The Churches of New York II: God’s Ballroom

Our Lady of Peace
237 East 62nd Street
NY NY 10065

On East 62nd street, in close proximity to a very, very high rent district, there exists a small bastion of outrageous, unreformed and unapologetic Catholicism. The parish of Our Lady of Peace offers the church connoisseur a sexy Magdalene, a life size wax image of a saint holding her eyes on a paten, and innumerable statues and paintings. How did this come to be in such an elegant place?

Actually, the area extending east of Lexington and north of East 59th Street as far as East 96th Street – “Greater Yorkville” – was in bygone days not that fine an area at all. It was traditionally the home of various hard working, primarily Central European, peoples. Ecclesiastically this was reflected in a host of ethnic parishes – German, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian etc. that existed alongside the religious order churches (like St. Ignatius and St. Vincent Ferrer) or the mainstream “Irish” parishes ( e.g. St. Monica, Our Lady of Good Counsel). These ethnic groups, that were still a vestigial presence as late as the 1980s, have by now regrettably almost totally disappeared. But their parishes, with one or two exceptions, still remain, ministering to a totally different population.

Italians were not usually considered a main component of Yorkville’s ethnic mix. Our Lady of Peace, however, was established in 1918 as an Italian parish.

The pretty Victorian church – really just a large chapel – had been built in 1886 for a German Protestant congregation. (1) Like many New York churches, the rectory is integrated into the structure of the church to save space.

Inside, the small church presents itself as a simple space, with the northern half of the nave being slightly narrower than the other, and ending in a shallow apse with side chapels set into the walls.

With its brilliant gold and white color scheme, Venetian chandeliers and double skylights this church indeed resembles the ballroom of an old hotel. But hasn’t the great German rococo church of Vierzehnheiligen also sometimes been called the “Tanzsaal Gottes” – God’s ballroom? Now Our Lady of Peace displays hardly any rococo ornamentation or architectural detail. Yet it has the same bright and joyous atmosphere of the Bavarian churches.

St Fara of Cinisi (in Sicily) greets the startled entering visitor from a glass case. The life size crowned figure of a nun bears a crosier in one hand and a paten with her eyes in the other. A Frankish princess of the 7th century, she wished to enter the religious life but her father tried to force an advantageous marriage upon her. Whereupon she developed an illness that blinded her. She was cured only after her parents relented and allowed her to become a nun. Not surprisingly she is invoked against illnesses of the eyes. In the 17th century her cult spread from France to Sicily. In addition to the crosier she holds 5 spikes of wheat. Now Louis Reau, in his authoritative work on iconography, mentions six spikes of wheat as St. Fara’s attribute. This discrepancy is unexplained.

Our only major disappointment in this charming church is the sanctuary, the victim of a thorough post- conciliar gutting. Only sections of the magnificent altar rail remain intact. It is disheartening, after experiencing the exuberant build up of images and color throughout the rest of the church to encounter such a void. Furthermore, most of the massed statues in the rear of the church are finished in plain wood – a distinctly un-Italian touch.

St. Lucy cannot fail to appear in a Sicilian church.

Resources were obviously limited.

Our Lady of Peace was involved at one time with the Philippine Catholic apostolate. Now it is in the care of an administrator. If the damage to the sanctuary is repaired, I imagine this church would be a wonderful location for weddings. We can only say that the early parishioners accomplished a great deal with very limited resources. Erected as a parish towards the end of the ”golden age” of Catholic Church architecture in New York, Our Lady of Peace obviously cannot compete with such contemporary masterpieces as St.Vincent Ferrer or Blessed Sacrament. Yet the founders endowed it with a festive, original and very Italian spirit – a remarkable testimony to the success of the ethnic parish ideal.

1. D. W. Dunlap, From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship, 2004 Columbia U. Press, NY at 165.
2. L. Reau, Iconographie de L‘Art Chretien, Vol III, at 485 (Paris, 1958)