The Churches of New York XCII: Jesuits – The First and the Last Part I

Church of St. Francis Xavier

30 West 16th Street

“Exuberantly complex, a bit offbeat and impossible to ignore” – so David Dunlap describes St. Francis Xavier Church on West 16th street.1) The complex, gray stone exterior  with its jutting porch, towers over its neighbors on this quiet block, which include the buildings of St. Francis Xavier high school. Both this façade and the vast stucco-encrusted interior are indeed overelaborate, not a little heavy-handed but undeniably  “monumental.”2)  And across the street, not too far away, sits an old townhouse from the 1846 in which  after 1930 Margaret Sanger once operated a clinic. It is indicative of our culture that this building (once again a private residence) is landmarked whereas St. Francis, the first home in the city of an order so influential in New York Catholicism and witness to so many events in New York Catholic life, enjoys no such special recognition.

(Above) The church interior; (below) The “National Historic Landmark” Margeret Sanger Clinic (now a private residence.)

Now individual Jesuits had left thir mark on the  city. Most notably, the German/Alsatian Fr. Anthony Kohlmann was active in the very early days of the diocese as its vicar general and administrator until 1815. Among other things, he laid the foundation of the first St. Patrick’s cathedral. He then left and continued his career in Rome.  Under Bishop Hughes in 1846 the Jesuits reentered the New York diocese and established themselves at what is now Fordham University . But their first permanent foundation in New York City itself (after a fire terminated the short-lived  existence of the parish of the Holy Name of Jesus on Elizabeth Street)) was in Chelsea. Led by the indomitable Fr. John Larkin,  the Jesuits laid the foundation of St. Francis Xavier parish (and college)on this site in 1850. It is recorded that assistance for the new parish and college was obtained from Mexico and elsewhere. The first church was dedicated in 1851. 3)

At that time, this part of Chelsea was a well-off district, and the Jesuits had some parishioners among the limited number of the Catholic well-to-do (although the Catholicity of some of these elite has been questioned). But the majority of the parishioners of St.  Francis Xavier’s were simple workers – like the Irish housemaids who cared for the residences of the upper class. The faith of these maids “worthy models of the early Christians”  was a source of inspiration:

A great number of these Irish heroines have crossed the ocean for no other reason than to gather some small income in service of American families, among Protestants, so they can send it back to their poor old parents. In a foreign land, hostile to their faith, they will suffer and do anything rather than offend in any way their faith or neglect their spiritual life. …They shine like lamps in this heretical world with the brightest piety, Christian modesty and the rest of the virtues. (Jesuit community report to Rome for Oct. 1,1857 to Oct 1, 1858.)

In 1858 the parish has more than 50,000 communions; five masses were held in the church each Sunday and one in the basement – yet many had to be turned away. A veritable myriad of parish organizations sprang up. Already by 1858 the building was completely inadequate.  And in addition to all this activity at their parish and schools,  the Jesuit community conducted apostolates to prisons and quarantine areas. Regardless of insinuations, then and now, one encounters in the contemporary Jesuit reports no focus on the “rich and famous.”4)

(Above) The original church of St. Francis Xavier (From A Memorial of St. Francis Xavier’s Church (1882))

 

On March 8^th, 1877, a calamity occurred: somebody shouted fire during a crowded parish mission  and touched off a stampede in which seven died. In this tragedy’s wake, the Jesuits determined to build a new church on a much grander scale.  They retained for the task Patrick C. Keely, that indefatigable builder of Catholic houses of worship  – by then already represented in the city by St. Brigid’s, St. Bernard’s and Holy Innocents. But in contrast to Keely’s – and New York City’s –  favored neo-Gothic idiom for churches, the new St. Francis Xavier would refer to the glorious European Jesuit churches of the Counter Reformation in Rome and elsewhere. These churches were, moreover, purely Catholic, in contrast with the neo-Gothic enthusiasm shared with the Anglicans. “The Roman Basilica (compared to the Gothic cathedral) is undoubtedly better adapted to the majesty and grandeur of Catholic worship.” “The basilica (compared to the “exclusiveness ” of the Gothic cathedral), exhilirates the mind with the joyousness, the boldness and grandeur of faith, the priestly character of God’s people (1. Pet. ii,5) and the oneness of the universal church.”  A similar thought process produced the London Oratory, constructed about the same time.  We gather from these remarks that choice of the architecture of St. Francis Xavier was not uncontroversial at the time.5)

