St. Anthony of Padua Church is the second oldest (and oldest currently existing) Italian national parish in the United States. it was founded in 1866 by Archbishop McCloskey ( a predecessor chapel for the Italians had been established around 1860 by Archbishop Hughes). The parish was entrusted from the beginning to the Franciscans. Located near the original Italian enclaves of “Little Italy” and Greenwich village, the parish quickly grew in size. The present building was erected in 1886-88; an impressive accomplishment indeed given the limited resources of the Italian community at that time. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini once taught in this parish. This parish nowadays also proclaims itself to be the National Shrine of St. Anthony. (Of course St. Anthony was Portuguese – as they will quickly point out to you in Lisbon. The church where he was baptized still stands there.)
I assume that very few of St. Anthony’s parishioners actually live within the old parish boundaries today; nevertheless, St. Anthony’s seems to maintain an active presence in the community. The parish website contains an account of the parish’s origins and history.
Despite these historical credentials, St. Anthony’s has maintained a relatively low profile over the years in the New York Catholic world. Probably most would think first of the much more recent parish of Our Lady of Pompeii if asked about old New York Italian churches. The church too, although built on an impressive scale and well maintained compared to many other New York Catholic churches, strikes me as somewhat “antiseptic” in a 1950’s way. The decoration in sculpture and stained glass neither blends into a harmonious whole nor constitutes an amazing jumble of historical riches like those of other new York Victorian era churches. Perhaps this is also attributable to some obvious post- conciliar “renovations” that, although not overwhelmingly destructive, did take away much of the original decorative exuberance.
The stone faced facade makes a suitably “Italian” impression, incorporating Gothic, Renaissance and Romanesque elements. Starting around the 1930’s a development of this style became almost normative for Catholic parish churches.
This church, like its sisters around Penn Station, is surrounded by a number of buildings currently and formerly associated with the parish and the Franciscan order, like this residence or the former parochial school.
Subsequent to the construction of St. Anthony, Houston Street was widened. The structures formerly directly facing on to the street were demolished, exposing the plain brick of the church. But it also permitted the creation of a small park, home to a number of statues and shrines: Our Lady of Fatima, Padre Pio…. . It is regrettable, however, that the main impression is made by the inept “peace to the world” sign.
The interior is an impressively vast and airy space in a semi – Renaissance, semi-early Gothic style with unusual green stone accents.
As we can see in this historic picture from the parish website, the sanctuary has suffered a not insignificant amount of post-Conciliar “renovation.”
The side altars have been converted into jarringly inappropriate spaces for the baptismal font and the tabernacle, respectively.
More impressive than the sanctuary in its present form is the extraordinary two-tiered gallery and organ loft – with its own statuary – situated before the stained glass of the facade’s rose window.
The windows are striking – beautiful is perhaps not the right word. Here is St. Anthony as a child repulsing a wildly colored devil.
The splendid high altar, however, with its image of the vision of St. Anthony, has been preserved – but seems to function now as a repository for a reliquary.
St. Maria Goretti: one of series of images adorning the sides of the nave.
The polychromed images are many, various and of relatively high quality in St. Anthony’s – no “Irish” white marble coldness here! And, of course, electric lights adorn the halo of St. Anthony. Despite it all, the interior is surprisingly cold and empty, with a vaguely sterile atmosphere strange for such a historic church.
St. Lucy cannot fail to make an appearance in an Italian parish.
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