Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (New York) - Property

Property

The church complex comprises four buildings, all on the block between East 65th and 66th on the east side of Lexington. Across the street are low rowhouses; just to the north are the Seventh Regiment Armory, a National Historic Landmark, and the apartment building at 131–35 East 66th Street, also a city landmark. The entire site is less than an acre (4,000 m²).

Within the site, four buildings — the church, priory, Holy Name Society building and St. Vincent Ferrer High School — are connected by adjoining walls. All are architecturally compatible, but only the church and priory are considered contributing properties due to their age and simpler architecture.

The cruciform church is built of limestone laid in a random ashlar pattern on three sides. The east (rear) elevation, barely visible from the street, is faced in brick. On the west, facing Lexington Avenue, is the five-bay tower. It has two engaged octagonal towers flanking the large rose window, with stone tracery forming conjoined trefoils, in the center of the upper stage. Below the window is a tall round-arched entryway and stone steps topped with a carving of the Crucifixion. On the north and south the bays are divided by buttresses supporting the steeply pitched copper roof

Inside, the entire nave is finished in the exterior limestone. In addition to the rose window, all the side windows are filled with stained glass. Pews and choir stalls are in ornate carved wood, and the altar is set off by a carved stone reredos. At the rear the oak pulpit is decorated with carvings in medieval Gothic style. The Stations of the Cross are represented by oil paintings. A large console in the choir controls the two Schantz pipe organs, a two-manual instrument in the choir and a four-manual organ in the west gallery. The interior also features two relics of St. Vincent Ferrer in the church and the only example of a hanging pyx that is not in a museum.

The priory, at the northeast corner of 65th and Lexington, is a five-story brick building on a brownstone foundation. Its facades are decorated with alternating stone and brick voussoirs, arched openings, stone bands at the imposts, pilasters and buttresses. The roofline is lined with stone and brick corbels below the cornice, with elongated stone corbels on the projecting gabled entrance tower in the center of the east (front) facade. A high brownstone stoop with cast iron newels and rails leads from the street to a deeply recessed, arched first floor entrance with clustered colonnettes. The mix of the brick and stone with the slate tiling on the dormer-pierced mansard roof gives the building a polychromatic effect.

The Holy Name Society building and school are both similar structures of brick and stone. Much of their detailing and ornament, such as their buttresses and tracery, echoes or mirrors that found on the church and priory. The Society building and school date to 1930 and 1948 respectively and are not considered sufficiently historic enough to be included in the National Register listing with the church and priory at this time.

The address of the church, as listed in 1892, was 871 Lexington Avenue.