The Churches of New York - by Way of Introduction

Even the long time resident of the city is surprised to encounter, on a casual stroll or on a visit to a less-frequented neighborhood, one of the Catholic parishes of New York. The Catholic churches of the city pop up in the most unexpected places yet tend, with the exception of St. Patrick’s cathedral, to keep a low profile in the cityscape. Although their architecture spans the entire history of the city and the Archdiocese from 1800 to 1970 and beyond, they rarely figure in guidebooks or New York Times write-ups. The Archdiocese itself would be reluctant, one suspects, to have landmark status accorded many of these churches for obvious short-term financial reasons. Yet, there are more than a hundred of these churches in Manhattan, including not a few real masterpieces of their respective eras.
But why write of these churches now? One excellent reason is that the Archdiocese is under new management. Archbishop Dolan will undoubtedly be taking a new look at the existing roster of parishes. The last “realignment” although devastating in terms of the loss of art and history, was far less severe than it could have been. We need to record the history that is before us in order to preserve it - or before it disappears irretrievably. Over the last few years, moreover, there have been major renovations of a number of churches –more or less successful. These deserve attention they have not yet received.
Although most of the New York parishes are modest affairs – in comparison, say, with their Chicago counterpart, there is hardly any other area of the country that can claim such a continuous tradition of church building. Visiting the parishes of New York is a graduate level course in Catholic Church history. Moreover, many of these churches have preserved the furnishings and the flavor of the past far better than their suburban sisters. This is owing in part to the innate conservatism of the New York Catholic- what is once put in place is likely to stay there- but even more so to lack of money. For many of the parishes of New York have few parishioners and less funding. This is evident in the structural damage the visitor encounters all too often.
But the greatest threat to the parishes of Manhattan has been the dramatic improvement in the quality of life of many of the city neighborhoods – and the concurrent rise in real estate values. Many of the parishes of the city now sit on property that is very valuable indeed. The temptation to cash in on this resource has already cost New York Catholics several acknowledged masterpieces (e.g. St. Ann’s).
In this series I hope to introduce you to as many of these parishes as possible, to mark out the high points and to sketch out the history both of church Architecture in this city and of New York Catholicism itself. I hope to convince you that the churches of New York possess an artistic, historical and above all symbolic worth – in the “capital of the world”- far in excess of any short-term real estate values.