Croton Reservoir, Image Courtesy Office For Metropolitan History
By Claudie Benjamin
“If these walls could speak….” Is a phrase that suggests hushed revelations. In the case of the towered St. Paul the Apostle Church on Columbus Avenue and 60th Street, the stone used for its construction (1875-1885) would tell the story of the complex development of New York City as a metropolis with a reliable, clean water system.
The stone itself is not only literally a part of the construction of the first Paulist Church, but also brings along an earlier back story, described in books and many articles and reports. These accounts describe the prejudice against the Irish laborers and abusive work conditions of these new immigrants who were initially paid 75 cents an hour to heave and haul heavy granite slabs and stones to build the Croton Aqueduct and the 50’ high, 25’ thick walls of the Croton Distributing Reservoir, also known as the Murray Hill Distributing Reservoir.
The Paulist branch of the Catholic Church was founded in 1858. Its leadership had grand plans to build a monumental Church of St. Paul the Apostle on the Upper West Side. The financial challenges of constructing a building that would meet their high hopes were also huge. So, it’s understandable that incorporating the use of salvaged building materials was a very practical and appealing option.
As the 2013 NYC Landmarks Designation Report details from a 19th Century NY Tribune article, “It was during the summer of 1875 – Father Deshon, Father Elliot and Father Rosencrans (son of General Rosencrans) were riding on an Eighth Avenue horse-car and came to a place where the abandoned aqueduct, pierced here and there for streets, loomed large in the landscape. A remark from Father Rosencrans brought Father Deshon to the spot where the stone was examined and subsequently purchased with an estimated savings of some $22,000.”
Fr. Rick Walsh, became Pastor of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in July 2019. Most of his time in this position, he says, has been “under the cloud of Covid”. However, he is very much aware of the exceptional nature of the church building, its history and both its exterior and interior character. He noted that it is the 2nd largest (behind St. Patrick’s) Catholic Church in New York City, and adds that “it’s actually larger because of a basement auditorium.”
The Church of St. Paul the Apostle has had long periods of financial challenge since its mid-19th Century founding. Father Walsh explained that the church was built in a ghetto neighborhood of mostly poor Irish parishioners. It depended not only on their hard-earned donations but also on the support of family and friends of the Paulist Fathers, many of whom were Protestant in their religious affiliation.”
As a parish of immigrants since its founding, the neighborhood saw many newcomers to America including a large number of Puerto Ricans after WWII. “Folks with roots from all over the world lived in close proximity in government housing near the Church (think of West Side Story and you’re at St. Paul the Apostle Church!), says Fr. Walsh. “Many of these folks were displaced by the construction of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s.”
After considering closing the church in the 70s, finances improved when zoning changes in the late 80s allowed for the sale of air rights above the land owned by the parish and the Paulist Fathers. A portion of the revenue gained from the sale of air rights went towards renovations including cleaning of the stone face of the church which had blackened over time. “0nce the grime was removed, the pink granite emerged,” says Fr. Walsh.
In addition to acquiring stone from the aqueduct ramparts, granite blocks that went to build the church towers came from the walls of the Egyptian Revival style receiving reservoir on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue. This Distributing Reservoir construction has been described as a man-made above ground lake. It was a practical water storage facility. The promenade along the top also offered a venue for romantic strolling.
Eventually, the neighborhood changed. The reservoir went from being a city highlight pictured on the cover of a 1853 guidebook to being described in the New York Times as “a colossal eyesore “.
A campaign to have the receiving reservoir razed was successful. Drained and dismantled in the late 1890s, the space was filled by the Central Branch of the New York Public Library which opened on May 23, 1911. A remnant of the stone reservoir remains on the library grounds.
Transported uptown and integrated into the St. Paul the Apostle Church building‘s towers, the 8’ thick blocks of granite must have been valued for their solid appearance. Also, reuse of this enduring natural material fulfilled one of the Paulist Fathers’ goals: to provide windowless walls to buffer the noise of the 9th Avenue El that ran right outside, with a station at 59th Street.
A 19th Century New York Tribune article described the outside of the church as plain but offered high praise of the interior decorated with murals, stained glass, altars made of valuable materials. Today, images of these highlights are posted on the church’s website. In addition to using reclaimed stone from the Croton Aqueduct and Distributing Reservoir, other salvaged materials included the stone from the onetime famous Booth Theater on 23rd Street. This stone was acquired by the church when renovations were made to the former theater after it was sold in 1881 and renovated to accommodate the McCreery & Co, Department store.
What’s more, the Landmarks Commission Designation Report indicates a wonderful salvage and reuse of “The five metal-and-glass lighting fixtures that illuminate the three entrances as recent as the mid-1960s. These handsome fixtures were, again, not commissioned by the church but had been part of another building – the Savoy-Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue, between East 58th and 59th Streets, a late neo- classical work by the architectural firm of McKim Mead & White.”
According to a 2006 New York Times article, constant change in NYC has made salvageable materials available. Under the heading, “When Buildings Die, and Are Reborn”, the article notes, “New York’s buildings are constantly under repair or undergoing demolition, so much so that hardly any grand old building does not contain a piece or two from another edifice.”
Certainly, each adaptive reuse contains intriguing bits of history. However, the heritage of the granite at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle sets a high bar providing a view of what it took in the 19th Century to build NYC into one of the world’s great cities.