When my company was located at the Rolex Building, I
used to pass by the house of worship located catty-corner from it on Fifth
Avenue and 53rd Street, St. Thomas Episcopal Church. The fourth church for the parish, it replaced a prior structure destroyed
in a 1905 fire.
Many other congregations might not have recovered
from a blaze that consumed interiors by John LaFarge and sculptures by Augustus
St. Gaudens. But architect Ralph Adams Cram announced that the new structure
would probably be “the most expensive church per square foot built thus far in
the United States.” St. Thomas rebuilt rapidly, with the first service in its new home being held Oct. 4, 1913.
Like St. Patrick’s Cathedral a few blocks to the
south, St. Thomas, with its French High Gothic architectural style, stands out
from the modernist, glass-and-steel cathedrals of commerce that now populate
Fifth Avenue. From its triple-arched entrance way to its stone quarried from
Kentucky, it awes even from the outside—an impression only enhanced by a
preservation project completed a year ago that saw restoration of its stained
glass windows and the cleaning of its facade.
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