Saint Thomas Church (Manhattan)
Saint Thomas Church is an Episcopal parish church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Also known as Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue or Saint Thomas Church in the City of New York, the parish was incorporated on January 9, 1824. The current structure, the congregation's fourth church, was designed by the architects Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in the French High Gothic Revival style and completed in 1914.[2] In 2021, it reported 2,852 members, average in-person attendance of 224 (due to pandemic restrictions) and $1,152,588 in plate and pledge income.[3]
For other churches with the same or similar name, see St. Thomas' Church (disambiguation).St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue
53rd Street and Fifth Avenue
Manhattan, New York City
1823
April 25, 1916
1914
$1,171,906.44 (equivalent to $35,647,759 in 2023)
214 feet (65 m)
100 feet (30 m)
43 feet (13 m)
95 feet (29 m)
Kentucky limestone, Kentucky sandstone
Carl F. Turner
- Matthew Moretz
- Alison Turner
- Mark Schultz
- Juyoung Prisca Lee-Pae
- Luigi Gioia
- Preston Gonzalez-Grissom
- Andrew C. Mead
- Andrew St. John
- Mark Brown
- Gina Gore
- David F. McNeeley
- Thomas F. Pike
Jeremy Filsell
- Nicolas Haigh
- Maks Adach
- David Bryan (Head Verger)
- Joshilyn Hoisington (Second Verger)
1–3 W. 53rd St.
Manhattan, New York City
1909
06101.000442
0260
April 9, 1980
June 23, 1980
October 19, 1966
In 2020, following a gift from the family trust of the late John and Mary Alyce Merrow, a camera system with a dozen 360-degree-rotating cameras was installed. Online attendance has remained significant; during Advent and Christmas, 2022, on-line participation was 38,000 with an average attendance of 25 minutes.[4]
The church is home to the Saint Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, a choral ensemble comprising men and boys which performs music of the Anglican tradition at worship services and offers a full concert series during the course of the year. The men of the Saint Thomas Choir are professional singers and the boys are students enrolled at the Saint Thomas Choir School, the only church-affiliated residential choir school in the United States where the choristers make up the whole student body. Only three such schools remain in the world currently; the two Anglican Choir Schools are Saint Thomas Choir School and Westminster Abbey Choir School in the United Kingdom.
History[edit]
Broadway and Houston Street[edit]
On October 12, 1823, members of three Episcopal parishes in Lower Manhattan collaborated to organize a new episcopal church in New York. These included William Backhouse Astor, a wealthy Manhattan landowner; Charles King, later president of Columbia University; and jurist William Beach Lawrence.[5] The congregation came from Grace Church, Trinity Church, and St. George's Church.[6]
Saint Thomas Church was incorporated on January 9, 1824,[7] and the cornerstone of the new church building laid in July 1824 at the northwest corner of Broadway and Houston Street. The first church edifice opened in 1826 and was described as "the best specimen of Gothic in the city."[8][5][9] The location was the northern extent of developed settlement in Manhattan during the early 19th century. It was designed in a Gothic Revival style by architect Joseph R. Brady and John McVickar, professor of moral philosophy at Columbia College (now Columbia University).[10] The church was enlarged and remodeled in 1844 to accommodate a growing congregation.[10]
The first Saint Thomas's Church was destroyed by fire on March 2, 1851. The congregation built a new church at the same location, completed in 1852.[10] The character of the neighborhood at the corner of Broadway and Houston, the southeastern corner of Greenwich Village, broadly speaking, had "degenerated into anchorage for cheap dance halls and 'concert salloons'" by the 1860s. This led to the congregation seeking to relocate.[11][5]
Move to midtown[edit]
A third church was built from 1865 to 1870 at the corner of 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue based upon a design by Richard Upjohn and his son Richard Michell Upjohn.[10] The cornerstone for the new church was laid on October 14, 1868.[12][6][13] Two years later, on October 6, 1870, the congregation moved into its new home.[12][6] This structure, in a neighborhood at the time dominated by the mansions of Manhattan's upper class, featured a prominent 260-foot (79 m) high tower and a bas-relief reredos by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and murals by John LaFarge.[10][14] Though the new Saint Thomas's was a parish church, its location and design evoked that of a cathedral.[15]
The third building was also the site of many high society weddings and funerals, including that of Consuelo Vanderbilt to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, the first cousin of Winston Churchill.[16] This structure was destroyed by fire on August 8, 1905.[6][17] Only the tower remained from the third church.[10] The congregation built a 1,200-seat chapel on the rest of the site.[18]
Current church[edit]
The fourth and current church, designed in 1906, was built from 1911 to 1913 to a design by Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue of the architectural firm of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson.[14] The cornerstone was laid on November 21, 1911, and the new building opened to congregants on October 4, 1913.[6] It was consecrated on April 25, 1916.[17][14] The design by Cram and Goodhue won an architectural competition to build the new Saint Thomas Church, winning over entries by George Browne Post and Robert W. Gibson.[19]
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake had so shocked the church's rector, Rev. Ernest M. Stires, that he rushed the accumulated balance in his parish's building fund to aid the stricken city. The public responded in kind to his generosity with unsolicited gifts that more than replenished the fund.
Cram and Goodhue are also noted for having designed Saint Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue and East 50th Street, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue and West 110th Street, the chapel and a large portion of the campus at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, the Princeton University Chapel at Princeton University and the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago.
Worship[edit]
The style of worship at Saint Thomas Church has varied greatly over the history of the parish. Beginning with the rectorship of John Andrew in 1972, however, it has informally followed the Anglo-Catholic or high-church tradition within the Episcopal Church that developed out of the Oxford Movement. This was further developed under the rectorship of Andrew Mead. Sunday services include Low Mass, High Mass, and Evensong, and Solemn Mass on Christmas, Easter and major feast days. Special liturgies and processions are held for Advent, Epiphany, Candlemas and Holy Week. The Litany is sung in procession in Advent and Lent. For masses at the High Altar, the Church uses a variation on the three traditional sacred ministers ad orientem, however as with many other Anglo-Catholic parishes that do not look to Tridentine Rome for liturgical cues, many of the unique traditional roles of sacred ministers are currently in use--the Deacon reads the Gospel and the Subdeacon reads the Epistle. The two sacred ministers who are not celebrating the mass essentially vest and act as priests in tunicles. The readings are not chanted. The choir of men and boys sing most Sundays in term time and, if there are no visiting choirs during the school vacation, the gentlemen of the choir sing the services. The church uses traditional language for many of its services on Sundays and weekdays and the King James Version of the Bible is used at Sunday choral services and at Choral Evensong and Solemn Mass on feast days during the week. Rite II of the BCP 1979 is used for the 12:10 pm mass Mondays to Fridays. In Lent 2015 Shrine Prayers were started at the image of Our Lady of Fifth Avenue and intercessions are offered at noon after the Angelus Mondays to Saturdays; these intercessions may be left in the church or submitted online via the church website, and many prayer requests come from around the world every week. Confessions are heard each Saturday from 11:00–11:45 am. Since 2021, the 9 am Sunday mass has become a Low-Church Novus Ordo-type children and family focused service, using Rite II and ad populum altar placed in the Chancel. A robed children's outreach choir called the Noble Singers and composed of local girls and boys sings at the 9 am service. On the second Sunday of each month, a Sunday mass is offered in Korean Language. The church is open every day of the year.