St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church (New York City, New York)

 church, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, movie / film / TV location, historic landmark, 1918_construction

5-story Romanesque/ Byzantine-Revival church completed in 1918. Designed by Bertram Goodhue, the interior was decorated in the Byzantine style with major mosaics in the narthex and over the high altar. Goodhue modified his design in response to the requirement that the old church portal (designed by Stanford White and beloved by the parishioners) be preserved, with its bronze doors, from the older Madison Avenue building and re-erected on the new site. St. Bartholomew's Church, commonly called St. Bart's, is a historic Episcopal parish founded in January 1835. The 5-story Community House, adjoining the church at 50th Street, was built during Rector Robert Norwood’s tenure in 1928, designed by Goodhue’s associates Mayers, Murray & Phillip. They also designed the dome, erected in 1930 in place of the steeple that had been planned but never built.

The church contains stained-glass windows and grand mosaics by Hildreth Meière who was the most prominent muralists of her time. It also contains a marble baptismal font by the Danish follower of Canova, Bertel Thorvaldsen. St. Bartholomew's is noted for its pipe organ, the largest in New York and one of the ten largest in the world. Tucked next to the church and community house is a terrace that provides the equivalent of a small public square; in summer, supplied with umbrellas and tables, it becomes the outside dining area for the restaurant, Inside Park.

The church has a polychrome color palette, blending salmon-colored brick with greyish limestone, marble, and tiles of various hues. A high arched central portal facing Park Avenue is framed by two lower round-arched side doors, all reached by a wide set of stone steps spanning the full west facade. Each opening has paired wood, bronze, and leaded-glass doors, slightly wider in the center bay. The original bronze doors remain, but have been permanently swung open and recessed behind the newer doors. A frieze of low-relief sculpture with numerous figures, resting on slender marble columns with Corinthian capitals, unified these three openings. The architraves above the door feature additional sculpture, as do niches between the arches, atop pink marble bases. The iconography of Stanford White's triple portal’s sculptural program centers on the life, passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, juxtaposed against a series of Old Testament pre-figurations and prophecies. A band course with two projecting flagpoles caps the ground level.

Above and behind it rises the clerestory walls of the nave, clad in brick with limestone quoins, and featuring an enormous, west-facing round-arch. The arch frames five narrow stained-glass lights, beneath the lunette, separated by four sculptures of St. Paul, St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, and Phillips Brooks. The tracery, meanwhile, incorporates symbols of the Old Testament and atop the buttresses flanking the west façade are the coats of arms of Canterbury and the Episcopal Diocese of New York. At the center of the surmounting pediment is a medallion with three knives, the symbol of St. Bartholomew who, according to legend, was flayed alive. Below the low broad dwarf gallery, which runs around the entire exterior of the church, are symbols of events in the life of Christ.

Engaged, octagonal corners introduce the north and south clerestory walls of the nave, rising high above the comparatively narrow side aisles and are pierced for almost their entire length by large, round-arched windows. The large gallery windows along the north and south walls repeat—with subtle variations—the dominant theme of the west façade. Each of the six tall windows (three on each side) contains three lights and a semicircular tracery lunette. The tympanum over the north transept entrance illustrates Christ healing the sick. Carved in relief over the window of the choir practice room is St. Cecilia at her organ. The north transept wall features a large cross in relief with a central medallion depicting the “Lamb of God” (Agnus Dei) surrounded by symbols of the four Evangelists and flanked by symbols of two sacraments: Baptism (font and dove) and Holy Eucharist (chalice). Like the west façade, each transept wall is crowned by a gable and small colonnade.

A beautiful rose window, with intricate tracery, lights the south wall of the shallow transept. It is framed by two statues of St. Bartholomew and St. Philip. Symbolic representations of Christian virtues in marble adorn the arcade, while below the window are emblems of sin and salvation, the attributes, respectively, of Adam and Christ. Over the crossing, atop a high drum, sits the octagonal dome sheathed with tiles and marbles in highly colored and intricate designs. It is crowned with a gilded cross.

The church was used as a filming location in the White Collar episode S01 E02 "Threads" as Neal and Peter are seen on the sidewalk out front trying to signal a taxi. Additionally, views of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel can be seen along Park Avenue.

www.stbarts.org/
books.google.com/books?id=h3xeb_On-AgC&pg=PR8#v=one...
usmodernist.org/AM/AM-1931-08.pdf