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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Media Contact: Eirik Omlie Publications Manager The New York Landmarks Conservancy New York, NY 10004 Tel: 212.995.5260 / Fax: 212.995.5268 [email protected] New York City Sacred Sites Open Doors in Statewide Event 56 congregations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and Staten Island among 140 congregations participating New York, NY (Thursday, May 19) Landmark churches and synagogues from the five boroughs are participating in a “Sacred Sites Open House Weekend” May 21 and 22 when they will open their doors to their communities. The 56 New York City congregations are part of more than 140 congregations participating statewide. The weekend will introduce people to remarkable art and architecture they would not normally visit and allow the congregations to discuss their history, cultural programming and social service programs that benefit the wider community. “These are some of the most beautiful buildings in our communities. They tell our history, they show developments in art and architecture, and anchor their neighborhoods with cultural and social programs that benefit beyond their congregations. The Open House Weekend is a wonderful opportunity to be a tourist in your own town,” said Peg Breen, president of The New York Landmarks Conservancy. The weekend is part of a year-long celebration of the 25th anniversary of The New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Sacred Sites program. Sacred Sites is the only statewide program in the country offering grants and technical help to landmark religious institutions. The program has given 1141 grants of more than $7 million to congregations of all denominations. The grants have leveraged total restoration and repair project costs of more than $500 million. The congregations participating to date are: Manhattan: • Brotherhood Synagogue is housed in an Anglo-Italinate, 1859, former Quaker Meeting House on Gramercy Park: 28 Gramercy Park South, May 22nd 1pm-4pm • Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the largest Cathedral in the world, dates from 1892: 1047 Amsterdam Avenue, 112th Street, May 21st 7am-6pm and May 22nd 7am-6pm with 1pm “Symbolism” Tour and Tom Sheehan Organ recital at 5:15pm • Christ and St. Stephen's Church, built in 1880, was originally a satellite chapel of the Church of the Transfiguration on East 29th Street, which is also participating 122 W. 69th Street, May 21st 12pm-2:30pm and May 22nd 12pm-2pm • Church of the Ascension, a National Historic Landmark designed by Upjohn in 1841, features a magnificent 1880’s interior designed by Stanford White: 5th Ave. at 10th Street, May 22nd 1pm-4pm. • Church of the Holy Trinity, an 1897 church featuring one of New York’s most beautiful towers 316 E. 88th Street 10am-5pm and May 22 8am-2pm tour at 12:30 pm • • • • • • • • • • • Church of the Incarnation, built in 1864, features some of the finest ecclesiastical artwork in America, including stained-glass windows designed by William Morris, Edward BurneJones, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and John LaFarge: 209 Madison Ave., May 22 8am-1pm & 4:30pm-6pm Crenshaw Christian Center East, designed by the noted architectural firm of Carrere & Hastings (architects of the New York Public Library) in the finest tradition of Beaux Arts Classicism and built in 1903, this large granite building was the first structure built for Christian Science worship in New York, and was purchased by Crenshaw Christian Center East in July of 2004: 1 W. 96th Street May 21 and may 22, 1pm -4pm Ebenezer Gospel Tabernacle Church illustrates Harlem’s dynamic history. Built in 18891891, this was the third Unitarian church in New York City and the only one located north of 34th Street. In 1919, the building was sold to a congregation of largely poor Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In 1942, the building was sold to an AfricanAmerican congregation. The present congregation restored the slate and terra cotta tile roof in 2001-2002.: 225 Malcom X Blvd. May 21 12pm-2pm Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration Also known as the “Little Church Around the Corner,” the church consists of several Gothic Revival structures around a courtyard. Frederick Clarke Wither's English-inspired lych-gate makes the church and its surrounding one of most picturesque and charming of any in New York. It obtained its sobriquet in 1870, when a minister of a nearby church declined to conduct a funeral service for an actor, sending the mourners to 'the little church around the corner.': 1 E. 29th Street, May 21 10am-4pm and May 22 1pm-3pm. Grace Church: A National Historic Landmark dating from 1846, Grace Church in New York is an exceptional example of Gothic Revival architecture and is one of the master works of architect James Renwick, Jr. 802 Broadway, May 21st 1pm-5pm