So Keely designed the new Jesuit church in a kind of neo-Renaissance, neo-baroque style. Regrettably, Keely built his church before the Beaux Arts movement had reached matrurity in the United States . St Francis Xavier is grand in scale and magnificent in its decoration, but not nearly as successful a work of the “Classical” architectural tradition as the London Oratory or St Ignatius Loyola, which the Jesuits built in Yorkville just 20 years later.

(Above) The old and new churches of St Francis Xavier still standing next to each other(and the college). (From: The College of St. Francis Xavier: A Memorial and A Retrospect (Meany,New York 1897))

 

 

This parish has always been known to city Catholics for its affiliated educational institutions. The high school of course is still active -for many years it functioned as a military academy. Far less well known  is that in the second half of the 19th century, the College of  St.  Francis Xavier College was one of the largest Jesuit colleges in the United States.  Graduates included the famous Fr. Francis P. Duffy, as well as the editor-in-chief  and contributors to the magisterial, original Catholic Encyclopedia . But the college fell victim in 1912 to a consolidation of New York and Brooklyn Jesuit institutions of higher learning that left only Fordham University as the survivor (which did, however, retain a presence in Manhattan but in another part of town ). 6)

 

For by 1900 this corner of downtown, a center of society around 1865, had become a little old-fashioned and out of the way, surrounded by commercial developments. The more recent Jesuit foundation of St. Ignatius Loyola on the Upper Est Side, in contrast, was thriving in the midst of what had become the wealthiest residential neighborhood in the country. The parish of St. Francis Xavier itself seems to have remained alive and well, with some parishioners and clergy of good taste. After all, St. Francis Xavier parish acquired two  (authentic) Tiffany windows – a little uncommon for Catholic churches. And in 1917 its organist, Pietro Yon,  composed the  “biggest hit”  in the history of New York Catholic church music: Jesu Bambino.

 

(Above) St. Francis Xavier Cadet corps around 1912. 7)

 

This parish’s slow drift into obscurity continued as the twentieth century advanced. Chelsea was now, as a whole,  predominantly commercial and industrial. It is characteristic of the changed status of this once grand neighborhood that Margaret Sanger in 1930 would choose to set up shop here – across from a Catholic high school no less.  Also revealing of those times was the apostolate of Fr. John M. Corridan,  of the Xavier Institute of Industrial Relations,  whose exploits on the gritty Chelsea docks inspired On the Waterfront – and also resulted in clashes with Archdiocesan mission to the Port of New York at nearby Guardian Angel parish. By the 1950’s Catholic New Yorkers outside of this area knew St Francis Xavier’s, if at all, only for its high school. A 1953 graduate was one Antonin Scalia.  8)

 

1. Dunlop, David W., From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship at 204(Columbia University Press, New York 2004)
2. Willensky, Elliot and White, Norval, AIA Guide to New York City at 181 (3rd Edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1988)
3.  Shea, John Gilmary, The Catholic Churches of New York City at 296, 298-99(Lawrence G. Goulding & Co., New York 1878); The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol VIII at 686 “Anthony Kohlmann”(Robert Appleton Company, New York 1910)
4. Hennessy, Thomas C., How the Jesuits settled in New York: A Documentary Account at 127-29.(Something More Publications 2003)
5.  See A Memorial of St. Francis Xavier’s Church  at 31-33 for a highly interesting, explicitly “ideological” discusion of Gothic versus the “Roman Basilica” – favoring of course the latter.(College of St. Francis Xavier, New York 1882);  Shea, op. cit. at 301-302.
6. Shelley, Thomas J. Fordham, A History of the Jesuit University of New York:1841-2003; see generally Chapter 6, “New York City’s other Jesuit College,” at 97-121 (Fordham University Press, New York 2016)
7. The Catholic Church in the United States, Vol.  I at 254 (The Catholic Editing Company, New York 1912)
8. SOURCE