St. Jean Baptiste Roman Catholic Church

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Coordinates: 40°46′21″N 73°57′36″W / 40.77250°N 73.96000°W / 40.77250; -73.96000
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St. Jean Baptiste
Roman Catholic Church
Italian Mannerism
Groundbreaking1910
Completed1913
Construction cost$600,000
Specifications
Direction of façadewest
Capacity1,200
Dome(s)1
Dome height (outer)175 feet (53 m)
Spire(s)2
Spire height150 feet (46 m)
MaterialsLimestone
St. Jean Baptiste
Roman Catholic Church
St. Jean Baptiste Roman Catholic Church is located in New York City
St. Jean Baptiste Roman Catholic Church
Coordinates40°46′21″N 73°57′36″W / 40.77250°N 73.96000°W / 40.77250; -73.96000
NRHP reference No.80002720
Significant dates
Added to NRHPApril 23, 1980[2]
Designated NYCLNovember 19, 1969[1]
Website
The Church of St. Jean Baptiste, New York City

St. Jean Baptiste Roman Catholic Church, also known as the Église St-Jean-Baptiste, is a Catholic parish church in the

Fathers of the Blessed Sacrament since 1900.[3]

Financier

Turin, Italy
in 1911. It is his only surviving church in the city.

The church is one of the few Catholic churches in New York City with a dome, and only one of two – the other being

rectory.[2]
From 1995 to 1996 the interior and exterior were both restored and renovated.

Started in 1882 in a rented hall above a

Congregation of Notre Dame in 1886. In the late 19th century, an exposure by a visiting priest of a relic of St. Anne, intended for one night, grew into a three-week event during which many miracle cures were alleged by thousands of pilgrims who crowded the church; as a result, the church now has its own shrine to the saint, which led to a failed effort to get it designated a basilica. In 1900 it passed from the control of the founding Fathers of Mercy to the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament, who introduced Eucharistic adoration
as a worship style.

Property

The church is located on the east side of Lexington Avenue at 76th Street. The building takes up most of the 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m2)

lot, with the rectory on the south side, facing East 75th Street.[5] The area is densely developed. St. Jean Baptiste High School, run by the church, is on the other side of 75th Street. Lenox Hill Hospital
is nearby.

Exterior

The building, which opened in the spring of 1913, is faced in

plinth supported by four Corinthian columns. This design is echoed with smaller pediments on each of the side entrances above carved festoon and scroll motifs.[5]

Above a broad cornice, twin bell towers rise to a total height of 150 feet (46 m) at the corners. Their lower stages with canted corners have round-arched openings framed by pilasters. Above them an open circle of Corinthian columns supports a ribbed dome, topped by a smaller version of the top with a cross. These are echoes of the larger dome in the middle of the church that rises to 172 feet (52 m). Between the two towers, on the parapet, a statue of angels supporting a globe echoes the pediment below. The gabled, gently pitched roofs are sheathed in copper.[5]

On either side of the front facade, projecting entrance bays with windows are topped with a statue of an angel blowing a trumpet. The side elevations, of which only the north is visible from the street, have high round-arched windows and continue the cornice at the roofline. Pediments similar to those on the front grace the second story above the windows on either end of the transept.[5]

Interior

Inside, the

barrel-vaulted nave is separated from the vaulted aisles by an arcade of tall Corinthian columns; the vault springs from the entablature. All the vaults, ribs and arches are richly decorated with Florentine-style reliefs. The column capitals and fluting are also gilded. The center of the nave vault has trompe-l'œil paintings of the heavens; an elaborate Florentine-style floral pattern decorates the interior of the dome.[5]

Against the

Mary of Carrara marble; to the right is a similar one honoring St. Joseph. At the transept corners are smaller altars to Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament founder St. Peter Julian Eymard, with a relic in a case below; the other corner's altar is to St. Anthony of Padua.[6] The walls and ceilings are otherwise decorated with paintings in the Baroque style.[5]

The stained glass windows and high altar were brought to New York from Chartres, France and Italy, respectively, following

Twelve Apostles, scenes from the Old Testament which prefigure the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist, and events in the life and ministry of Jesus, including the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist and the Easter appearance of Christ to the disciples at Emmaus. The high altar is 50 feet (15 m) tall. A team of artisans accompanied the various pieces of the altar from Italy and reassembled it in the sanctuary.[6]

Under the dome is the altar table, made of white marble. At the center of the frontal is a Christogram, IHS, from the first three letters of Jesus (ΙΗΣΟΥΣ) in Greek. The pews, choir stalls, and confessionals are of oak and are elaborately carved. Eucharistic images, especially wheat shocks and clusters of grapes, are prominent throughout the building.[6]

A restoration of the interior was completed in November 1998.

