Limelight Shops (New York City, New York)

 store / shop, Neo-Gothic (architecture), 1850s construction

Originally the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, a neo-Gothic church complex completed in the Flatiron district in 1844-1853. Designed by Richard Upjohn, it consisted of four buildings: the church, sisters' house, parish house, and rectory. In 1879, a Sunday school chapel was added to the rear of the complex, designed by Charles C. Haight. The congregation of the Church of the Holy Communion also organized what is thought to be the first boys' choir in America.

The church remained a house of worship until 1975 when the congregation merged with two nearby parishes. The building complex was then used for state run programs, including a drug rehabilitation center. It later opened as Limelight Night Club in 1982 and remained a nightclub under differing names until 2007. Limelight marketplace opened in May of 2010.

All of the buildings of the complex are constructed of brownstone laid in random ashlar, with high-pitched roofs covered with modern shingles. The complex is surrounded by a simple mid-19th-century iron fence. The former-Church is cruciform in plan, with a long nave, a shorter chancel, and transepts, all of the same height. The Sixth Avenue facade originally had a pointed-arch entrance flush with the front wall, which was replaced in 1910 by a projecting, peak-roofed, brownstone vestibule, designed by Satterlee & Boyd. The pointed-arch doorway has oak doors with iron fittings. Above the doorway is a carved rondel. The vestibule is flanked by lancet windows with drip moldings. In the tall gable is a rose window with quatrefoil tracery. A stone cornice runs along the roofline. A slender buttress marks the north corner of the Church, and stepped corner buttresses set off the tall crenelated tower at the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 20th Street, which is placed off the axis of the nave and lends the Church its asymmetrical picturesque quality. The tower has a small pointed-arch entrance, surmounted by two lancet windows, all with drip moldings. The top portion of the tower has large, pointed-arch openings fitted with slats.

The northern facade of the church, visible from the walkway between the church and the sisters' house, has three pointed-arch nave windows separated by buttresses. The sisters' house, located at the north side of the complex on Sixth Avenue, is a 3-story peak-roofed building set back from the street behind a crenelated corner tower. The building is articulated by pairs of rectangular windows at the 1st and 2nd floors, pairs of pointed-arch windows at the 3rd floor, and lancet windows at the 3rd floor of the tower. The south side of the corner tower has a gabled entrance porch. A quatrefoil frieze runs below a small stone cornice supporting the crenelated parapet of the tower. The roof of the southern elevation has small gabled dormers.

On West 20th Street, the Church has two pointed-arch nave windows with Gothic style tracery, separated by a buttress. The south transept, flanked by corner buttresses, features a shallow entrance portal with molded archivolts and recessed oak doors set into a gabled entranceway. The east and west sides of the transept and the south side of the chancel all have single pointed-arch windows with Gothic style tracery. A large pointed-arch window divided into three lancets and three foils is located at the eastern end of the church, visible from West 20th Street. The parish house, set back behind the garden on West 20th Street, is three stories tall and four bays wide. At the ground floor, each bay has paired, rectangular leaded- and colored-glass windows with square and diamond patterns, topped by drip moldings. The 2nd floor has paired rectangular wood-framed casement windows with leaded transoms set below drip moldings. The 3rd floor is articulated by four peaked gables, each with paired leaded- and colored-glass windows and transoms, divided by stone mullions. The parish house is connected to the rectory by a 2-story section with a pointed-arch entrance porch.

The 3-story rectory is topped by a high-pitched gabled roof. The West 20th Street facade has a central, gabled pavilion with a projecting, peak-roofed entrance porch. The porch has a Tudor-arch entranceway with wood doors, and a stone plaque in the gable. Above the porch is a pair of rectangular windows joined by a drip molding, surmounted by a pair of smaller pointed-arch windows with joined molded lintels. Flanking the pavilion at the 1st and 2nd floors are single pairs of rectangular windows set in openings with projecting sills and drip molding. A shallow stone coping runs along the roof line. The gabled facade facing the garden to the west has a 5-sided angular bay at the 1st floor, and paired windows at the 2nd and 3rd floors following the same design as the entrance pavilion at the front, as does the portion of the facade facing the garden to the north. The rectory is joined at the rear to the parish house, which is set back from West 20th Street at the rear of the complex.

www.nyclimelight.com/
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