The Chancel Area The Blessed George Hendric Houghton Chapel The Transept The Arnold Schwartz Memorial Organ St. Joseph of Arimathea Chapel and Surrounding Area The South Aisle of the Nave The North Aisle of the Nave The Narthex The Chapel of the Holy Family A Walk through the Garden
As one enters the church nave, the eye is at once drawn to the colorful vision of the high altar and reredos. On either side of the chancel arch are two Venetian mosaic rondels - the Archangel Gabriel (on the left) announcing the birth of the Incarnate Son of God to the Blessed Virgin Mary (on the right). Both figures point the worshiper toward the sanctuary, where the high altar, with its reredos depicting our Lord's Transfiguration, dominates the vista. Together they represent a statement of the presence of Christ in and with His church. In this initial view of the interior of our church, one realizes the truth of the description of a Christian church as a roof and walls that surround and protect a eucharistic altar. The two stained-glass windows on either side of the high altar underscore this point. They show angels censing the altar and the words: "Holy, holy, holy, / Lord God of Sabaoth."Frederick Clark Withers, an English Victorian Gothic Revival architect, designed the chancel, which he rebuilt, extended, and decorated in 1880 - 81. The handsomely carved sedilia and stalls in the presbytery of the church were designed by Henry Vaughn as choir stalls for the newly enlarged choir of the 1880s. These stalls were adapted to their present use as seats for the clergy and acolytes after the choir was returned to its earlier position in the church, between the south side of the nave and the south transept.
The rich polychrome of the reredos and the sanctuary wall represents a relatively new effort to follow the principles of the Cambridge-Camden Society, founded in 1839, whose aims were to revive historically authentic Anglican worship and ceremonial, to restore medieval churches, and to see new churches built in the Gothic style and richly decorated so as to involve the senses as an aid to worship. To these ends, the society carried out extensive ecclesiological surveys of medieval churches in England and laid down its canon for a "model church" that would embody the society's tenets.
The parapet, or rood wall, which demarcates the nave from the chancel, is made of white marble inset with colorful mosaic. The left-hand panel bears a pelican pecking its breast to feed its young; the right-hand panel, the lamb of God - both symbols of sacrifice. Grapes and sheaves of wheat surround both figures. These are all ancient eucharistic themes. The parapet was placed here in 1903 by George Clarke Houghton as a memorial to his wife.
The elaborately wrought brass pulpit stands near the chancel on the northeast side of the nave and was designed by the most notable American architect of the early Gothic Revival, Richard Upjohn. The lectern on the south side responds elegantly to the pulpit. Edwin Booth, the distinguished actor, made the gift of a Bible for the lectern. From these two richly detailed church furnishings the Word of God is proclaimed and read.
To the south of the sanctuary lies the chapel dedicated in honor of our founder, who was called in his own time "
the first saint of the American Church." The chapel contains a simple freestanding altar,
covered in festal seasons by a rich red-and-gold Jacobean frontal. From the 1880s until 1987 this space was occupied by a large pipe organ. The pipes of the lowest pedal stop of our present organ hang on the south wall of this chapel. The large painting behind the altar is a nineteenth-century copy of Domenichino's Communion of St. Jerome. The seventeenth-century original hangs in the Vatican.To the south of the confessional box stands the columbarium, which was installed in 1991 to contain the funerary ashes of parishioners and friends of the parish who wish to be buried in our church. Before the columbarium stands a large icon of the Resurrection of Christ, known in the Eastern Church as the Anastasis. This icon provides a bold statement of the Christian resurrection hope. It was executed by Vladislav Andrejev, dedicated on Easter Day 1995, and provides a shrine for prayer for the faithful departed. The icon was given by Father and Mrs. Catir in memory of their parents.
A pair of unusual doors of painted glass and brass are situated farther along the transept east wall. Mrs. Janos Schultz, mother of former chorister Christopher Schultz, gave them in 1972, in memory of her first husband, Ernest Schelling (1876 - 1939), the distinguished pianist, conductor, and composer. Every Sunday the choir passes through these doors, which show angels playing musical instruments and which bear the words: "Music is well said to be the speech of angels."
At the south end of the transept stands a richly carved and polychromed shrine with a figure of the Madonna and Child designed by the noted Gothic Revival architect Ralph Adams Cram. This shrine was installed here in the1920s, when the baptismal font was moved to its present location between the Chapel of the Holy Family and the Lady Chapel. The font had originally been located directly in front of the altar rail in the sanctuary.
The two windows flanking the Madonna Shrine set forth baptismal themes, in keeping with the former use of the alcove as a baptistery. The one on the right is a testament to our founder's Christian stance on racial equality. It is called the "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" window because the top panel depicts the scene of the Ethiopian eunuch in his lavish chariot, talking with St. Philip. The central panel shows him subsequently being baptized by St. Philip. (See Acts 8:26 - 39 for the account.) The window memorializes a black couple, George and Elizabeth Wilson (he a former slave and she a freewoman), as "Sometime doorkeepers in this House of the Lord," a paraphrase of Psalm 84:10. The Wilsons worked with the first Dr. Houghton for thirty years after the Draft Riots of 1863.
