NEWS: Upper Manhattan Churches & Automat Designated
From am New York
Make sure to check out this Flash Feature from December about Endangered Buildings throughout the city.
Churches, former Automat get landmark status
BY JOHN VALENTI
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER
January 31, 2007, 10:38 AM EST
Two Harlem churches were given landmark status in unanimous votes Tuesday by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commision, the first time in almost 30 years a Catholic house of worship has received such recognition.
The panel selected the Church of All Saints in East Harlem and St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church in West Harlem for landmark status. Both churches were built at the turn of the 20th Century to serve the rising numbers of Irish, German and Italian immigrants flocking to the area, the commission said.
The last time the commission voted to grant landmark status to a Catholic church was 1979, when it was given to St. Monica’s Church in Jamaica.
The board’s recommendations must still be approved by city planners and the City Council.
In addition to the two churches, another historic site also was granted landmark status — the building at Broadway and 104th Street in Manhattan that once housed the famous Horn & Hardart Automat Cafeteria. The building housed the vending machine chain from 1930 to 1953 and, like many of the chain’s Automats, was designed by Frederick Putnam Platt & Brother. It currently houses a drugstore.
In its heyday, Horn & Hardart Automats were considered the wave of the future — a science-fiction meld of function and form. Customers bought sandwiches, drinks and snacks by placing coins in the slots of vending machine that lined the walls, then slid a see-through door open to purchase the prepared foods inside of them.
The churches cited also have histories interwoven with the rich culture of New York.
The Church of All Saints was designed by James Renwick Jr., the architect of famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Built from 1883 to 1893 on East 129th Street, All Saints was inspired by 12th-Century Italian Gothic churches, according to the commission. Before it was built, the church’s congregants met in abandoned streetcar barns, the commission reported.
St. Aloysius, meanwhile, was built between 1902 and 1904 on West 132nd Street and has an intricate, polychrome facade. It was designed by Renwick’s nephew, William W. Renwick.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.