Church of St. Jean Baptiste
184 East 76th Street | Upper East Side | built 1910
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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.
- 1912
Cardinal Farley sets the cornerstone of the new St. Jean Baptiste church before 8,000 people
On April 28, 1912, an orchestra played and the choir sang at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 76th Street as Cardinal John Murphy Farley set the cornerstone of Thomas Fortune Ryan's new church. About 8,000 onlookers watched. A copper box went inside the stone, holding a medal from Pope Pius, that morning's newspaper and a parchment naming the Blessed Sacrament Fathers connected with the parish.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1914
The finished church is dedicated, its cost far above the first $300,000 estimate
St. Jean Baptiste's domed church was dedicated on January 6, 1914. Ryan had first been quoted about $300,000, but in November 1912 The New York Times said the cost would reach about $1,000,000 and that he meant to give the priests a church of cathedral-like proportions. The architect, Nicholas Serracino, drew on several Italian Renaissance churches, and his design included a portico, twin bell towers and a 172-foot dome.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1918
A fleeing car thief trades shots with police and runs into the church
On the evening of November 30, 1918, a gun-wielding man named Charles Georges took Dr. Richard Kovacs's car two blocks away, then abandoned it close to the subway stairs at Lexington Avenue and 76th Street. Trading gunfire with police, he ran up the church steps, through the central aisle and up the stairs toward the choir until his ammunition ran out. He was subdued and arrested, and no one was injured.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1919
A maid angry about the altar arrangement smashes $3,000 of statuary after a funeral
French-born maid Cecilia Simon, 33, attended Mass every morning. After she left a note in the collection plate on the previous Sunday objecting to items placed on the altar, she told another maid she was going out to smash some statuary. Once a funeral service had ended, she swept costly statues and candelabra to the floor, causing about $3,000 in damage, and was arrested and sent to Bellevue Hospital to be observed.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1921
More than 5,000 people crowd the opening of the annual novena to St. Anne
When the church's yearly novena to St. Anne opened on July 17, 1921, more than 5,000 people attended, according to The New York Times. Worshipers had a supposed relic, a bone of the saint, applied to their ailments, and several told of cures they said had come at the shrine a year earlier, among them a boy who said he arrived on crutches.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1928
Financier Thomas Fortune Ryan gets a 25-minute funeral in the church he paid for
Ryan, who had financed the church and left an estate estimated near $300 million, asked for the simplest funeral the church could perform. On November 26, 1928, one priest conducted the service, with no eulogy, no honorary pallbearers and only a few red roses on the altar. Mourners included J. P. Morgan, Otto H. Kahn, Charles M. Schwab, Elihu Root and Bernard Baruch, and the whole service lasted just 25 minutes.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1957
Cardinal Spellman celebrates a pontifical Mass for the parish's 75th anniversary
On October 27, 1957, Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman presided at a pontifical Mass marking 75 years since the parish began, with several monsignors and two auxiliary bishops taking part. The New York Times noted how much had changed since the first Mass, said above a stable on East 77th Street on Washington's Birthday in 1882.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1957
A requiem Mass is held for Clendenin J. Ryan, publisher of The American Mercury
The church held the requiem Mass for Clendenin J. Ryan, grandson of the church's benefactor Thomas Fortune Ryan, in 1957 after his suicide. He was the publisher of The American Mercury magazine.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1989
Falling limestone chunks force a wooden sidewalk shelter and a multimillion-dollar restoration
In 1989, pieces of limestone dropped from the church facade to the sidewalk along Lexington Avenue. Nobody was hurt, but the church had to build a wooden shelter to protect passersby. The exterior was restored over the following year as part of a $6 million campaign begun in 1987, and the stained glass was hard to remove because the original installers had forced the windows into spaces too small for them.
“In 1989 stones from the facade fell onto the Lexington Avenue sidewalk. No one was injured, but the church had to erect a wooden shelter…”
Source: Wikipedia
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