trading the 83rd Street site for a larger property on the southwest corner of Park Avenue and 85th Street. As the New York Times reported, “by this deal the church gets a site . . . where a new edifice coasting $250,000 will be erected in the near future.” Meanwhile, a real estate company retained the land “adjoining the church site on the south, which will probably be resold or improved in suitable manner. The whole series of transactions should be of material benefit to the surrounding neighborhood and making possible the further extension northward of the high- class residential section on Park Avenue.”4 The article also announced that Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson was preparing plans for the new church complex.

By the early years of the twentieth century, Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson had become a leading American designer of churches, largely in the medieval Gothic tradition. The firm was established by Ralph Adams Cram and Charles Francis Wentworth in Boston in 1889, with Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue joining in 1892 (the firm became known as Cram, Wentworth & Goodhue). With Wentworth’s death in 1898 the firm became Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson. In

4 1903, the firm won the competition for a series of new buildings at West Point and Goodhue moved to New York City to open a branch office. Between 1903 and 1913, when Goodhue left the partnership to establish his own firm, the Boston and New York offices increasingly worked independently. The commission for South Church went to the New York office and Goodhue was its architect.5

Much of Goodhue’s early work was designed in a Gothic style. Unlike his partner Ralph Adams Cram who worked in an archaeologically-correct Gothic style, Goodhue used Gothic forms in a free manner, creating a series of impressive medieval-inspired works with a modern sensibility. Both he and Cram were expert in designing urban churches that would hold their own in highly built-up areas of the city. This is evident at their St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue and West 53rd Street and at Goodhue’s St. Vincent Ferrar Roman Catholic Church on Lexington Avenue and East 65th Street and at his South Church. The cornerstone for the new South Church was laid on October 14, 1909. The church was faced with Manhattan schist, said to have been quarried on site, and was trimmed with Indian limestone.6 This was a popular combination of materials for prominent New York City institutional buildings of the early years of the twentieth century, seen at Union Theological Seminary, designed by Allen & Collens in 1906-07, and at City College, designed by George B. Post in 1897-1902, both of which were under construction at the time that South Church was designed.

Goodhue placed the church at the corner, massed as a tall narrow Gothic building with enormous windows. The front facade of the church is dominated by the centrally-placed entrance, large east window, and crowning gable. The recessed entrance arch is set within a limestone frame. The arch is ornamented with boses of the virtues overcoming the vices. The doors, with their exquisitely cast hardware, are capped by a cast-lead band with grape vines and symbols of the twelve apostles, on top of which is a large pediment, also of cast lead, with the arms of the Dutch Reformed Church. The doors and pediment are outlined by a beautiful cast-lead frame with symbolic grape vines, wheat stalks, and shields. The entrance is surrounded by a field of limestone carved with Gothic ornamental forms, including pinnacles supported by crouching figures of Adam and Eve. Above the entrance ensemble is a huge, slightly pointed window

5 flanked by limestone niches. Above this, crowning the facade is a steep gable with limestone trim and a limestone band carved with the Dutch motto “Een Drach Maakt Macht” (Unity Makes Strength). The boses, ornate leadwork, and other decorative detail on the facade are evidence of Goodhue’s love of ornamental detail. Although the sculptor of the beautifully-crafted boses and other ornament on the facade has not been identified, Goodhue frequently worked with prominent architectural sculptors such as Lee Lawrie.

The church does not occupy the Park Avenue frontage alone, but is balanced by what was originally the parsonage, now referred to as the parish house. This four-story structure is considerably lower in height than the church and serves as a buffer between the church sanctuary and the apartment house that the church leaders and Goodhue knew would rise on the adjoining lot to the south. The main feature of the parish house facade is the south pavilion with its gabled roofline and projecting oriel window which provide a successful balance to the mass of the church facade. In between were a pair of entrances and horizontal strips of casement windows (this central section has been altered; see below). The low parish house also assured that light would pour through the south windows of the church. Goodhue also designed a brick rectory behind the parish house, separated from it by a courtyard.

