Church of the Intercession
550 West 155th Street | Hamilton Heights | built 1914
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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.
- 1846
John James Audubon helps found the Intercession congregation
The naturalist John James Audubon and John R. Morewood founded the Church of the Intercession's congregation in the Carmansville section of upper Manhattan, later known as Audubon Park. The parish put up a small wooden Victorian Gothic sanctuary the following year, decades before Bertram Goodhue's church rose at 155th Street and Broadway.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1906
Rector Milo Gates negotiates to turn Intercession into a Trinity chapel
In 1906 the Intercession parish was still in debt and had grown overcrowded. Its thirteenth rector, Milo Hudson Gates, knew that Trinity Church had long planned a chapel on its cemetery property and opened talks. The deal ended the parish's independence and absorbed it into the Trinity Church Corporation as the Chapel of the Intercession, with a new church to rise on the cemetery land. Gates became the new chapel's first vicar.
Source: nycago.org
- 1912
The cornerstone is laid for Goodhue's chapel on the Trinity cemetery grounds
The cornerstone of the new Chapel of the Intercession was laid on October 24, 1912, on land that belonged to Trinity's cemetery. Bertram Goodhue of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson was retained as architect and told to create what became his masterpiece. The chapel and its Austin organ, housed in a case Goodhue designed, were meant to be finished in time for the Episcopal Church's General Convention in New York in October 1913.
Source: nycago.org
- 1915
Bertram Goodhue's Church of the Intercession is consecrated
The cornerstone was laid in 1912 and the church was consecrated in 1915 on the grounds of Trinity Church Cemetery. Architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue mixed English Gothic styles, and the church is often called his masterpiece. The parish itself dates to 1846, when it was founded with help from naturalist John James Audubon; it joined Trinity Church as a chapel in 1906.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1929
Architect Bertram Goodhue is entombed inside his church
Goodhue rests in the building he designed. His monument inside the church, sculpted in 1929 by his friend Lee Lawrie, contains his tomb. The adjoining Trinity Church Cemetery holds other notable burials, including Clement Clarke Moore, author of the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," which is celebrated there every year.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
Trinity moves an Aeolian-Skinner organ from St. Paul's Chapel into Intercession
A 1961 survey led Trinity Parish to replace the chapel's original Austin organ. Instead it took the 1950 Aeolian-Skinner organ from St. Paul's Chapel to the Schlicker Organ Company's factory in Buffalo, where it was rebuilt with a new console, other new parts and added pipework, some of the new pipes contributed by the congregation. Goodhue's original casework stayed. The installation was ready for the June 6, 1964 service marking the chapel's 50th anniversary.
Source: nycago.org
- 1966
The Church of the Intercession is named a city landmark
The city designated the church a landmark in 1966, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 1976 the congregation again became an independent parish, separate from Trinity. The church has since appeared on screen, including in the 2021 film version of West Side Story.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1976
The Chapel of the Intercession regains its independence from Trinity Church
Trinity Church granted the congregation its independence in 1976, and the Chapel of the Intercession took back its old name as the Church of the Intercession. The parish had been folded into Trinity's corporation in 1906, when debt and overcrowding pushed it to merge. The change restored the name it had carried before that deal.
Source: nycago.org
- 2006
A parishioner's Place Matters nomination records a church at risk of closing
In August 2006 parishioner Janet Vetter nominated the church to City Lore's Place Matters census, calling it a landmark rich in architecture, art and symbolism that an aging, shrinking congregation could no longer afford to maintain. She wrote that the church had been in deficit for years and that the Episcopal Diocese of New York was weighing whether to close it. The Rev. Gerald Keucher had been appointed vicar to see whether it could be saved.
Source: Internet Archive
- 2012
The church basement plays a hidden room in the TV series 666 Park Avenue
For the 2012 television series 666 Park Avenue, the basement of the Church of the Intercession stood in for the Drake's "secret room." The building later appeared on screen again as a convent in the Elsbeth episode "And Then There Were Nuns."
“The basement of the church was used in the 2012 TV series 666 Park Avenue as The Drake's "secret room.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2021
Steven Spielberg films inside the church for West Side Story
Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake of West Side Story used the Church of the Intercession as a filming location. The Gothic Revival church, consecrated in 1915 and later the burial place of its own architect, had earlier lent its basement to the TV series 666 Park Avenue in 2012.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Church of the Intercession (Manhattan)Wikipedia
- Church of the IntercessionPlace Matters
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