Associated structures

The Rev. A. Letellier, rector, had a five-storey brick and stone rectory at 170–190 East 76th Street and 1067 Lexington Avenue built in 1911 to designs by

facade features limestone voussoirs crowning each window. The end bays project slightly and are set off with large pilasters. The ground floor is rusticated. Limestone string courses are above the second and fourth stories, with a plain entablature and overhanging cornice at the roofline.[5] There have been few alterations to the exterior. The interior, by contrast, has been extensively remodeled over time. Only the oak woodwork remains from the original building.[5]

The Most Rev. Pat. J. Hayes had a four-storey brick school with a tile roof at 163–173 East 75th built in 1925 to designs by Robert J. Reiley of 50 East 41st Street for $300,000. A five-storey brick brothers apartment building at 194 East 76th Street, was built in 1930 to designs by Robert J. Reiley of 50 East 41st Street for $70,000 to 90,000. A five-storey brick sisters apartment house at 163–175 East 75th Street and 170–198 East 76th Street and 1061–1071 Lexington Avenue was built in 1931 to designs by Robert J. Reiley of 50 East 41st Street for $125,000.[7]

History

From its origins in a rented hall above a stable[8] with an almost exclusively French Canadian congregation, St. Jean Baptiste has grown to be one of New York's most distinctive Catholic churches. It has been through three buildings in two locations and under the care of two different orders of priests.

1841–82: Establishment of parish

In the early 19th century, one in every nine New Yorkers was of

Italian immigrants had. The community responded to this challenge, and accordingly the first Church of St. Vincent de Paul was opened the next year on Canal Street.[9]

That church grew, and moved north to

Germans. The order's provincial gave his support for the establishment of a national parish, and a meeting of the immigrants' St. Jean Societé in 1881 raised $12 ($400 in contemporary dollars[10]) to that end. This is considered the beginning of the church's history.[9]

A chapel was established in a rented hall above a

Cardinal John McCloskey, Archbishop of the Diocese of New York and the first American cardinal, granted permission to build a church, formalizing the parish. The new parish was able to raise $14,000 ($442,000 in contemporary dollars[10]) to buy a property on the north side of East 76th Street in 1882. By the end of the year Coadjutor Archbishop (later full Archbishop) Michael Corrigan had blessed the new building's cornerstone.[9]

Gothic Revival church building, 100 feet (30 m) long by 40 feet (12 m) wide, with room for 600. Its projected cost was $20,000 ($654,000 in contemporary dollars[10]) but it soon ran into difficulties when problems with using the "crib of Bethlehem" forced the use of the unfinished church's basement during Lent in 1883. Archbishop Corrigan had to take title to the church to save it.[9]

1882–1900: First church and St. Anne's shrine

The new church was successful not only with its intended French Canadian community, but with all Catholics on the Upper East Side. Many were servants in the nearby houses of the city's wealthier residents and had to report for their jobs early, thus appreciating a nearby church where they could first attend Mass. In 1886, nuns from the

Congregation of Notre Dame, founded in colonial Montreal in the mid-17th century, came to establish an elementary school.[9]

In 1892, the church inadvertently became a

Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Quebec. The pastor at the time asked him to expose it to the parishioners during vespers that evening. Marquis did so, as he would continue to Quebec the next day.[9]

News that the relic would be exposed soon reached the community, and a large crowd showed up for evening services. When a young man having an epileptic seizure was touched by it, his convulsions ceased. That apparent miracle was widely reported and even more crowds showed up, many expecting cures. The pastor asked Marquis to stay for a few more days with the relic to satisfy the many pilgrims.[9]

His stay would be extended to three weeks as thousands of pilgrims came. As he finally left on May 20, crowds bade the relic farewell and asked that she return again for good next time. Father Marquis was so impressed that he promised to obtain a relic for St. Jean. With the permission of Cardinal Elzéar-Alexandre Taschereau, he divided the relic once he had reached Sainte-Anne and returned to New York with it in July. More crowds came, more miracles were reported, and Marquis reported favorably on this to the pope. As a result, he was able to make a return trip to the shrine of St. Anne in Apt, France, and brought a relic back specifically for St. Jean Baptiste.[9]