The north facade of the church, facing onto 85th Street, is extremely powerful, with an austere stone base articulated only by narrow slit windows supporting a succession of four tall windows separated by stepped buttresses. A shallow transept provides a transition between the nave and the polygonal west end of the church. The entire building is crowned by a peak roof from which rises a lead-coated, steel-framed fleche reminiscent of that at Sainte Chapelle in Paris. The fleche was manufactured by Henry Hope & Sons in Birmingham, England, with details designed by Birmingham architect William Haywood. It was shipped to New York in four pieces and erected with a special scaffold. Architectural Review published an article and images discussing South Church’s fleche and a critic for Architecture quipped that it was “a most amusing piece of metal work full of curious and delicious details,” undoubtedly referring to the gargoyles, winged angels, and other decorative details on the structure.

6 The interior of the church was as beautiful and dramatic as the exterior, with its expansive open space, stone walls, vaulted roof of Guastavino tiles set between ribs, woodwork carved by the craftsmen at one of Goodhue’s favorite firms, Irving & Casson, and stained-glass windows, including a large window by Tiffany Studios that was moved from the previous church building.7

The Critical Response South Church received more attention in architectural publications than almost any other church building of its time. Journals published images of Goodhue’s presentation drawings in 1910 when the design was made public and published critical commentary and photographs of the building upon its completion in 1911. The extent of the coverage of the church and the ecstatic reviews from architectural critics indicate how important Goodhue’s contemporaries thought the building was.

As soon as the design was made public, the Real Estate Record and Builders Guide published an article with a drawings of the exterior of the church and parish house, a perspective of the church interior, and a plan of the complex. The article noted that this was a “work to which much interest attached”; that the complex was the work of architects “nationally famed as designers of churches”; and that it would be the “first finished work of the kind in New York since they have settled in this city.”8 The same beautifully detailed elevation and interior perspective were also published in Architectural Record, the Architectural League Yearbook, and Architectural Review (which also published detailed line drawings of the facades of the church and parish house and key details).9

The reviews of the church in the architectural press were exemplary. Even Montgomery Schuyler, a noted curmudgeon, praised the design, writing that “The South Church in New York may stand as his [Goodhue’s] notion of a city church, and, . . . there are about the style, when thus handled, a stateliness and elegance.”10 Architecture was especially effusive, publishing two illustrated articles in 1911. “Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson,” announced the anonymous critic, “are certainly masters of church architecture, and South Church, . . . the latest of their works to

7 be completed, shows even an advance over their previous efforts.” The piece goes on to note the importance of both the church and parish house facades: The most impressive portion is the entrance facade which is composed of the termination to the nave and front of the parish house, the tremendous nave completely dominating the remainder. If religion be on the decline to-day the fact is not perceptible through the architecture of the churches, for this facade is of a dignity and nobility unsurpassed by any of similar size which are recalled to mind.11

In its commentary of “The Current Architectural Press,” a writer for American Architect, noted the review of South Church in Architecture and added that this was a “very important addition to ecclesiastical architecture in New York” and that it “merits every good word said for it.”12 In later years, South Church was illustrated in James M. Baker’s American Churches (1915) and Charles Harris Whitaker’s Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue: Master of Many Arts (1925).13

The church building remained a stable element of the Park Avenue streetscape as new development soon occurred all around in the decades after its completion. Little changed at the church except its name (see below). In 1957, just as the historic preservation movement was beginning in New York City, the Municipal Art Society and the Society of Architectural Historians teamed up to create a list of the city’s notable buildings worth preserving. Notable buildings were divided into five categories. South Reformed (under the name Park Avenue Christian Church) appears in category three, “structures of importance designated for preservation,” along with three other major buildings that Goodhue was associated with – Church of the Heavenly Rest, St. Vincent Ferrer, and St. Bartholomew’s, two of which are now individual landmarks, with the third in a historic district.14 Indeed, of the 183 buildings in Manhattan on the list, 127 are now individual landmarks, twenty-four are in historic districts, six are part of scenic landmarks, and one is partly in a scenic landmark. Of the remaining buildings on the list, eighteen have been demolished (including two that were landmarks); one is an undesignated sculptural monument (the Farragut Monument in Madison Square Park), and the facade of one building, the U. S. Assay Office, is part of the American Wing of the Metropolitan

