Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew

263 West 86th Street | Upper West Side | built 1897

Open on the map8 entries

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1893

    St. Paul's Methodist congregation sells its Fourth Avenue church and heads uptown

    Founded in 1834 as the Mulberry Street Methodist Episcopal Church near Bleecker Street, the congregation moved in 1857 into a new marble church at Fourth Avenue and East 22nd Street. By 1893 the Gramercy Park area had turned commercial, and the building was sold. Until its West Side church was ready, services were held in the chapel of the Methodist Book Concern at Fifth Avenue and 20th Street.

    “In 1893, by which time much of the Gramercy Park neighborhood had become a commercial center, the Fourth Avenue church was sold.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1895

    June 27

    Cornerstone of Robertson's West End Avenue church is laid with relics of the old one

    The congregation bought seven lots on West End Avenue for $125,000 in May 1894 and planned a new church, schoolroom and parsonage. Construction of R. H. Robertson's design began in 1895, and the cornerstone was laid on June 27. Sealed inside were the cornerstone from the 1857 church, a fragment of its marble and papers of the day.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1897

    October 3

    St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church is dedicated, a $300,000 building for 1,200 worshippers

    Dedication services filled the last week of September 1897 and included an October 3 service that more than 800 people attended and that ran until 2 p.m. The church had cost $300,000 and was built to seat 1,200. Bishop Foster commented that it had no equal among the church buildings of Methodism.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1897

    Robertson blends Ravenna basilica, German Romanesque tower and Alberti porch at St. Paul's

    Architect Robert H. Robertson drew on three eras for St. Paul's: the raised nave and detached tower of sixth-century Ravenna basilicas, the octagonal corner tower of German Romanesque churches, and the porch and pilasters of Alberti's Sant'Andrea in Mantua. The Landmarks Preservation Commission notes that basilica-style churches did not become popular in New York until the 1910s, so his choice was an early one.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1927

    April 3

    Methodist prohibition leader tells the congregation the Eighteenth Amendment is here to stay

    The Rev. Dr. Clarence True Wilson, who led the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition and Public Morals, came from Washington to speak to the congregation on April 3, 1927. He predicted that not a line of the Eighteenth Amendment or the Volstead Act would ever be dropped, since only about six senators favored repeal. Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  6. 1937

    November 7

    St. Andrew's Methodist church merges into St. Paul's, forming the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew

    On November 7, 1937, Bishop Francis J. McConnell announced that St. Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church, a Romanesque Revival building on West 75th Street, would merge with St. Paul's. The Upper West Side had proved unable to fill so many large Methodist churches. The merged congregation took the name Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, and the West Side Institutional Synagogue bought St. Andrew's old building.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  7. 1981

    November 24

    Landmarks Commission designates the church after hearings with sixteen speakers in favor, six opposed

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission held hearings on the church on March 11 and May 13, 1980. Sixteen witnesses spoke in favor of designation and six against. On November 24, 1981, the commission designated the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew a city landmark, citing it as a major architectural monument of the Upper West Side.

    “Sixteen witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were six speakers in opposition to designation.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  8. 1986

    Congregation challenges the landmark designation, but the city refuses to let it demolish the church

    Five years after the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the church building a landmark in 1981, the congregation challenged the designation. In 1986 the commission denied an application to demolish the church building. Robert H. Robertson's 1897 church, with its octagonal tower, therefore still stands at West End Avenue and West 86th Street.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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