Church of Sweden in New York City (New York City, New York)

 church, Gothic revival (architecture), interesting place, 1871_construction

4-story Gothic-revival church building completed in 1871 as a brownstone rowhouse. It was altered to its present Neo-Gothic form in 1921 by architect Wilfred E. Anthony, and became the New York Bible Society Building. The Swedish Seamen's Church (Svenska Kyrkan) was established on Water Street in 1873 to serve seafarers and resident Scandinavians. In 1978 the church moved to this present location; they retrofitted the space to include a chapel a floor above the common room. The simple and serene chapel, located a floor above the common room, offers Högmässa ("high mass") each Sunday, and is used for concerts by Swedish musicians.

It is clad in limestone, three bays wide. The middle bay and the narrower end bays are recessed, ending in pointed-arches at the 2nd floor (the middle arch is less pointed than the other two). The piers between the three arches end in pointed tips. At the ground floor the end bays have double-doors of wood, iron, and glass, topped by their own shallow arches; above these are short double-windows (divided by leaded sash into many small panes) slightly recessed above beveled sills. The center of the facade has a projecting, cylindrical bay of copper, with three levels of five windows, also divided into many small panes; there are circular panes near the top of the middle level. A curved plaque at the top of the projecting cylinder reads "NEW YORK CHURCH OF SWEDEN".

The 2nd floor has double-windows in the end bays and triple-windows in the middle, each divided into many small panes; at the tops the arches are filled by stone tracery. The 3rd floor has a projecting stone balcony below a pair of windows groups consisting of two small, square windows above two taller windows. The end bays have similar single groups of short-over-tall windows, also seen at the middle bay of the 4th floor. The end bays of the 4th floor have round-arched double-windows, with tracery at the tops. The end bays culminate in points, above which are slightly recessed upper parapet towers, each with a small round-arched opening. The middle bay ends in a lower parapet with diamond-shape cutouts and a projecting flagpole.

www.swedishchurch.net/english/index2.asp?id=1
www.svenskakyrkan.se/newyork/information-about-the-chur...
archive.org/details/americanarchitec45newyuoft/page/195...
hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c033691942?urlappend=%3Bseq=486...
archive.org/details/gri_33125006699975/page/n492/mode/1...
untappedcities.com/2019/08/13/the-hidden-coffee-shop-in...