1900–18: Change in leadership and new church

In 1900 the efforts of a wealthy local Catholic activist,

St. Peter Julian Eymard in Paris in 1856, to New York. They were unable to find a center for their work, but often attended Mass and resided at the St. Jean Baptiste rectory. One day, the pastor joked to the Blessed Sacrament priests that if they could not find a church, he'd just have to give them his. That remark got back to Archbishop Corrigan, who informed St. Jean Baptiste's pastor the very next day that he was putting St. Jean Baptiste under the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament's control. Throughout the rest of the year the interior of the LeBrun church was altered to be more in keeping with the Congregation's Eucharistic style of worship.[9]

East 76th Street facade (2014)

The continuous exposure of the Sacrament, and the availability of daily

Catholicism as a young man and who, with his wife Ida Barry Ryan, supported the construction of churches, schools, and other charitable institutions along the Eastern Seaboard, arrived late and had to stand. He preferred St. Jean to the larger churches closer to his Fifth Avenue mansion, and often attended services there. He heard Father Arthur Letellier, the new pastor, ask the congregation's prayers for a new church, and afterwards asked how much one would cost. "About $300,000" ($10.2 million in contemporary dollars[10]) he was told. "Very well", he replied. "Have your plans made and I will pay for the church".[9]

At first Ryan had wanted a church similar in size to the existing one, but Letellier persuaded him it was time for a church with room for 1,200 people, twice the LeBrun church's capacity. Italian architect

renderings of the unfinished church won first prize at the International Exhibition in Turin.[9]

Ryan was initially skeptical of the dome, but when he saw how it won praise on a model of Serracino's design he authorized the additional $43,000 ($1.41 million in contemporary dollars

foundation increased eightfold as a result, and plans to gild the dome and finish the interior with marble had to be canceled. The widening of Lexington Avenue also forced Serracino to scale back his original plans for a grand triumphal arch portico with full-width steps. Ryan continued to provide funds for a final total cost of $600,000 ($18.5 million in contemporary dollars[10]).[9]

The rectory, also designed by Serracino, was built and opened in 1911. The lower church in the basement was finished and

Pius X.[9]

1918–87: The church in a changing city

Within a few years of its construction, the new church twice became a crime scene. The first occasion was the night of November 30, 1918, when police pursued a man named Charles George into the church following a carjacking. The police and George had been exchanging gunfire, and it continued as he ran up the stairs into the choir. When he ran out of ammunition, he surrendered. Several women who had been praying in the church at the time had to be treated for hysteria.[12] Almost a year later, on November 29, 1919, Cecilia Simon, a maid at an East 56th Street home, was arrested in the church when she knocked statuary and a candelabra valued at $3,000 ($53,000 in contemporary dollars[10]) onto the floor and shattering them after a funeral service. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital for observation. While apparently a devout enough Catholic to be a daily communicant, she was not a member of the church. At services there the previous Sunday, investigators found that in a collection envelope she had placed a note registering her objection to the arrangement on the altar. A coworker said that she had been acting strangely all week and had said she was going to "do some good work" at church that day.[13]

In 1920

Benedict XV, to designate St. Jean Baptiste a basilica.[14] It failed. Later in the decade the church's interior decoration was gradually installed and finished. Ryan's funeral was held in the church he had paid so much to build in 1928.[15] In 1929 the sisters of Notre Dame opened a high school to go with the elementary school they had been running for almost 40 years.[9]

The interior of the church was modified slightly in the 1950s during renovations. The

Vatican II, the church began to change, as much due to the changing demographics of its parish as the council. It stopped celebrating Mass in French, and the elementary school was closed nearly ninety years after its founding.[9] In 1969 the city made the church one of its first designated landmarks. The next year crime once again intruded into the church when an elderly woman was stabbed on a staircase within by three youths.[17]

1987–present: Renovation

In 1989 stones from the facade fell onto the Lexington Avenue sidewalk. No one was injured, but the church had to erect a wooden shelter to protect pedestrians from potential future incidents. That led to the

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer.[20]

View from the southwest (2014)

It was financed by the sale of land and

Robert A.M. Stern for complementing the architecture of the adjacent rectory by echoing the church's bell towers and offering "rich sculptural form and lively surface patterning ... to a neighborhood burdened by so many uninspired blocklike apartment buildings"[22]

In 2002, a longtime parishioner, Maryanne Macaluso, alleged that the new pastor, Father Mario Marzocchi, had groped and propositioned her after offering her a secretarial position. After she complained to another priest and took paid leave due to the stress of having to see Father Mazocchi every day, the order had him evaluated by a psychologist who found nothing wrong with him, and then transferred him to a parish in Florida. When she returned to work, she claims the church retaliated against her by cutting her work hours from full-time to part-time after several weeks and giving duties she normally performed to others. When she asked the replacement pastor, Father Anthony Schueller, for full-time work, he informed her that the church could not afford to do so and she requested a letter of termination, putting her in danger of being evicted from her apartment.[23]