8 Museum of Art. Only five Manhattan buildings on the list remain undesignated, including South Church.15 For the entire city, of 307 notable sites listed, only nine extant buildings are not individual landmarks or within the boundaries of a historic district.16

Three years after the completion of the Municipal Art Society’s list, the church was one of only eighty-two sites and structures in the city recognized with a bronze plaque supplied by the New York Community Trust, part of a project to recognize the finest buildings in the city.17 In more recent years, Robert A. M. Stern and his co-authors for New York 1900 noted how Goodhue used the parish house, “as a permanent foil” to the church, creating a successful composition.18

Later History Although South Church is unquestionably a major work of architecture, its construction turned out to be a bad decision for its congregation. In 1914, only three years after the church was completed, South Church was forced to disband and sell its property. The investment in construction of the new building had been too much for the congregation. It had hoped to sell its previous property on Madison Avenue at a high price, but this site was located within a Murray Hill restricted zoning that only permitted residential buildings of modest scale. The new church and its site had cost almost $500,000. A contract had been signed to sell the old site for $700,000 to an apartment developer, but the legality of such construction was before the courts and so the church had no funds to pay for the building. It was sold to the Church Extension Committee of the Presbytery of New York to become the home of the First Union Presbyterian Church which would move from Lexington Avenue and East 86th Street.19 The South Church congregation was dissolved and the building was renamed the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church. In 1937, the Park Avenue congregation merged with Brick Presbyterian Church, one of the city’s oldest and most prestigious Presbyterian congregations. Services were held in the old South Church building until 1939 when Brick Presbyterian’s new church complex on Park Avenue and 91st Street was completed. In 1945, the church complex was sold to the Central Church of the Disciples of Christ, the oldest congregation of that denomination in the world, dating back to 1810.20 The complex became known as the Park Avenue Christian Church.

9 In 1962, Park Avenue Christian Church undertook changes to the complex, demolishing Goodhue’s brick rectory at the rear of the property (not visible from the street) and the northern portion of the original parish house. The projecting south pavilion of the parish house was preserved. The church had been discussing plans for an addition since 1958. A new five-story brick rectory of little architectural distinction was erected beginning about twenty-one feet back from Park Avenue. The architect in charge of this alteration project was Herbert Holmgren of the firm of Merrill & Holmgren. Although little is know about Holmgren, most of the designs identified by him or his firm were for religious organizations, including the design of a chapel at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church on East 22nd Street (1957) and a building for the Lutheran Seamen’s Center on Water Street (1961),both in Manhattan, and, in Brooklyn, a dormitory for Lutheran Social Services (1955) and a church and fellowship hall for Our Saviour Evangelical Lutheran Church (1957).

On the Park Avenue frontage, Holmgren was very sensitive to the original design of the South Church complex. The section of the parish house that was demolished included an entry into the parsonage and an arched passage connecting Park Avenue to a courtyard that led to the rectory. These were removed as part of the redesign project. The middle section of the parish house was rebuilt in a contextual manner, using Manhattan schist laid in a random ashlar pattern and limestone trim, just like the stone on the original parish house and on the church. The roof slope and height of the original building were also preserved. Indeed, it takes a well-trained eye to notice the slight difference in stone color and design. The five-story structure built to the rear was designed to be as anonymous as possible and not detract from the design of either the church or the parish house. Indeed, it is sensitively placed so that the south wall of the church, the roof slope and the fleche are still visible from the street and the south windows still receive direct natural light. The sensitivity of Holmgren’s design is even more surprising considering the date. In 1962, there was little interest among architects in preserving the character of older buildings and an architect was far more likely to demolish a historic structure and replace it with a Modern design than he was to design a building that fits so well with a notable older structure. The alteration to the parish house and the partial construction of its new facade is now over fifty years old and has historic and design significance in its own right.

