Trinity Chapel Complex

Trinity Chapel Complex
(Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava)

(2011)
Location 15 West 25th St.
Manhattan, New York City
Coordinates: 40°44′37″N 73°59′24″W / 40.74361°N 73.99000°W / 40.74361; -73.99000
Built sanctuary: 1850-55
parish school: 1860
clergy house: 1866
Architect sanctuary:
Richard Upjohn
parish school:
Jacob Wrey Mould
clergy house:
Richard Upjohn &
Richard M. Upjohn
reredos & altar:
Frederick Clarke Withers
Architectural style Gothic Revival
NRHP Reference # 82001205[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP December 16, 1982
Designated NYCL April 18, 1968

Trinity Chapel Complex, later the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, is a historic church at 15 West 25th Street between Broadway and the Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) in the NoMad neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.

The church building was constructed in 1850-55 and was designed by noted architect Richard Upjohn in English Gothic Revival style.[2] It was built as one of several uptown chapels of the Trinity Church parish, but was sold to the Serbian Eastern Orthodox parish in 1942, re-opening as the Cathedral of St. Sava in 1944.

The church complex includes the Trinity Chapel School, now the Cathedral's Parish House, which was built in 1860 and was designed by Jacob Wrey Mould, a polychromatic Victorian Gothic building which is Mould's only extant structure in New York City.[2] Attached to the sanctuary itself is the Clergy House at 26 West 26th Street, which was built in 1866 and was designed by Richard Upjohn and his son Richard M. Upjohn.[3]

The chapel was designated a New York City landmark in 1968,[4] and the complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Most of the church was destroyed in a four-alarm fire on May 1, 2016. It is yet unknown when the church can be reconstructed.

Architecture and Design

The heavy exterior blocks of the building were etched in a rough finish, accented with austere Gothic trim and details. The front façade sits on West 25th Street and faces south. It measures around 65 feet (20 m) in width by roughly 100 feet (30 m) in height. The façade is supported by four stone buttresses, framed by delicate stone turrets at the sides, and punctuated by a large rose window above the entrance.[5]

Prior to the fire that took place May 1, 2016 the church was known to have had one of the largest timber hammerbeam roofs in the City of New York.[6]

History

Trinity Chapel

With the population of New York City moving ever-northward up Manhattan island in the mid-19th century, Trinity Church, the center of Episcopalianism in the city, needed to provide for its uptown parishioners, especially in the increasingly sought-after residential neighborhoods around Union and Madison Squares.[2] The church's solution was to build a chapel, named Trinity Chapel, on West 25th Street just off of Madison Square as an uptown annex.[7] The architect selected was Richard Upjohn, who designed the third and current version of Trinity Church, as well as the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue and West 10th Street, as well as many other churches in the Gothic Revival mode in the northeast.

The parish was a wealthy and influential one, and Trinity was the only one of Trinity Church's chapels which was capable of supporting itself without assistance from the home church.[7] Among the congregants was writer Edith Wharton, who was married in the church in 1885.[3] In 1892, the reredos and altar were redesigned by Frederick Clarke Withers.[3]

Cathedral of St. Sava

By 1930, as the rich and influential continued their uptown migration, the neighborhood around Madison Square had seriously declined. The Chapel was now located within the Tenderloin, the city's main entertainment and red light district, and the congregation had dwindled. A Serbian Orthodox congregation, founded in the 1930s, purchased the building in 1942, with assistance from various Serbian churches, and the building re-opened in 1944 as a Serbian Orthodox cathedral dedicated to Saint Sava, the patron saint of the Serbs. The first pastor was Rev. Dushan Shoulkletovich.[7]

Gradual changes were made to the sanctuary to make it more Eastern Orthodox in style. A hand-carved oak iconostasis was added in 1962.[8] The Byzantine, hand-carved Iconostasis, brought from the Monastery of St. Naum in Ohrid, Yugoslavia, was placed in the Cathedral and blessed.[9]

The Icons on the Iconostasis were written by Russian iconographer, Ivan Meljinkov.[9]

When a bomb went off near the church on September 4, 1966[10] destroying some of the stained-glass windows, they were replaced with new ones commissioned in Byzantine style.[7][8]

