Church of St. Paul the Apostle
120 West 60th Street | also 8 Columbus Avenue | Lincoln Square | built 1931
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1859
Paulists lay the cornerstone of their first brick church before about 15,000 people
The Paulist Fathers bought thirty-two lots between Ninth Avenue and 59th and 60th Streets in 1859 for $40,000. Leading donors included Isaac Hecker's older brother George, founder of Croton Flour Mills. About 15,000 people came to the cornerstone ceremony on June 20, and the three-and-a-half-story brick church, set back from the avenue and facing 59th Street, was finished that November. When the present church was completed in 1885, this building became the rectory, and it was demolished in 1931.
- 1875
Paulists buy salvaged Croton Aqueduct granite for the church walls, saving $22,000
The church's 8-foot-thick walls were first meant to be clad in red Connecticut granite. In the summer of 1875, Father George Deshon and two other priests rode an Eighth Avenue streetcar past the demolition of the Croton Aqueduct embankment. Deshon examined the granite blocks and bought a large quantity, saving the building budget about $22,000.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1876
Debt halts construction of the new church after a 20,000-person cornerstone ceremony
On June 4, 1876, some 20,000 people watched the cornerstone laid for a far larger church, with the deep cellar already dug. Architect Jeremiah O'Rourke had filed plans with the Buildings Bureau that year, but the parish carried a $75,000 debt and the project was set aside in late 1877. Work started again later, and O'Rourke had resigned by 1882, after which a Paulist priest took charge of construction.
- 1883
The church's front staircases apparently use stone salvaged from Booth's Theatre
Recycled materials shaped the building. When Booth's Theatre, on Sixth Avenue at 23rd Street, shut in 1883 and was turned into a department store, the contractor apparently sold some of its stonework to the Paulists, who built the wide stairs facing Columbus Avenue from it. The Times later reported plans to add 40 feet to the towers using stone from the Croton Distributing Reservoir, which was being demolished. Each tower now stands 114 feet tall, so the addition may have been only partly completed.
“When Booth's Theatre (1869) at Sixth Avenue and 23rd Street closed in 1883, it was converted to a department store.”
- 1885
Nearly 4,000 ticket holders attend the opening of a church that is still unfinished
The church opened in January 1885 with ceremonies that nearly 4,000 people paid $2 each to attend. The Times and other papers still described the building as far from complete, and the stained glass came later. The first window unveiled, in May 1885, was Our Lady of the Angels, made in London and given by Hecker's brother George; the Times called it the largest window of its kind in the country.
- 1888
John La Farge and Stanford White shape the church's interior
John La Farge led the church's decorative program from 1884 to 1899 and designed the outer chancel windows. Stanford White designed the domed tabernacle on the high altar between 1888 and 1890. La Farge had been friends with Isaac Hecker since the 1850s, made a portrait sketch of the Paulist founder, and later advised on the floor plan.
- 1894
Cardinal Satolli praises the Paulist choir's Gregorian chant at the Feast of St. Paul
The Paulists revived Gregorian chant at the church in 1870 and appointed the organist and choirmaster Edmund G. Hurley a year later. In January 1894 Cardinal Satolli, the Papal Delegate to the United States, was present when the choir marked the Feast of St. Paul. He called the singing one of the most grateful impressions he retained of his last visit to New York.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1899
Old Croton Reservoir stone is hauled in to finish the church's towers
When demolition of the Egyptian Revival Croton Reservoir began in 1899, the Paulists again turned up to salvage granite. Blocks from the old reservoir were set at the topmost sections of the church's two towers. Only close inspection shows that the stone in the upper towers does not match the granite below.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1910
William Laurel Harris finishes 'The Crucifixion,' a 55-foot church mural
The painter William Laurel Harris completed 'The Crucifixion' at St. Paul's, a mural 55 feet long and 20 feet high. The Sun called it the largest mural ever painted for the interior of an American church and noted that Harris had spent a year in Jerusalem preparing for it. By June 1912 the paper counted his fourteenth year working on the church.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1958
A 50-ton marble and mosaic relief of Paul's conversion is dedicated between the towers
Muralist Lumen Martin Winter's panel was made in Pietrasanta, Italy, and dedicated in December 1958 to mark the Paulists' centennial. It measures 18 by 60 feet and shows Paul's conversion in Roman travertine against a Venetian mosaic in fifteen shades of blue and green, chosen to recall the Mediterranean. Winter also made Isaac Hecker's tomb, placed in the church's north aisle in 1959.
- 1965
The church's 4,965-pipe Möller organ is built, and Virgil Fox records on it
The church's M.P. Möller organ, Opus 9987, was built in 1965 with 4,965 pipes, four keyboards and 78 stops. Twelve of the stops reuse pipework from the church's earlier E.M. Skinner organ of 1925. The organist Virgil Fox recorded The Christmas Album on the instrument in 1965.
“Renowned organist Virgil Fox recorded The Christmas Album on the Möller Organ in 1965.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1973
Facing bankruptcy, the parish weighs demolishing the church for development
With bankruptcy looming in 1973, a plan emerged to tear the church down and sell 70 percent of the site for commercial use. The parish council and the Paulists' General Assembly approved it in 1974, but it did not go forward. In 1975 critic Ada Louise Huxtable wrote that only a slump in building had spared the church from developers. In 1984 only the western part of the lot and some air rights were sold.
“…a proposal was made in 1973 to demolish the building and sell 70% of the site for commercial development.”
- 1996
The church basement becomes home to the Big Apple Comic Convention
From 1996 to 2003 the church's large basement hosted the recurring Big Apple Comic Convention. Over the years the same space has also served as a school cafeteria, a homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, rehearsal space for the Rockettes, and a venue for boxing matches.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
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