Church of St. Paul the Apostle (New York City, New York)

 NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, Victorian Gothic (architecture), Roman Catholic church, 1885_construction

114-foot-tall Late Victorian Gothic Revival-style church completed in 1885. Designed by Jeremiah O'Rourke and the Rev. George Deshon, the Roman Catholic church began construction in 1876. Deshon, a military engineer trained at West Point, who took over the project six years into construction when O'Rourke died, and probably simplified the design. Rev Isaac Thomas Hecker, who founded the Paulist Fathers, may have had a hand in its design as well, using the thirteenth-century Cathedral of Santa Croce, Florence as a model. The building utilized Tarrytown grey granite stones salvaged from the Croton Aqueduct along with stones from other structures in Manhattan. The church is known for its ecclesiastical art, and contains interior elements designed between 1887-1890 by Stanford White and many large decorated side chapels. Later stained glass windows were added by John LaFarge.

The parish was founded in 1858, and their original church was a simple brick structure built on part of the current lot, but the congregation soon outgrew it. The parish went through a financially difficult period in the 1960s and 1970s, with the possibility of bankruptcy in 1973, and razing the church for an apartment building was briefly considered. The church sold the western part of their lot in the mid-1980s, and was able to build a new Parish Center at 405 West 59th Street by selling its air rights to enable the building of a 40-story apartment tower, which sits close to the church's south tower.

Faced with mostly grey and pink-tinted granite, the south tower adjoins and is partly obscured by the neighboring apartment building. At the northwest corner of the site, facing West 60th Street, is the former convent. This simple yellow brick building adjoins the west end of the north aisle. Facing Columbus Avenue, the central bay has light-colored stone stairs leading to a landing and main entrance above a basement entrance, which is set down a few steps behind an iron gate; on either side of the gate, between the stairs, are low stone walls with iron fencing on top, surrounding planter beds. It has a wooden double-door below an arch, framed by paired pilasters of smooth limestone. Brass lettering above the arch reads "Church of St. Paul The Apostle". The main entrance has wooden doors, surrounded by wood panels with quatrefoils, set in a recessed pointed-arch. Within the top of the arch is a stained-glass typanum, with a light fixture hanging in front. The entrance is also flanked by metal-and-glass lighting fixtures affixed to the edges of the arch. Flanking the arch in the central section are a pair of narrow pointed-arch windows. Above is a wide bas-relief with carved white marble allegorical figures on a blue tile background; this was installed in 1958. It is topped by five tall, narrow pointed-arch windows of stained glass set just behind an arcade of five matching pointed-arch openings separated by slender columns. A sloping slate roof with two very small dormers caps the central section of this facade.

The two end pavilion project forward, each with a central, deeply-recessed entrance approached by a set of stone steps with stone side walls. Both have wooden double-doors and wooden infill (with a light fixture) in the pointed-arches above, set behind iron gates. Three statues of apostles line each side of the recessed side walls leading back to the doors (12 figures in all). Both of the entryway's arches are topped by blocky crosses, and two stone band courses run across the rusticated surfaces of the facade. Above the entrances the end pavilions have small, paired, pointed-arch windows, and above those are a single slit-style window, very narrow with a rounded top. The tops of the pavilions frame the sloping roof of the central section, both with a pair of larger arched openings filled by metal louvers, above a cornice. A crenelated parapet crowns the pavilions, with each of the four corners topped by an obelisk-shaped, telescoping finial ending in a small cross; those on the south tower are taller.

The north facade along 60th Street is set behind an iron fence, and repeats the design of the end pavilion at the east end, with the entrance at the bottom replaced by another set of paired windows, and the stairs replaced by a pair of segmental-arched basement windows. To its west are eight bays with paired segmental-arched basement windows, and (higher up), between projecting piers, large, segmental-arched blind openings with stone infill. One of the bays has a wider single-window at the basement, and the 3rd bay from the west has another entrance above the basement level and below the large blind opening. It is approached by stairs from both sides, and has wooden double-doors recessed in a pointed-arch. At the western end bay, the segmental-arched blind opening is placed lower on the facade. Above a corbelled band course, there is a row of seven pointed-ached openings (plus one blind arch at the west end) with leaded glass and tracery, surmounted by a sloping roof and four small dormers.

At the far west end is the 5-story former convent, which is clad in yellow brick and projects out a bit farther toward 60th Street. It has a high water table of black polished granite that also frames the metal-and-glass door near the east end. To the right are two bays of wide windows, each four panes wide. The upper floors have double-windows in each of the three bays. The facade is topped by a stone coping surmounted by a metal railing.

On 59th Street, there is a newer 3-story parish center extending from the original church building to the sidewalk. It was built with funds accrued from the sale of air rights to a developer for a new apartment tower at the corner in the late 1980s. The postmodern parish center is clad in orange brick above a rough-stone water table, and has metal-and-glass double-doors at the west end, framed by 4-pane sidelights, and topped by a small copper canopy. To the east, the upper floors overhang the ground floor, which has a metal service door, a narrow window, and three bays of wider windows. The three bays of wider windows continue on the upper floors, up to a stone coping and metal railing. Above the service door there are no openings, and the facade extends up higher to the mechanical bulkhead. The west end bay is set back, with the short side wall of the rest of the facade highlighted by a strip of grey metal paneling, with a horizontal strip intersecting just below the main roof line to create a large cross. The west end bay has a curtain wall section at the 3rd floor, with thin strips of blue-grey glass and grey metal framing. The west facade of the parish center, forming the eastern wall of a gated courtyard leading back to the main church, is staggered in a series of serrated projections such that the front building grows wider at the rear. At each corner is a section of the same glass-and-metal curtain wall. The south facade of the church is similar to the north facade on 60th Street, but largely obscured behind the other structures.