St Cecelia – and feathered friends.
St. Cecilia
112 – 120 East 106th Street
It is a strange and wondrous vision: a vast red brick complex rises amid the colorless, nondescript and frequently decrepit high- and low-rise streetscape of Spanish Harlem, broken only here and there by a row, somehow intact, of old townhouses. The distinctive buildings of this impressive complex – so rare in Manhattan – extend over most of a city block. Only one corner is free – and is occupied by a public school, oddly complementary is scale and style. For this is the church of St Cecilia – the Roman martyr and patroness of church music.
This parish was organized in 1873, carved out of the parish of St. Paul to the north. The gestation, however, seems to have been unusually long. For years the parish had to make do with its first modest wood church on East 105th street (this building was later transported to another site for use as the original church of the new Our Lady of the Rosary parish!) In 1881 the present site of St. Cecilia’s was acquired and a ”lower church” begun. But things only moved into high gear with appointment of Fr. Michael Phelan as rector in 1884. Fr. Phelan was one of those dynamic priests so frequently encountered in that era – the driving forces behind the creation of so many great parishes in that age of expansion. He supervised the construction of the upper church and indeed served himself as the general contractor the church, thus saving his parish a small fortune. The church was finished in 1887. 1)
The architect was Napoleon LeBrun (1821-1901) – along with Renwick and Keely one of the leading lights of the Archdiocese’s age of high Victorian gothic (1850 to 1890). LeBrun’s other creations include most of old St Ann’s (his own parish; destroyed in 2004 by the Archdiocese); the Gothic jewel of St John the Baptist on West 31st Street (originally German) and St. Mary the Virgin (Episcopal). And there were numerous prestigious secular commissions as well (such as firehouses!). 2) Despite the impression one might gain from the above, LeBrun’s stylistic repertoire was by no means limited to the gothic. St Cecilia’s, in a style that can be categorized as “Romanesque revival,” is the best example of that.
The church’s red brick façade is a truly amazing creation: a portico with three bays juts out over the entrance to the church. Above this towers a façade entirely covered with intricate, bizarre terracotta ornamentation, culminating in the great image of St Cecilia. Nowadays the crevices and projecting surfaces resulting from the elaborate patterns create a welcome home for plants and pigeons. Only a handful of New York churches, such as St Patrick’s cathedral, Blessed Sacrament, All Saints or St Vincent Ferrer, can rival the imposing exterior of this out-of–the-way parish!
On each side of the façade stands a stout tower. A glance to the side reveals that the rest of the exterior of the church, largely invisible from the street, is finished only in plain brick and wood. Like so many New York churches, ornamentation is limited to the one great façade emerging from the streetscape tightly enclosing the church.
But a step inside, however, reveals that there is much more to St Cecilia’s than just a splendid exterior. The interior is light and harmonious, like LeBrun’s church of St John. There are galleries on three sides, including a two-tiered organ loft like St Anthony of Padua. Stained glass, paintings and altars exhibit a high level of workmanship. Statues and votive lights complete the very Catholic interior. Unfortunately, the “spirit of the Council” has intervened rather drastically in the sanctuary – just look at the high altar that has been sawed off from its reredos.
The spirituality and apostolic activity of St Cecilia’s in the 19th century were also much more than skin deep. Like most parishes of that age, St Cecilia’s fostered a whole series of charitable and educational apostolates. In addition to the parochial school, were no less than two chapels for two different Catholic schools: a kindergarten/nursery school and the Regina Angelorum home for working girls.. The legacy of Regina Angelorum and its sisters’ convent is the vast red brick edifice to the west of the church built in 1907. Nowadays both convent and home are combined into one building that houses the “Cristo Rey” school. 3)
After the First World War the gradual transformation of East Harlem into a purely Hispanic area began. St. Cecelia’s parish ceased to be Irish, then became Puerto Rican and now serves many nationalities. The parish was handed over, first, to the Redemptorists and since 2009 the “Apostles of Jesus.” 4) What continues to impress us is the architectural legacy of the founding parishioners and priests. For the attention – grabbing, landmarked exterior of St Cecilia’s is just not external pomp and empty rhetoric that contradicts the true mission of the Church. It is the outward sign of a living community that has continued to serve the poor and working class here for some 150 years.
1) Shea, John Gilmary, The Catholic Churches of New York City at 236 -237 (Lawrence G. Goulding & Co., New York, 1878); The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Vol. 3 at 321 (The Catholic Editing Company, New York, 1914).
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_LeBrun
3)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Cecilia%27s_Church_and_Convent_(New_York_City) ; http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/StCeciliaRC.html
4) http://www.saint-cecilia-parish.org/index.php/History/hview/the_first_one_hundered_years_1873-1973/ (From the informative parish website)
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