This Byzantine-style church incorporates a 1903 French Romanesque portal from its previous Madison Ave. location. Designed by Stanford White and funded as a memorial for Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the portal features Renaissance-inspired sculpture and ornate brass doors. There are stained glass windows by Hildreth Meire and the city's largest pipe organ. The community house was constructed later by Goodhue's firm after he had died. It cost $5.4 million in 1930. Famous congregants included Lillian Gish and her mother. But by the 1980's many of the parishioners had moved away. The Church needed money and collaborated with a developer who was going to purchase the air rights and erect a tower over the Community House. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Opened, Jan, 1835
Constructed, 1876
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By 1872 St Barts was large enough to build a new church on Madison Avenue and 44th Street designed by James Renwick, in the Lombardic style.
Addition, 1903
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The building was embellished in 1902–1903 with a triple French Romanesque Revival portal by Stanford White.
Rebuilt, 1918
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By the turn of the century, it had developed significant problems and the Church undertook a new building.
Moved, 1925
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The original Portico's architect Bertram Goodhue modified his design in response to the requirement that the old church portal, beloved by the parishioners, be preserved, with its bronze doors, from the Madison Avenue building and re-erected on the new site.