After the state denied her

hostile environment sexual harassment. In 2007 Judge Louis York of the New York Supreme Court dismissed her claims, without ruling on the facts, against all but Father Marzocchi, who had not responded.[24]

Programs and services

The church celebrates Mass three times a day and five times on Sunday, with a Saturday night

Sacred Heart of Jesus after Friday evening Mass. The Rosary is prayed at noon Monday through Saturday.[25]

The church's musical ministry is led by its

thrift shop is run in the basement, next to the community center. A toddler play group and senior group are held there at different times of the week.[26] Also in the basement is the Kathryn Martin Theater, which has hosted a number of musical performances, both church- and non-church-related.[27]

In the broader community, the church, in conjunction with the sisters of Notre Dame, continues to operate St. Jean Baptiste High School for girls. The congregation is a member of the Yorkville Common Pantry and the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter. The community center is also available for rent to individuals and organizations.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ "NYCLPC Designation Report"
  2. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  3. ^ Lafort, Remigius The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X. Volume 3: The Province of Baltimore and the Province of New York, Section 1: Comprising the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn, Buffalo and Ogdensburg Together with some Supplementary Articles on Religious Communities of Women.. (New York City: The Catholic Editing Company, 1914), p.337.
  4. ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1
    . p.169
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Huckins, Polly (August 1979). "National Register of Historic Places nomination, St. Jean Baptiste Church and Rectory". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved April 9, 2010.
  6. ^ a b c "Saint Jean Baptiste Catholic Church Tour". St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church. October 2005. Retrieved April 12, 2010.
  7. ^ Office for Metropolitan History Archived February 15, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, "Manhattan NB Database 1900–1986," (Accessed December 25, 2010).
  8. ISBN 0-231-12543-7
    ., p.212-213
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Saint Jean Baptiste Catholic Church History". St. Jean Baptiste Church. October 2005. Retrieved April 10, 2010.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  11. ^ a b Gray, Christopher (December 30, 1990). "Streetscapes: St. Jean Baptiste Church; Restoration on Lexington Ave". The New York Times. Retrieved April 12, 2010.
  12. ^ "Police Shoot At Man In A Church; Fugitive, Accused of Auto Theft, Surrenders on Stairs to Choir" (PDF). The New York Times. December 1, 1918. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  13. ^ "Woman Wrecks Altar in $1,000,000 Church" (PDF). The New York Times. November 30, 1919. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  14. ^ "New Basilica Sought; Governor and Mayor Sign Petition for St. Jean Baptiste Church" (PDF). The New York Times. January 14, 1920. Retrieved April 12, 2010.
  15. ^ "Wall St. Leaders Attend Ryan Rites; Catholic Church Dignitaries Also at Simple Services at St. Jean Baptiste" (pdf). The New York Times. November 27, 1928. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  16. ^ "350 Attend a Mass for Clendenin Ryan". The New York Times. September 15, 1957. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  17. ^ "Widow Stabbed in Church On East Side by 3 Youths". The New York Times. October 29, 1970. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  18. ^ "A $600,000 Restoration/Renovation of a Church Interior; A New, Brighter, Palette at St. Jean Baptiste". The New York Times. February 8, 1998. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  19. ^ Ramirez, Anthony (July 20, 1997). "Stained Glass at the Speed Of, Er, Light". The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2010. [dead link]
  20. ISBN 978-0-19538-386-7
    .
  21. ^ "POSTINGS: 31-Story Building Going Up Next to St. Jean Baptiste on E.76th St.; Condo Rising Beside Church's Dome". The New York Times. March 17, 1996. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  22. ^ "The Siena – 188 East 76th Street". cityrealty.com. 1994–2010. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  23. ^ Barry, Dan (August 9, 2003). "Another Mass, but Minus One Regular". The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  24. ^ "Macaluso v. Church of St. Jean Baptiste et al" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 30, 2012.; New York Supreme Court; February 27, 2007; retrieved May 30, 2011.
  25. ^ "Saint Jean Baptiste Catholic Church Schedule". St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church. October 2005. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  26. ^ a b "Saint Jean Baptiste Catholic Church Ministries". St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church. October 2005. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  27. ^ "Saint Jean Baptiste Community Center". St. Jean Baptiste Catholic Church. Retrieved April 13, 2010.

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