On the west wall of the transept there are two large, important windows. On the left, is the Edwin Booth window by John La Farge, which portrays the noted actor in the role of Hamlet, which was given as a memorial by members of the Players Club in 1898. Booth was a member of this parish and the founder of the Players Club, which was formed, partly in reparation for his brother John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln, to provide a place where actors and nonactors could meet. The club is located just a few blocks downtown, on Gramercy Park. On the right, in the style of La Farge, is the King David window - also known as the "Jeweled Window" because of the richly colored bits of glass simulating rubies and sapphires - which portrays the importance of music in God's creative plan. It is a memorial to Joseph W. Drexel (1831 - 1888). Together the two windows present a fitting tribute to two of the performing arts, members of which have been among the worshipers in our church for more than a century.
Just around the corner from the King David window a blaze of painted glazing that vaguely resembles a collection of Victorian valentines intrigues the viewer. These windows in fact contain the psalms of the Office of Compline, the last monastic office of the day. The design of the Compline windows was adapted from paintings on parchment executed by Caroline Graves Anthon Houghton, the wife of our founder, and the windows were given as a memorial to her after her death in 1871. A crèche is placed in the area in front of them during Christmastide. Sarah Morgridge refurbished the crèche figures in the early 1990s, when her son, Dugan, was a chorister.
In 1980, Mrs. Arnold Schwartz made it possible for this church to complete and make final its plans to commission one of the finest pipe organs recently built for a New York church. Designed and constructed by the C. B. Fisk organ company of Gloucester, Massachusetts, the organ (Opus 92) was finished and dedicated on April 10, 1988. It is a tracker, or mechanical-action, organ, designed largely in the eighteenth-century North German tonal style but with an extensive nineteenth-century French Cavaillé-Coll type swell division. This union of two historic organ-building styles makes for great versatility in performing the organ literature of all periods, as well as producing an instrument eminently fit to present and accompany traditional Anglican liturgical music. The organ case was designed by Charles Nazarian, a consultant to C. B. Fisk, and executed largely in the Fisk workshop in Gloucester along with the rest of the instrument. The late Daniel Maloney, a distinguished artist and onetime vestryman of the church, designed and carved the twelve quatrefoil bas-relief plaques set around three sides of the lower portion of the case. The organ and choir stalls rest on a platform of Brazilian cherry, a hardwood that increases musical resonance.
Within the octagonal chapel is the St. Joseph altar, over which is the painted-glass Transfiguration window. This window was over the high altar until 1881, when the east end of the church was enlarged and enriched. The ceiling of the St. Joseph chapel presents a lively vision of the heavenly host, painted on canvas panels fitted between the ribs of the plaster vault.
St. Joseph of Arimathea was the rich man who gave his tomb for the burial of Christ's body after He was crucified. Today the chapel is used as a place where the coffin of a deceased person may lie before the day of the funeral, and friends and loved ones may come and pray.
To the right of the St. Joseph chapel is the statue of the Singing Boy, made in 1871 in Rome by an American artist. When the open songbook he is holding is lightly touched, it gives forth melodic notes. Next to the statue is the Houghton window, depicting George Clarke Houghton celebrating Solemn Mass at the high altar at the Second Anglo-Catholic Congress, which was held in the church in 1920. A gift of Dr. Houghton's daughter, it was dedicated in 1926.
The Good
Shepherd statue, placed opposite the Houghton window on the west side of the organ case, is the figure of our Lord holding a lamb. It is the oldest carved statue in the church and was originally set in the old wooden pulpit, in 1858. Without doubt, this is one of the first carved images employed in the Episcopal Church, because Puritan inhibitions had suppressed the liturgical arts in our communion until well after the mid-nineteenth century. This charming figure has been located in four different positions in the church since its introduction.
Turning left into the south aisle of the nave, one can see several windows. The most important is the Joseph Jefferson window, which is a memorial
to the renowned actor who pronounced his benediction on our church, thus bestowing upon it its popular name, "The Little Church Around the Corner." For more than forty years, Jefferson starred in the role of Rip Van Winkle, and the right-hand panel of the window shows Jefferson as Rip, bringing
the shroud-wrapped body of his actor friend to the church. The left-hand panel shows the image of the risen Lord, with nail wounds in his hands and feet, standing by our lych-gate and greeting Jefferson as he escorts George Holland's body to his burial service. In panels above and beneath the two main window lights are scenes from Washington Irving's story of Rip Van Winkle. This window was given by the Episcopal Actors' Guild and unveiled by the actor's great-granddaughter, Lauretta Jefferson Corlett, on February 20, 1925, the ninety-sixth anniversary of Joseph Jefferson's birth.
To the left of the Joseph Jefferson window is a bronze memorial tablet dedicated to Otis Skinner (1858 - 1942). The tablet, unveiled by his distinguished daughter, Cornelia Otis Skinner, on October 4, 1943, is the work of the
American sculptor Paul Manship. Another window on the south aisle is a memorial to the noted actor Richard Mansfield, who died in 1907.
