St. Luke's Lutheran Church

 church, lutheran church/kirk

Evangelical Lutheran, Gothic-revival-style church completed in 1923. Designed by Edward L. Tilton of Tilton & Githens, it consists of a joined church, parish house, and parsonage, all clad in grey ashlar stone. St. Luke's Lutheran Church, also known as The German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of Saint Luke's and St. Luke's Evangelical Lutheran Church, is a historic Lutheran church located on "restaurant row" at 308 West 46th Street. St. Luke's was founded as a Dutch Reformed congregation in 1850, first meeting in rented rooms on the 3rd floor of a building on 35th Street and 9th Avenue. It reorganized as a Lutheran congregation in 1853.

The church moved several times, acquiring its first owned building, a former Baptist church on 43rd Street, in 1863. It moved in 1875 to 233 West 42nd Street, into the former Forty-second Street Presbyterian Church. Finally, the congregation acquired property at West 46th Street to build its current church. The cornerstone was laid in October 1922 and the church dedicated in September 1923. An independent congregation without synodic affiliation since 1880, St. Luke's joined the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1987.

In 1990, major renovation and restoration work was completed on the nave of the church, and a Walcker organ was installed. The St. Luke's Theatre operates from the lower level of the church, with its entrance at the east end. The theater has 178 seats, and often has multiple shows playing at different times at the same venue.

At the east end (now the theater entrance) is a small 2-story wing with a pointed-arch doorway. The 2nd floor has a double-window, and the wing is topped by a steep gable. Behind it and slightly to the west rises a slender octagonal tower, with crenelations topped by a tall metal steeple. The main, center section of the church is flanked by two narrow recessed sections behind short iron fences, with tall upper windows, and shorter lower windows (as well as basement openings). Small shingle roofs top these sections, which connect the central section to the spire tower, and the 4-story parish house at the west. The facade of the nave features windows designed by Francis Xavier Zettler. A broad set of steps leads up to the main entrance, with wood-and-glass outer doors and bronze-and-glass inner doors, flanked by wood-and-glass side doors, each set under a shallow arch. Side walls project out from the ends of the central section, cradling the entrances and top of the stairs. These two side walls narrow to points that flank the great main arch. Within the arch, Gothic tracery decorates the tall windows, and various Gothic ornament separates the doorways from the windows above. The center section culminates in a gable topped by a small cross.

The 4-story parish house at 308–316 West 46th Street was built 1922 to designs by architect Francis Keally. It is joined to the church by a tall, square tower. There are two levels of narrow single-windows at the bottom half of the tower, with another window at the level of the parish house's roof line. Above, the top level of the tower has round-arched openings in all four sides, with four crenelated octagonal turrets capping the tower. At the far west the parish house has two bays, with pointed-arched openings at the ground floor. The western one contains the entrance, with wooden double-doors has vents, a signboard, and transom. Both of the bays are slightly recessed. At the 2nd floor they have paired, square-headed windows, with pairs of simple, carved shields above, and at the 3rd floor they have taller paired windows with arched tops. The 4th floor has narrow triple-windows in both bays, and the facade is capped by two levels of parapets with stone coping, with crenelations at the upper level.

www.stlukesnyc.org/