★★★★★ 5.0
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St. Bartholomew's Church
This entrance is older than the building it belongs to. The magnificent Triple Portal you're admiring was carved in 1903 for a different church, then dismantled stone by stone and moved here in 1917 when architect Bertram Goodhue built St. Bartholomew's current home. Notice that salmon-colored brick? When RCA constructed their tower directly behind this church in 1931, they deliberately matched these distinctive hues and even named their project "Bartholomew Building Corporation" out of respect for their neighbor. Those bronze doors tell stories in metal... each panel hand-crafted by Daniel Chester French and other celebrated American sculptors, funded by the Vanderbilt family as a memorial. This portal was modeled after a French abbey church that Stanford White admired during his travels. Step inside to discover soaring Byzantine mosaics that transform this entire city block between 50th and 51st Streets into one of Park Avenue's last low, spacious sanctuaries. Here, surrounded by Manhattan's steel giants, St. Bartholomew's proves that sometimes the most powerful architecture whispers rather than shouts.
Did You Know?
- St. Bartholomew’s Church, known as St. Bart’s, is one of New York’s most visually striking churches, built in the Byzantine Revival style—a design inspired by the grand churches of Constantinople, making it look more like a building from ancient Istanbul than a typical New York structure, especially with its colorful terra cotta and monumental dome designed by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.
- The church’s famous bronze doors, added in the early 1900s, feature detailed bas-relief panels depicting scenes from the Bible, created by leading American sculptors including Daniel Chester French and Herbert Adams; these doors were a gift from the Vanderbilt family, who were major benefactors and even donated the land for the current Park Avenue location.
- St. Bart’s has a rich musical history: it brought Leopold Stokowski—who later became one of the world’s most famous conductors—from Europe to lead its choir, and its music program has been a significant part of New York’s cultural life for over a century, attracting music lovers and families to its concerts and events.