and May 22nd 1pm-5pm Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation was designed by the architectural firm of Heins & LaFarge, (the first architects of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine), and constructed in 1893-1894 as the Fourth Presbyterian Church. An iconostasis and other liturgical furnishings were added to the interior in 1953 when the building was acquired by Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church.: 302 W. 91st Street Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, built on Central park West in 1903, was designed by Schickel & Ditmars. Much of the ornamentation, particularly the rose window tracery and the metal fleche, is based on French medieval prototypes.: 3 W. 65th Street Holyrood Church, designed by Bannister and Schell and constructed in 1904, recently completed comprehensive restoration of its slate roof and elaborate terra cotta front facade: 715 W. 179th Street, May 21st 2pm-4pm and May 22nd 1pm-3pm Mother Seton Shrine, now serving as rectory for Our Lady of the Rosary Church downtown, the site of the Mother Seton Shrine is a Federal period house designed in 1793 by John McComb Jr., architect of City Hall and Castle Clinton, for James Watson, state assembly speaker and member of New York and US Senates. In 1806, the distinctive curved portico was added, and in the 1880’s, it became a mission serving female Irish immigrants. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American-born saint, lived in a house next door, now the site of the church: 7 State Street Museum at Eldridge Street/Eldridge Street Synagogue, built in 1887, is a National Historic Landmark. The magnificently restored Moorish Revival synagogue housing the museum was the first in the city built by Eastern European Jews: 12 Eldridge Street, May 22nd 10am-5pm, free reading @ 5pm. Old Broadway Synagogue: Located in Manhattanville, Old Broadway Synagogue was constructed in 1923 and has recently completed major restoration of its façade, stained glass, and roof. 15 Old Broadway, May 22nd 10am-12pm • • • • • • • • • Roman Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, built in 1801 and rebuilt after a fire in 1815, this lower Manhattan landmark has served many communities and is known as the “Church of the Immigrants.” Built as an Episcopal church by a congregation of former Lutherans, it was sold to a Roman Catholic parish led by Cuban immigrant priest in 1853; in the 1950’s the church began celebrating masses in Cantonese, Italian, and English: 29 Mott Street, May 21st 2pm-5pm Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, originally built in 1851 as the uptown branch of Trinity Church on Wall Street, the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava is an excellent example of the English-inspired Gothic Revival, one of Richard M. Upjohn's masterpieces, and the site of Edith Wharton’s wedding in 1885. Since its re-dedication in 1944, the Cathedral of St. Sava has served as a hub of the Serbian Orthodox community in the metropolitan New York area.: 16 W. 26th Street, May 21st 9am-5pm and May 22nd 12pm-5pm St. Bartholomew's: Completed in 1918 and superbly sited in a terraced garden amid the corporate towers of Park Avenue, the Byzantine-Romanesque style inspired St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church is an outstanding example of the work of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. 325 Park Ave., May 22nd 12pm-2pm St. John's in-the-Village Episcopal Church: Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright protégé Edgar Tafel, St. John’s in-the-Village was constructed in 1972-1974 after the original Greek Revival church was destroyed by fire in 1971. The original 1854 parish hall wing survived the fire. 224 Waverly Place, May 21st 12pm-2pm St. Michael’s Episcopal Church: Designed by Robert Gibson and constructed in 1891, this Romanesque Revival church contains a wide variety of windows, mosaic, and decoration executed between 1893 and 1920 by notable artists such as Louis Comfort Tiffany, Maitland Armstrong, J & R Lamb, and Charles Connick 225 W. 99th Street, May 21st 12pm-4pm St. Philips: 204 W. 134th Street, Built in 1911, and celebrating its 100th anniversary with an architectural symposium May 21st, this is the fourth home of New York City's first African-American congregation of Protestant Episcopalians, founded in 1809. Designed in the Neo-Gothic style by the firm of Tandy & Foster, the facade incorporates 14thcentury English Gothic elements in contrasting orange Roman brick and cast stone. Vertner W. Tandy and George Washington Foster, Jr., were among the first AfricanAmericans to practice architecture in the United States.May 22nd 1pm Architecture Symposium St. Mark’s Church-In-The-Bowery: St. Mark's in the Bowery was constructed in 1795-99 on the site of the chapel originally built by Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New Amsterdam