Throughout the church are dormer windows, located above the main windows. One that is of particular interest to parishioners and visitors alike is The Golden Rule window over the rear of the south aisle, which was given in 1933 in honor of Dr. Ray's tenth anniversary as rector. The theme is the Golden Rule as it has been interpreted by the great world religions, culminating in the Christian concept of "Love Triumphant" shown in the central medallion. This medallion depicts a crowned heart with a figure denoting Light (on the left) and another denoting Prayer (on the right). Medallion symbols down the left side represent (according to 1930s sources) the Persian religion by the palm-leaf pattern, the Islamic by a water jug, the Buddhist by the ancient fylfot cross, and the Egyptian by the lotus. (The fylfot cross, or swastika, is one of the most common variations of the non-Christian cross, and it appears in many ancient cultures.) Down the right side the Hindu religion is symbolized by the Tree of Life, the Roman by the dolphin, the Hebrew by the seven-branched menorah, and the Chinese by the cloud representing heaven.
A series of stained-glass windows and bronze memorial tablets along the wall of the north aisle of the nave pay tribute to members of the theater in particular, but to people in other walks of life as well. Among those memorialized on the bronze tablets are: the Benét family, Will Rogers, P. G. Wodehouse, Walter Edmund Bentley, Cornelia Otis Skinner, and Vinton Freedley. Two actors memorialized in stained glass are: Montague, a matinee idol of the 1870s, and John Drew. The St. Alban window and the St. Augustine window show the first English Christian martyr and the first Archbishop of Canterbury, respectively.
The St. Faith window, at the east end of the north aisle, near the pulpit, is the oldest stained-glass window in the church and must be one of the most ancient pieces of stained glass in an American church. The window was designed in the fourteenth century for a Belgian church that was destroyed during the Napoleonic Wars. It depicts Ste-Foi (in English, St. Faith), a pious French virgin.
The Peace Shrine, a statue of our Lord designed after the famous Christus Consolator by Thorwaldsen, was dedicated on Armistice Day in 1942 by Dr. J. H. Randolph Ray. It was originally called the Victory Shrine and stood in the alcove of the Compline Windows but now serves here as a focus for the devotions of many who visit the church to offer prayers.
This portion of the church is part of the original building and was first used as a parish schoolroom for boys. In 1852, as the congregation increased, a gable-windowed second story was added, and the school moved upstairs. Later the second story became the guild hall and national headquarters for the Episcopal Actors' Guild of America.In 1926 the Chapel of the Holy Family, also known as the "Brides' Chapel," was reconstructed and designated as a memorial to the first Dr. Houghton. Again, in 1940, the chapel was extensively redecorated, this time for Dr. Ray's seventeenth anniversary. New pews were installed, and the walls and ceiling of the chapel were redecorated and paneled in oak.
The eight windows on the north wall are a memorial to the first Dr. Houghton and were given by his nephew and successor. The upper group of four lights depict scenes from the life of Christ: the Nativity, the boy Jesus in the Temple, at his baptism, and at prayer in Gethsemane. The lower group of eight lights illustrates the Beatitudes, in fitting tribute to the saintly life of the church's founder. The north wall also has a bronze memorial tablet to the memory of the second rector, George Clarke Houghton.
The famous Brides' Altar was blessed on Foundation Day in 1926 and is so called because the funds for it were contributed by hundreds of couples joined in holy matrimony here. The tabernacle door of the altar is adorned with jewels contributed by brides, a custom of the day. Tens of thousands of marriages have taken place before this altar.
The polychromed reredos, the gift of friends and parishioners, is in the form of a triptych. Set into the reredos are three rare carvings of
black oak. These are more than four hundred years old and were brought here from a dismantled Scottish monastery. All three panels contain Crucifixion scenes and were probably originally part of a set of Stations of the Cross. Above these ancient panels is a painting on wood of the Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph. Adoring angels adorn the two doors of the triptych.
In the southwest corner of the chapel stands a charming white marble statue of the Madonna and Child by the noted English sculptor Richard Westmacott, R.A., who also did the portico sculptures at Buckingham Palace, celebrating the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo. Around to the south side, in an arched recessed area that forms a baptistery, there is a small plaque in memory of the English actress Gertrude Lawrence.
On the left side of the baptistery is the entrance to the Lady Chapel, or the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This tiny chapel, lovingly built in 1906 by the Rev. Dr. George Clarke Houghton as a memorial to his wife, Mary Creemer Pirsson Houghton, is separated from the Chapel of the Holy Family by three double doors of stained glass, which may be folded open. These are balanced by three arched windows in the south wall that show, left to right, Raphael's Madonna del Granduca, the church's high altar and rood wall (painting on glass), and Botticelli's Virgin and Child. The entire Lady Chapel is in the English Middle Pointed Gothic style, with the high-pointed arch in oak over the window and door openings as well as the altar recess.
A Walk Through the Garden.
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Updated 7/15/97