Advent Lutheran Church (New York City, New York)

 church, interesting place

Gothic-revival style Evangelical Lutheran church completed in 1900. Designed by William A. Potter, it is clad in red and grey brick and limestone, with a pitched slate roof. It is notable in having all of its stained glass in the nave and clerestory designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and manufactured by his Tiffany Studios, which was also responsible for the ceramic mosaic behind the altar, the sanctuary lamps, the pews, and the painted decorative organ frontal pipes in the front of the sanctuary. The facade is spiky and asymmetrical with strongly contrasting trim around the brickwork.

The main, west facade is organized into a taller north section and a shorter and narrower south section. Anchoring the southwest corner is a peculiar, stout pilaster with a Gothic peaked top with stone tracery midway up the 2nd floor. A thinner stone element continues up the corner, with two vertical niches. To the left the ground level has two small, segmental-arched windows paired together in a stone surround. Above is a pointed-arch double-window with thick stone tracery and below it is a stone panel with four arches. Multiple horizontal stone bands cross the brickwork, with a stone coping across this lower section, curving up at the center to frame a small stone niche.

The larger, taller section to the north is framed by a pair of large stone pilasters, almost as wide as the shorter one at the southwest corner. They are largely unadorned until the tops, where they both have a pair of shallow niches, arched at the tops, crowned by pointed tops with tracery matching that of the shorter pilaster. Between the pilasters is a modest set of 3-sided steps leading up to the entrance, with wooden double-doors painted in a bright, colorful design, and topped by a pointed-arch. To either side is a decorative niche, and around the arch is an area of stone with a series of tall, shallow niches, similar to but narrower than those on the tops of the pilasters. Outside of the entry area are two signboards with peaked tops, and above these are small, squares - the south one with a tiny window, and the north one with a stone panel with a rosette. At the center of the next level is a grand pointed-arch stained-glass window divided into three sections by stone mullions. Another pair of small, stone panel rosettes frame the upper part of the window. A gable rises between the tops of the pilasters, with a small niche at its center, and a cross on top.

The south facade on 93rd Street is framed by a pair of pavilions at the ends, both flanked by pairs of pilasters with peaked tops. The western one has red-painted wooden double-doors in a pointed-arch, while the eastern one has a small, red metal service door next to a small window, both with their own arched surrounds. At the top of the east pavilion is a round stained-glass window with iron tracery, below a gable. The west pavilion has a triple-window of leaded glass, each section ending in a pointed-arch, with stone panels below and a brick gable above that has a small, square stone rosette panel. The middle section in between the pavilions five bays of pointed-arch windows with a smaller one at the west end. Below the five are square-headed basement windows with iron grilles at the stone base, fronted by a basement areaway behind an iron railing. A lower roof line along the middle section is capped by a stone coping with a series of stone niches that the coping rises over, placed between each bay. Set back, the south facade of the taller north section has five bays of segmental-arched triple-windows, with a similar roof line above which rises the low-sloped slate roof.

www.broadwayucc.org/5521/
daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2023/07/advent-lutheran-...