in 1660, making it the oldest site of continuous worship in New York City. 131 East 10th Street, May 22nd 1pm-3pm Stanton Street Shul: 180 Stanton Street Designed by neighborhood architect Louis A. Sheinart and constructed in 1913 by combining two adjacent tenement buildings into one structure, the former Congregation B'nai Joseph Anshe Brzezan is significant as one of the few early 20th century "tenement synagogues" surviving on New York City's Lower East Side. May 21st 12pm-2pm Temple Emanu-El: One East 65th Street. Congregation Emanu-El was founded in 1845, merged with Temple Beth-El in the 1920's, and completed its present quarters, in 1929. Temple Emanu-El stands out as one of New York City’s greatest spiritual and civic landmarks, on the scale of the Cathedrals of St. Patrick and St. John the Divine. It is the world’s largest synagogue, seating 2,500 people. This Art Deco interpretation of Moorish and Romanesque styles was designed by architects Robert D. Kohn, Charles Butler, and Clarence Stein, with Mayers, Murray & Phillip as associated architects. In turn, they called upon some of the finest artisans of the day. Hildreth Meiere designed the • • • • • • sanctuary mosaics, while Heinigke and Smith executed the chapel mosaics. The ornamental metalwork is by Oscar Bach and Samuel Yellin. The stone carvings are by Ulysses Ricci, while the chapel features Tiffany windows. There is also an on-site Judaica museum with 650 pieces that date from the 14th century to the present day, including artifacts documenting the early history of the congregation. May 22 10am-4pm. University Parish of St. Joseph's: 371 6th Ave., Designed by John Doran and erected in 1833-1834 for a parish founded in 1829, St. Joseph's is the second-oldest Roman Catholic church building in New York City, and one of only a few examples of Greek Revival-style Roman Catholic churches. May 21st 10am-12pm and May 22nd 1pm-3pm Church of the Covenant: 310 East 42nd Street, Designed by J. Cleveland Cady and completed in 1871, the church is a fine example of Gothic Revival architecture typical of the late-nineteenth century. In 1927, the church was reduced in size and otherwise altered to make room for a large parish house. May 22nd 9:30am-3pm Church of the Holy Apostles: 296 9th Avenue, This 1848 church was designed by the noted 19th century architect Minard Lafever. This is his only surviving building in Manhattan definitely attributable to him, and contains windows from the Bolton Family, America’s earliest producers of stained-glass windows. May 22nd 1pm-5pm Church of Notre Dame: 405 West 114th Street, May 21st and 22nd 1:15pm-4pm St. Ignatius of Antioch: 552 West End Avenue, St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, completed in 1903, is a representative example of a Late Gothic Revival church designed by architect Charles Coolidge Haight. The interior features an important polychrome ladychapel and statuary by Ralph Adams Cram, and the undercroft features a Guastavino vault. May 21st 12pm-5pm Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew: 263 West 86th Street, Completed in 1897, the church was a key work in the career of New York architect Robert H. Robertson, and in the forefront of 1890’s design both for its “scientific eclecticism,” and for this relatively early application of the Beaux Arts classical color palette, light buff brick and terra cotta May 22nd 1pm-3pm Brooklyn: • Flatbush-Tompkins Congregational Church: Located in the Ditmas Park Historic District in Brooklyn, the Flatbush-Tompkins Congregational Church was designed in the NeoGeorgian style by the notable Boston firm of Allen, Collens, & Jallade and constructed in 1910. 424 E. 19th Street, May 21st 10am-2pm • Holy House of Prayer for All People: 1768 St. John’s Place, This Art Deco former theater has a seating capacity of 3000 people. Built in 1927, the former Ronley Theater was originally a Yiddish theatre, housing vaudeville and plays, and broadcasting performances on the radio until the early 1950’s. May 21st 11am-2pm • New Baptist Temple: 360 Schermerhorn, Completed in 1895 by Brooklyn’s oldest Baptist congregation, this Romanesque church was rebuilt after a 1917 fire, and is currently recovering from another fire this summer. May 21st 9am-11am • Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Cathedral: 113 Remsen Street, Designed by Richard Upjohn and one of the earliest Romanesque Revival buildings in America, this church was originally constructed in 1844 to house the Church of the Pilgrims. The Church of the Pilgrims merged with Plymouth Church in the 1930s, and Our Lady of Lebanon Church purchased this building in 1944. The doors at both the west and south portals were salvaged from the ill-fated oceanliner Normandie which burned and sank in its Hudson River berth in 1942. May 22nd 12pm-3pm • Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims: 75 Hicks Street, was erected in 1849-50 as a