10 South Church, now the Park Avenue Christian Church, is an important architectural complex. It is a major design by one of the most important architects active in America in the early twentieth century; it is a major physical manifestation of the transformation of Park Avenue from a street of working-class housing to one of New York’s most prestigious residential boulevards; and it is among the most beautiful church complexes in the city, a fact recognized at the time of its construction and by early proponents of preservation in the city. This is among the most significant buildings that is not protected by a landmark designation. The entire complex should be designated as an individual landmark or should be protected within a historic district as soon as possible.

11 Figure 1. South Church, Figure 2. South Church, Garden Garden Street, 1693. Street following rebuilding in 1807.

Figure 4. South Church, Figure 3. South Church, Madison Avenue and 38th Fifth Avenue and 21st Street. Street.

12 Figure 5. The block bounded by Park and Madison Avenues and East 84th and 85th Streets in 1885. Several wood and masonry buildings occupy the future site of the South Church.

Figure 6. The South Church block in 1914, a few years after the church complex was completed.

13 Figure 7. By 1921 the block with South Church (now the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church) had been heavily built up, including the construction of the twelve-story apartment building at 1002 Park Avenue, to the south, and Regis High School, to the west.

Figure 8. By 1934 the entire block had been built out with the addition of two apartment buildings on Madison Avenue. The block has undergone little substantive change since then.

14 Figure 9. Park Avenue from East 84th Street to East 88th Street in 1936. The variety scale of buildings on Park Avenue is evident, with low-scale row houses, tenements, and churches, as well as taller apartment buildings.

Figure 10. The modest, five story, 1962 rectory of what was now the Park Avenue Christian Church is evident on this map from 2009.

15 Figure 11. 925 Park Avenue at 80th Street. Built in 1907-08, this was one of the earliest apartment houses on Park Avenue north of 59th Street.

Figure 12. Park Avenue Baptist Church (now Central Presbyterian Church) at East 64th Street, one of several churches erected on Park Avenue in the decades after South Church was completed.

16 Figure 13. Bertram Goodhue’s widely-published 1909 presentation drawing for the South Church complex, with the church to the right and the parish house to the left.

17 Figure 14. Bertram Goodhue’s presentation drawing of the interior of South Church looking west towards the altar, 1909.

18 Figure 15. The South Church complex in 1911 shortly after the construction was completed. The church and parish house create a unified composition.

19 Figure 16. Entrance to South Church, 1911.

Figure 17. Entrance to Park Avenue Christian Church in 2013. 20 Figure 18. Figure of Adam to the left Figure 19. Figure of Eve to the right of the entrance. of the entrance.

Figure 21. Bose in the entrance arch Figure 20. Entrance door hardware. of mercy overcoming jealousy.

Figure 22. Bose in the entrance arch of patience overcoming anger.

21 Figure 23. South Church in the 1920s when it was home to the FigurePark 26. The Avenue powerful Presbyterian north facade Church. of The parish houseFigure at 27 left. Drawing of South Churchcreates witha transition its slit windowsbetween theon mass of the churchthe South and the Church lot to fleche. the lowerthe level, south largewhere pointed an apartment windows house would be built. and buttresses above, and shallow transept.

Figure 25. Goodhue’s plan Figure 24. South Church rectory, showing relationship between once located behind the parish house. church, parish house, and rectory. The scale of both the parish house and rectory permitted natural light to flow through the south windows into the nave. 22 Figure 28.. Special scaffold erected Figure 29. Detail of South Church for the construction of the fleche. fleche, 2013.

23 Figure 30. Interior of South Church looking east towards Tiffany window partially created from glass removed from the Madison Avenue church.

24 Figure 31. Park Avenue Christian Church. Note sensitive alterations to parish house at left and 1962 rectory building fading into the background.

25 Bibliography

Architectural League of New York, Catalogue of the Twenty-Fifth Exhibition (New York: Architectural League, 1910).

Baker, James M., American Churches (New York: American Architect, 1915), 53.

Burnham, Alan, ed., New York Landmarks: A Study & Index of Architecturally Notable Structures in Greater New York (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1963).

“Church Site in Park Avenue Deal, New York Times, January 10, 1909, 16.

“The Current Architectural Press,” American Architect 100 (October 25, 1911): 172.