His Holiness Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle visited St. Sava Cathedral in October 1992. This was the first time the New York Church community was visited by a Patriarch.[9]

Bust of Nikola Tesla outside the cathedral

Outside the church are busts of Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich, who was instrumental in founding the parish, Nikola Tesla, the inventor and entrepreneur, and Michael Pupin, a physicist of Serbian heritage.[3][7]

Prior to the fire that took place May 1, 2016 around $4 million had been spent on renovations to the cathedral’s roof, gutters, and its attached community center in the past decade.[11] The church’s ceiling was repainted during those renovations to depict a nighttime sky.[11]

The entrance to the cathedral
St Sava Entrance after fire

2016 fire

On May 1, 2016, a massive fire occurred at the church, on the day Orthodox Christians were celebrating Easter, destroying most of the building.[12][13] The four-alarm fire started at 6:49 p.m. local time and was brought under control by 8:30 p.m.[14] employing more than 170 firefighters overall.[12][13][15]

There was one minor injury.[16]

As of two days after the fire, the definitive cause of the fire had not been determined. Candles that had not been properly extinguished after an Easter service were identified as a likely cause, according to a spokesperson of the New York City Fire Department. A caretaker told fire marshals that he stowed the candles in a cardboard box under a piece of wooden furniture in a rear corner of the 161-year-old church.[17][18]

The stone walls of the cathedral remain standing, have deemed structurally sound and are not currently in danger of collapsing.[5][6]

References

  1. ↑ Staff (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 3 New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; Postal, Matthew A. (ed. and text); Dolkart, Andrew S. (text). (2009) Guide to New York City Landmarks (4th ed.) New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-28963-1 p.80
  3. 1 2 3 4 White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5. p.199
  4. ↑ "Landmarks Preservation Commission" (PDF). 1968-04-18. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  5. 1 2 "Mourning the Landmark Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, 15 West 25th Street, Gutted by Four-Alarm Blaze on Easter Day - New York YIMBY". newyorkyimby.com. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  6. 1 2 Rosenberg, Zoe (2016-05-02). "Fire at Landmarked Flatiron Church Is Out, But Origin Remains Unclear". Curbed NY. Retrieved 2016-05-03.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Dunlap, David W. (2004) From Abyssinian to Zion. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12543-7, p.244
  8. 1 2 Miller, Tom (2010-11-03). "Daytonian in Manhattan: Richard Upjohn's 1851 Trinity Chapel -- The Serbian Cathedral of St. Sava". Daytonian in Manhattan. Retrieved 2016-05-03.
  9. 1 2 3 "Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of Saint Sava". stsavanyc.org. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  10. ↑ "Bomb Damages Red Offices and a Cathedral Here - Bomb Damages Red Offices and Cathedral Here - Front Page - NYTimes.com". 5 September 1966. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
  11. 1 2 Kanno-Youngs, Zolan (2016-05-03). "Congregation Mourns Serbian Orthodox Church Destroyed by Fire". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-05-05.
  12. 1 2 Staff (May 1, 2016). "Huge blaze engulfs Serbian Orthodox Church in Manhattan on Easter Sunday". Russia Today. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
  13. 1 2 Rosario, Frank; Sullivan, C.J.; Wilson, Tom; and Perez, Chris (May 1, 2016). "Massive fire breaks out at Manhattan church". New York Post. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
  14. ↑ "Massive Fire Rips Through Historic Serbian Orthodox Cathedral". DNAinfo New York. Retrieved 2016-05-03.
  15. ↑ Mai, Andy and Annese, John (May 1, 2016). "Firefighters battle blaze at Manhattan church". New York Daily News. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
  16. ↑ Associated Press (May 1, 2016). "Firefighters Contain Huge Fire at New York City Church". ABC News. Retrieved May 2, 2016.
  17. ↑ Kilgannon, Corey (2016-05-03). "Candles May Have Caused Fire That Gutted Serbian Church, Officials Say". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  18. ↑ Signore, John Del. "[UPDATE] Some Fear "Apocalyptic" Manhattan Church Fire May Be Connected To Other Church Fires". Gothamist. Retrieved 2016-05-04.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava (Manhattan).
Cathedral after the fire. Photo taken May 3, 2016.
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