Books, Arts & Manners: Ave Maria

THE New York Times gave ample coverage the first week in December to the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of one of the great institutions of this city, and indeed of the country: the New York Public Library. I was the more struck by that coverage because I was looking forward to another centenary celebration that would take place later the same week, just a few blocks away from the Astors’ lions, but which so far as I have seen the Times hasn’t noticed: that of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on West 46th Street.

This is not a fanciful juxtaposition. Both buildings were very much a product of the post-Civil War ferment in which the city moved uptown and the brownstones of Edith Wharton’s childhood were overshadowed by Venetian palazzos and Gothic chateaux commissioned by new names like Vanderbilt and Carnegie. The blocks between NR’s offices and St. Mary’s have a particularly rich concentration of turn-of-the-last-century architecture: the Library itself, the Morgan Library, the Century Club, the Yacht Club, the Harvard Club, the Yale Club. St. Mary’s even shares an Astor connection with the Library: in 1867, when the parish was originally founded, the John Jacob Astor who floruit at that time donated the land for its building on West 45 th Street; 28 years later, when the founding rector, Fr. Brown, and his trustees decided the parish had outgrown that building and found the site for a larger one, John Jacob’s son William made his contribution by buying back the 45th Street land for fair market value.

About the Author

Linda Bridges

Ms. Bridges is the former editor-at-large of National Review.

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THE New York Times gave ample coverage the first week in December to the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of one of the great institutions of this city, and indeed of the country: the New York Public Library. I was the more struck by that coverage because I was looking forward to another centenary celebration that would take place later the same week, just a few blocks away from the Astors’ lions, but which so far as I have seen the Times hasn’t noticed: that of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on West 46th Street.

This is not a fanciful juxtaposition. Both buildings were very much a product of the post-Civil War ferment in which the city moved uptown and the brownstones of Edith Wharton’s childhood were overshadowed by Venetian palazzos and Gothic chateaux commissioned by new names like Vanderbilt and Carnegie. The blocks between NR’s offices and St. Mary’s have a particularly rich concentration of turn-of-the-last-century architecture: the Library itself, the Morgan Library, the Century Club, the Yacht Club, the Harvard Club, the Yale Club. St. Mary’s even shares an Astor connection with the Library: in 1867, when the parish was originally founded, the John Jacob Astor who floruit at that time donated the land for its building on West 45 th Street; 28 years later, when the founding rector, Fr. Brown, and his trustees decided the parish had outgrown that building and found the site for a larger one, John Jacob’s son William made his contribution by buying back the 45th Street land for fair market value.