“Disciples Church Buys a New Home,” New York Times, January 13, 1945, 12.

Disosway, Gabriel P., The Earliest Churches of New York and its Vicinity (New York: James G. Gregory, 1865).

Dunlap, David W., From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004).

“Fleche, South Church, New York,” Architectural Review 29 (May 1911): 302 and plate.

Greenleaf, Jonathan, A History of the Churches of All Denominations in the City of New York from the First Settlement to the Year 1846 (New York: E. French, 1846).

Historical Sketch of the South Church (Reformed) of New York City (New York: Gilliss Brothers & Turnure, 1887)

“The New South Reformed Church on Park Av.,” Real Estate Record and Builders Guide 85 (January 8, 1910): 55.

Oliver, Richard, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (New York: The Architectural History Foundation, 1983).

“Presbyterians Buy New South Church,” New York Times, October 2, 1914, 7.

“The Real Estate Field,” New York Times, October 2, 1914, 16.

“The Rebuilding of Park Avenue, Real Estate Record and Builders Guide 84 (December 4, 1909): 991-92.

“Recent American Churches,” Architecture and Building 43 (November 1911): 592595, 605,

26 624.

Savage, Theodore Fiske, The Presbyterian Church in New York City (New York: The Presbytery of New York, 1949).

Schuyler, Montgomery, “The Works of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson: A Record of the Firm’s Representative Structures, 1892-1910,” Architectural Record 29 (January 1911): 64-70.

[South Church], Architectural League Yearbook (1910).

[South Church],” Architectural Review 17 (April 1910): plates 29-34.

[South Church], Architectural Year Book 1 (1912): 541-547.

“The South Church, New York,” Architecture 24 (September 15, 1911): 134, plates 92-96.

“‘South Church,” New York City,” Architectural Record 29 (January 1911): 56-57.

“South Church Corner-stone,” New York Observer and Chronicle, November 4, 1909.

“South Church, Parish House and Rectory, New York,” Architecture 23 (June 1911): 81, plate lvi.

“South Church Sells Murray Hill Site,” New York Times, July 17, 1913, 16.

“South Church to Move,” New York Tribune, July 11, 1908, 8.

Stern, Robert A. M., Gregory Gilmartin and John Massengale, New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890-1915 (New York: Rizzoli, 1983).

Sturm, James L. And James Chotas, Stained Glass From Medieval Times to the Present: Treasures to be Seen in New York (New York: Dutton, 1982).

Whitaker, Charles Harris, ed., Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue: Architect and Master of Many Arts (New York: Press of the American Institute of Architects, 1925).

27 Photo Credits

Figure 1. Gabriel P. Disosway, The Earliest Churches of New York and its Vicinity (New York: James G. Gregory, 1865), opposite p. 40. Figure 2. Gabriel P. Disosway, The Earliest Churches of New York and its Vicinity (New York: James G. Gregory, 1865), opposite p. 52. Figure 3. Historical Sketch of the South Church (Reformed) of New York City (New York: Gilliss Brothers & Turnure, 1887), frontispiece. Figure 4. Moses King, King’s Handbook of New York City (Boston: Moses King, 1893), 340. Figure 5. E. Robinson and R. H. Pidgeon, Robinson’s Atlas of the City of New York (New York: E. Robinson, 1885), plate 20. Figure 6. Atlas of the Borough of Manhattan Pocket and Desk Edition (New York: G. W. Bromley, 1914), plate 226. Figure 7. Atlas of the Borough of Manhattan Desk and Library Edition (New York: G. W. Bromley, 1921), plate 114. Figure 8. Atlas of the Borough of Manhattan Desk and Library Edition (New York: G. W. Bromley, 1934), plate 114. Figure 9. Atlas of the Borough of Manhattan Desk and Library Edition (New York: G. W. Bromley, 1934), plate 114. Figure 10. Sanborn Manhattan Land Book of the City of New York (Weehawken, NJ: TRW REDI Property Data), 2009, plate 114. Figure 11. Museum of the City of New York. Figure 12. Library of Congress. Figure 13. Architectural Record 29 (January 1911): 56. Figure 14. Architectural Record 29 (January 1911): 57. Figure 15. Architecture 24 (September 15, 1911): plate 96. Figure 16. Architecture 24 (September 15, 1911): plate 94. Figure 17. Andrew S. Dolkart. Figure 18. Andrew S. Dolkart. Figure 19. Andrew S. Dolkart. Figure 20. Andrew S. Dolkart. Figure 21. Andrew S. Dolkart. Figure 22. Andrew S. Dolkart. Figure 23. New York Public Library. Figure 24. Architecture 24 (September 15, 1911): plate 95. Figure 25. Architecture 24 (September 15, 1911): 134. Figure 26. Architecture 23 (June 15, 1911): plate 56. Figure 27. Architectural Review 29 (May 1911): plate. Figure 28. New York Public Library. Figure 29. Andrew S. Dolkart. Figure 30. Architecture 24 (September 15, 1911): plate 92. Figure 31. Google images. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/6270560.

