The Churches of New York XXXI: The Wrong Side of the Tracks

 

St. Michael’s

414 West 34th Street

Since the 1970’s the deteriorating spiritual and physical condition of the Archdiocese – and, in more recent years, the improving values of Manhattan real estate – have posed an increasing danger to the existence of New York City’s Catholic Churches. But from 1900 up to about 1960 the greatest menace was the frantic growth of the transportation network of the city: the roads, railways, bridges and tunnels that led in and out of the city and eventually surrounded it on all sides. Some parishes were engulfed by the approaches to new bridges or tunnels, and left cut off from their formerly residential surroundings: e.g. Our Lady of Vilna (the Holland Tunnel); Our Lady of Perpetual Help (the Queensboro bridge); St. Raphael (now Saints Cyril and Methodius – the Lincoln Tunnel). Others were razed outright (e.g. St Clare’s near the Lincoln Tunnel; St. Gabriel’s near the Midtown Tunnel). In St. Michael’s parish we have a church that definitely found itself in 1907 “on the wrong side of the tracks” – directly in the path of the construction of the new Pennsylvania Station and its tunnels. Yet, instead of disappearing, St. Michael’s acquired an entirely new complex of church, schools and rectory!

St. Michael’s parish was founded in 1857 as a small chapel, the first pastor, Fr. Arthur Donnelly, was a remarkable man who by the time of his death had served as vicar general of the Archdiocese. He finished the parish church in 1868. Struck by the small number of children who showed up in church, the pastor launched a mass for children and then an ambitious catholic school construction program. by 1874 there were separate schools for boy and girls (the latter in the hands of the Presentation sisters. Indeed, early illustrations and descriptions of St Michael’s focus more on the imposing complex of school buildings and convent than on the parish church. 1) Subsequently, around 1925, St. Michael’s Academy, a girls high school was added. The schools of St Michael’s parish shared the fate of so many other Catholic institutions after 1960. The parochial school – which has become coed at some point – closed around 1968. St Michael’s Academy closed in June 2010. 2) Why Catholic schools cannot survive in an economically expanding borough crying out for good, affordable education is one more mystery of the Conciliar era…

Fr. John A. Gleeson, who became pastor in 1890 after Msgr. Donnelly’s death, would face great challenges indeed – challenges he surmounted with amazing success. The church was destroyed by a fire in 1892. By 1894 it was rebuilt and rededicated, But then, in 1907 St Michael’s found itself directly in the path of the construction of Penn Station and the tunnels leading to it. In a creative deal, the Pennsylvania Railroad paid for the move of the parish and its schools to a new site purchased by the railroad where new buildings: church, schools rectory and convent – were erected,  also at the expense of the railroad. The LeBrun firm – run by the sons of that remarkable architect Napoleon LeBrun –  was the architect. 3)  David W. Dunlap makes the extraordinary claim that the old church, finished in 1894, had been disassembled brick by brick, moved to the new location and re-erected there. 4)  The contemporary sources I have been able to check make no mention of this but treat the present complex on West 34th Street as a new creation. 5)  It is highly likely, however, that various elements of the furnishings and decoration were brought over from the old church.

The rough hewn exterior – which David Dunlop describes as “Romanesque Revival” – leads to a spacious, open, brightly lit nave. A simple vault covers the vaguely renaissance interior, which reflects the influence of beaux-arts classicism. The unmistakably Catholic decoration comprises  a wondrous collection of white marble statues, large paintings of the stations of the cross, stained glass, and reredoses – all in different styles. It is much more like the artwork accumulated in one of the old Victorian churches of Manhattan rather than the carefully selected decorative programs of the newer New York churches contemporary with St. Michael’s. All is maintained in very fine condition and numerous stands for votive candles are available – and are used.

The splendid high altar and reredos.

A fine window in the style of around 1907.

A strongly Catholic greeting to the outside world – seen from inside the vestibule.

Confessionals converted into shrines – a common sight in older New York churches.

He’s already made it to the collection of statues!

The surroundings of St Michael were traditionally a rather rough, commercial/industrial area – now the neighborhood is up and developing like almost everywhere else in Manhattan. What was once part of Hell’s Kitchen now claims to be the northern border of Chelsea! Over the years, St Michael’s has made efforts to expand its “outreach,” to use a dreaded conciliar platitude. Fr John Harvey OSFS, who died in 2010, ran Courage – the ministry to homosexuals – out of this parish in the 1980’s. More recently, the parish has made great efforts to reinvigorate its musical program and restore its organ. 6)

Even though it was very much “on the wrong side of the tracks” St Michael’s parish in its long history survived fire, condemnation, and, in the 1960’s, societal and ecomomic decline. We hope the new found prosperity of the present age can be surmounted as successfully – and that in these changed surroundings this parish can reassume the leadership role it once held.

1) Shea, John Gilmary, The Catholic Churches of New York City at 514- 519 (Lawrence G. Goulding & Co, New York, 1878)

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael_Academy_(New_York_City); Retrieved January 28, 2013

3)The Catholic Church in the United States of America Vol. III at 350 (Catholic Editing Company, New York 1914)

4)Dunlap, David W., From Abyssinian to Zion; A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship at 231 ( Columbia University Press, New York, 2004)

5) Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 The New York Tunnel Extension of the Pennsylvania Railroad The Terminal Station – West by Benjamin Franklin Cresson. (“the (old) buildings of the church of St Michael were torn down between  June and August, 1907”)

6)http://www.van.org/articles/ChurchofSaintMichael20080919.htm (retrieved January 28. 2013)