meeting house for the Plymouth Church, which was renowned as the church of Henry Ward • • • • • • • • Beecher who preached here from 1847 until 1887. After merger with the church of the Pilgrims', Tiffany windows from what is now Our Lady of Lebanon were relocated to the Hillis Hall behind Plymouth Church.May 21st 12pm-3pm Rugged Cross Baptist Church: 1084 Lafayette Ave., Rugged Cross Baptist Church, currently shrouded in scaffolding and undergoing major restoration, was built in 18981899 as the Christ Lutheran Church to serve the then-thriving German Lutheran immigrant community of Bedford Stuyvesant and Bushwick. The present congregation, Rugged Baptist, purchased the church in 1980. May 21st 10am-1pm and May 22nd 12pm-2pm St. Ann and the Holy Trinity: 157 Montague Street, The Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity (formerly Church of the Holy Trinity) is the most ambitious building designed by Minard Lafever and the master work of his career. Construction was completed in 1847 on the Gothic Revival church, chapel, and parish house funded by paper manufacturer John Bartow, who dreamed of erecting an Episcopal church in Brooklyn that would rival such New York City churches as Trinity. May 21st 1-4pm St. Charles Borromeo Church: 21 Sidney Place, Said to be prolific Catholic church architect Patrick Keely’s 325th design of more than 600, this Gothic Revival church was constructed in 1868. May 21st and May 22nd 12pm-4pm St. John’s Lutheran Church: 155 Milton Street, Situated on a side street in Greenpoint, St. John's Lutheran Church is a Neo-Gothic style church designed in 1897 by architect Theobold Engelhart for a German Lutheran congregation. May 21st 2pm-4pm St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church: 348 S. 5th Street, The St. Paul's complex was designed by J.C. Cady & Company and constructed in 1884-1885 in the Romanesque Revival style. This recently designated landmark church's most prominent feature is a 135-foot corner belltower. May 21st 2pm-4pm St. Philips Episcopal Church: 265 Decatur Street, St. Philip's Episcopal Church was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Arne Dehli and built between 1898-99. Kane Street Synagogue: 236 Kane Street, Founded in 1856 and known as the 'Mother Synagogue,' the synagogue is the oldest Jewish congregation in Brooklyn. In 1905, it purchased the former Middle Dutch Reformed Church and adjacent school building which were built in 1855-56. May 22nd 11am-1pm First Unitarian Congregational Society: 50 Monroe Place, This 1844 church was designed by the prolific church architect Minard Lafever the design of the building was loosely based on late-English Gothic prototypes, such as Kings College Chapel on Cambridge. However, Lafever adapted his sources to create a building which is uniquely American. May 22nd 12pm-3pm Queens: • Astoria Center of Israel: 27-35 Crescent Street, Astoria Center of Israel was built in 1925-26 to a Classical Revival design by Louis Allen Abramson, considered one of the chief architects of the synagogue-center movement, which incorporated educational, recreational, and social facilities within buildings designed for worship. The Astoria Center sanctuary is particularly significant for its religiously themed murals painted on the ceiling and walls of the sanctuary by renowned French Beaux Arts trained, Art Deco artist Louis Pierre Rigal in 1929. Rigal's work also adorns Manhattan's Chanin Building and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. May 22nd 3pm-6pm • Flushing Quaker Meeting House: 137-16 Northern Blvd., The eastern third of the Friends Meeting House in Flushing is New York City’s oldest structure in continuous use for religious purposes. Built in 1694 by a community of Friends including the Bowne • • • family, whose house survives nearby, and enlarged in 1716-19, the wood shingled meetinghouse is austerely simple, and offers evidence of the survival of medieval building techniques in the American colonies in its proportions and massive timber frame. May 21st 10am-3pm and May 22nd 10am-3pm Free Synagogue of Flushing: 41-60 Kissena Blvd., Founded in 1917, the Free Synagogue of Flushing is the oldest Reform Synagogue in Queens. The complex includes two contributing buildings: a late-nineteenth century Colonial Revival mansion that the Synagogue acquired in 1921 and used for services in its early years, and an adjoining purpose-built synagogue, designed by Palestine-born, Beaux-Arts educated Maurice Courland, constructed in 1927. May 21st 12pm-5pm Church of the Resurrection: 85-09 118th Street, In December 1874, architect Henry Dudley designed a small wooden frame church in the Gothic style for the newly incorporated Church of the Resurrection. This structure remains the core of the existing building. Among the early parishioners was Jacob Riis. The Riis Family memorial stained glass window still remains in the building today. From 1905 through