28 Notes

1. For the early history of South Church, see Historical Sketch of the South Church (Reformed) of New York City (New York: Gilliss Brothers & Turnure, 1887) and Jonathan Greenleaf, A History of the Churches of All Denominations in the City of New York From the First Settlement to the Year 1846 (New York: E. French, 1846), 11-12, 19-21.

2. “South Church to Move,” New York Tribune, July 11, 1908, 8.

3. “The Rebuilding of Park Avenue,” Real Estate Record and Builders Guide 84 (December 4, 1909): 991.

4. “Church Site in Park Avenue Deal,” New York Times, January 10, 1909, 16.

5. The major source for Bertram Goodhue is Richard Oliver, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (New York: The Architectural History Foundation, 1983).

6. “The Rebuilding of Park Avenue,” 991 and “The New South Reformed Church on Park Av.,” Real Estate Record and Builders Guide 85 (January 8, 1910): 55.

7. James L. Sturm, Stained Glass From Medieval Times to the Present: Treasures to Be Seen in New York (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982), 62-63.

8. “The New South Reformed Church on Park Av.”

9. Architectural League Yearbook (1910): np; The Architectural Review 17 (April 1910): plates29-34;“South Church, New York City,” Architectural Record 29 (January 1911): 56-57.

10. Montgomery Schuyler, “The Works of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson,” Architectural Record 29 (January 1911): 64.

11. “South Church, Parish House and Rectory, New York,” Architecture 23 (June 15, 1911): 81. The second article in this journal discusses the plan and detailing of the church; “The South Church, New York,” Architecture 24 (September 15, 1911): 134.

12. “The Current Architectural Press,” American Architect, 100 (October 25, 1911): 172.

13. James M. Baker, American Churches (New York: American Architect, 1915), 53; Charles Harris Whitaker, ed., Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue: Architect and Master of Many Arts (New York: Press of the American Institute of Architects, 1925), plate lvii.

14. The list is reprinted in Alan Burnham, ed., New York Landmarks (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1963), 355-389; South Church, listed as Park Avenue Christian Church is on page 365.

29 15. The other four buildings that are not designated landmarks are the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Academy of Medicine, the Shelton Hotel, and the Vanderbilt Hotel. Columbus Circle is also listed and is only partially designated (the corner with the Maine Monument).

16. Outside of Manhattan, the undesignated buildings are St. Barbara’s Roman Catholic Church and the Van Sicklen-Lady Moody House in Brooklyn, the Greek Revival house at 26-07 12th Street in Queens, the New Dorp Moravian Church in Staten Island.

17. “Historic Sites Here Will Get Plaques,” New York Times, October 9, 1961, 83.

18. Robert A. M. Stern, Gregory Gilmartin, and John Massengale, New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890-1915 (New York: Rizzoli, 1983), 116.

19. “Presbyterians Buy New South Church,” New York Times, October 2, 1914, 7; “South Church Sells Murray Hill Site,” New York Times, July 17, 1913, 16; Theodore Fiske Savage, The Presbyterian Church in New York City (New York: The Presbytery of New York, 1949), 118- 122.

20. “Disciples Church Buys a New Home,” New York Times, January 13, 1945, 12.

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