Church of St. Paul the Apostle
About this property
The Church of St. Paul the Apostle is a Catholic church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the mother church of the Paulist Fathers, the first religious community of Catholic priests founded in the United States. The parish was founded in 1858, and their original church was a simple brick structure built on part of the current lot, but the congregation soon outgrew it. A new Late Victorian Gothic Revival-style church was built between 1876 and 1884 designed by Jeremiah O'Rourke and Paulist priest George Deshon, a military engineer trained at West Point, who took over the project six years into construction when O'Rourke died, and probably simplified the design. Isaac Hecker, who founded the Paulist Fathers, may have had a hand in its design as well, using the thirteenth-century Cathedral of Santa Croce, Florence as a model. The building utilized Tarrytown gray granite stones salvaged from the Croton Aqueduct along with stones from other structures in Manhattan. The granite for the stone entrance steps was salvaged from the French Second Empire-style Booth's Theatre on Sixth Avenue at 23rd Street. The new building was dedicated on January 25, 1885, but was still not complete at that time: the 114-foot (35 m) towers had yet to reach their final height, and much of the interior declarations were still to be installed. The church is known for its ecclesiastical art, and contains interior elements designed between 1887 and 1890 by Stanford White and many large decorated side chapels. Later stained glass windows were added by John LaFarge. Other artists who worked within include Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Frederick MacMonnies, and Bertram Goodhue, who is responsible for the floor mosaics. White and Goodhue also offered advice on design elements. Lumen Martin Winter's Angel of the Resurrection adorns Hecker's sarcophagus, located in the northeast corner of the nave. Other Paulist Fathers are entombed in crypt off a chapel on the lower level of the church. The New York Daily Tribune reviewed the architecture as "vast, plain, fortress-like in its solidity—almost repelling in the aesthetic cast without and within, yet it is the most August, unworldly interior of this continent." The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991, and designated a New York City Landmark in 2013. A major renovation and restoration of the church was begun around 2000, and as of 2013 is still underway. In 1858, the Paulist Fathers first took possession of a frame house containing a small chapel at 14 West 60th Street. The community's motherhouse is on West 59th Street, adjacent to the church. The present building dates from the 1930s.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Church of St. Paul the Apostle listed on the National Register?
Church of St. Paul the Apostle was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 5, 1991.
What type of historic resource is Church of St. Paul the Apostle?
Church of St. Paul the Apostle is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Church of St. Paul the Apostle?
The period of significance for Church of St. Paul the Apostle is recorded as the industrial era.
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