the 1920’s, the church was remodeled and enlarged incrementally by additions in stone, which included side aisles, a front porch, belfry, transepts, and a chancel. May 21st 10am-4pm Church of the Most Precious Blood: 32-24 36th, St Constructed in 1931, the Church of the Most Precious Blood is considered the masterwork of architects McGill and Hamlin. Art Deco in style, the front façade features exquisite limestone carving, including flat bas-relief panels punctuating a stylized cross motif at the entrance gable, and a streamlined, neo-Byzantine arched entrance surround. Delicate perforated and molded decorative aluminum metalwork, with a pattern of abstract peacocks and flowers, crowns the tower. Grey metal leader head boxes are decorated with reliefs depicting fantastical fish. Stepped steel multi-light casement windows punctuate the side entrance wings and side elevations. Art-Deco figural stained glass windows light the altar and side aisles of the sanctuary, while a Mondrian-like geometric window with colored glass and alabaster panels lights the organ loft. The stained glass is by Richard N. Spiers & Son; the studio also created windows for Riverside Church Towers, Temple Emanuel, and the Church of the Heavenly Rest. The sanctuary interior is highly intact, retaining original majolica plaques depicting the stations of the cross, designed by D. Dunbar Beck, flanked by backlit, stained glass panels; art deco metalwork radiator panels and organ screen; richly colored marble at the altar; original Arts and Crafts colored tile altar flooring; art deco statuary at altar and side aisle chapels, including St. Theresa and St. Anthony statues by Hazel Clerc, highlighted by stepped, skyscraper-motif openings; tile wainscoting; striated ceiling paneling and heavy exposed wood trusses; and pews with streamlined vertical striations. Beck (1903-1986) was an Ohio-born muralist and interior designer with a BFA from Yale. May 21 2pm-4pm Bronx: • Tremont Baptist Church: 324 E. Tremont Ave., The neo-Gothic, gray marble Tremont Baptist Church was constructed between 1904 and 1912 to the design of William H. Birkmire, who was an engineer as well as an architect, authored a series of articles on steel-framed skyscraper construction in the 1890's, and designed several commercial buildings located within the Ladies’ Mile and Tribeca historic districts, as well as the Mexican National Opera House in Mexico City May 21st 1pm-3pm • St. Peter’s Episcopal Church: 2500 Westchester Avenue This 1855 Gothic Revival church was designed by architect Leopold Eidlitz one of the most talented and influential American architects in the 19th century, and is characteristic of his work in its straightforward use of materials and its emphasis on structural clarity. After part of the • church was destroyed by fire in 1877, it was rebuilt by Leipold's son Cyrus in 1879. The cemetery contains many 18th-century gravestones. Fordham United Methodist Church: 2543 Marion Avenue Staten Island: • Christ Church New Brighton: 76 Franklin Ave. The church (1903-1904) and parish hall (1906-1907) were designed by prolific Philadelphia church architect Isaac Purcell in the Neo-Gothic style. The church interior features exposed schist walls at the nave and more delicate, limestone walls at the chancel, reredos carving by noted Art Deco sculptor Lee Lowrie and exquisite, multi-panel pictorial stained glass windows by studios including Tiffany, Fredrick Lamb, Lamb Studios, Gorham Studios, Nicola D’Ascenzo and Valentine d’Ogries. • St. Paul's Memorial Church: 225 St. Paul’s Ave., St. Paul's Memorial Church and Rectory, designed by prominent architect Edward Potter and constructed in 1870, considered one of the finest High Victorian Gothic religious complexes in New York City, is situated in the country setting of Stapleton, one of the oldest sections of Staten Island. May 21st 1-4pm and May 22nd 1-4pm • Temple Emanu-El: 984 Post Ave., Temple Emanu-El, designed by architect Harry W. Pelcher and built in 1907, is a two-story, rectangular frame structure with a cross gable roof, surmounted by a dome atop an octagonal drum, with round-arched, opalescent stained glass windows. The front façade features a classical two-column porch and gabled pediment with a Decalogue, and is thought to have been modeled on the Great Temple of Warsaw, Poland. • Woodrow United Methodist Church: 1075 Woodrow Rd., Woodrow United Methodist Church was the first established Methodist Church on Staten Island and has maintained a continuous presence on the Island since 1771. Completed in 1842, the clapboard sided Greek Revival temple-form church is distinguished by an imposing portico supported by four wooden columns. The three-stage open bell tower and spire was added in 1876..May 21st 1pm-3pm and May 22nd 1pm-3pm Additional information is available on the congregations’ individual websites and at nylandmarks.org. Photos available upon request. - END -