Posted on 12/29/2014 4:42:55 AM PST by NYer
Recognize this solitary Gothic Revival church, set on what looks like the countryside of an older New York City?
It’s the Church of the Holy Communion, an Episcopal church built between 1844 and 1846 on Sixth Avenue and 20th Street.
But it might be better known as the church that from 1983 to 2001 housed the Limelight, the notorious nightclub famous for its celebrities, club kids, and bridge and tunneler crowd (and a link to a gruesome murder in 1996).
This sketch, from the New York Public Library, isn’t dated. But it appears to depict the church during its early years, when 20th Street was at the outskirts of the city.
Designed by Richard Upjohn (he also built Trinity Church in 1846, among others), Holy Communion was architecturally groundbreaking at the time.
“Holy Communion was the first asymmetrical Gothic Revival church edifice in the United States and was the prototype for hundreds of similar buildings erected all across the country,” states Andrew Dolkart’s Guide to New York City Landmarks.
“Upjohn designed the building to resemble a small Medieval English parish church; the rectory and other additions complement the church in style and massing.”
As the area developed, the church blended into the urbanscape.
Here it is in 1901, in a photo from the Museum of the City of New York, and again in 1933 in another New York Public Library shot.
Since the Limelight shut its doors, the space had been configured as an upscale Limelight-branded shopping mall.
It now serves as a gym, a monument to the preservation of the physical over the spiritual.
[Second photo: Wikipedia]
This 25,000-square-foot former eighties nightclub (and, before that, a church) was converted into a shopping emporium in May 2010. The 20th Street landmark’s lancet windows, labyrinthine layout, and soaring chapel are the same as they ever were, but the sex-and-drugs-fueled bacchanal is long gone. Where makeout booths and cocaine corners once stood, now you’ll find limited-edition sneakers, handmade belts, MarieBelle chocolates, Hunter boots, tubes of Sue Devitt lip gloss, scented soaps from Caswell-Massey, and Grimaldi’s pizza.
Who needs ISIS to blow up their churches when we can destroy them through our secularized lifestyle. This is a painful example.
Amen. ISIS but puts the coup de grace to a wounded angel broken beyond repair. At a time when spiritual solace is desperately needed we convert sanctuaries into emporiums.
Need ISIS bother to apply? Would they not convert the edifice into a mosque as their celebration of the final resting place of the Kingdom of God on earth?
how terribly sad....
At least it wasn’t turned into a mosque.
yet
What a pity.
I actually went there when it was a club in ‘89 as a newly minted Ensign showing around some German Midshipmen on a visit before heading to Surface Warfare School.
It was ok - too crowded and the drinks were ridiculously priced. I made sure the Germans were set for their return, spent some time looking at the architecture (stain glass was outstanding), and called it a night. I may still have a card stashed somewhere in my old photo albums...
Its was former Bishop Moore of New York who was resonsible for selling this church. It should have been sold to another Christian congregation. Bishop Moore, though married with 7 or 8 children was also a hyper active homoesxual man having sex with men who came to him for spiritual guidance. His daughter wrote a book about it.
Is this the “abomination of desolation” spoken of in the Bible? Sure seems like it to me... :’ (
I know of two former Honky Tonks over the line in Oklahoma that are now churches.
At least they aren’t mosques.
That simply can't be true. We all know that ONLY Catholic priests are sexual predators. The media have told us so. (/sarc).
Unlike this church in Richmond, VA.
https://www.google.com/maps/@37.5193387,-77.4493885,3a,75y,214.44h,103.02t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sgXcDTOPAHkLccoyFOkYKwQ!2e0
ff
While I realize your post was in jest, I thought I’d post a link to the book on Amazon.com. It’s called “The Bishop’s Daughter.”and is was written by Honor Moore and published in 2009.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bishops-Daughter-A-Memoir/dp/0393335364
Here’s one review:
Poet Moore explored key aspects of her intriguing legacy in The White Blackbird (1996), a biography of her artist grandmother, Margarett Sargent, but there was much left to tell, as readers discover in this galvanizing portrait of her famous parents.
Heir to wealth, tall and charming Paul Moore Jr. became a radical Episcopalian priest devoted to social justice. He ministered to the poor in Jersey City, Indianapolis, and Washington, D.C., then became bishop of New York, preaching for two decades at St. John the Divine Cathedral. He and his equally ardent and brilliant wife had nine children.
Born in 1945, Honor was the oldest, and felt more invisible with each sibling. Entwining candid reminiscences with the fruits of often unnerving research, Moore creates a dramatic family history that casts fresh light on the civil rights, peace, and women’s movements, and the corresponding evolution of the Episcopalian Church. But the blazing heart of the book is the revelation of her father’s secret homosexual affairs.
As Moore struggles to recalibrate her understanding of her confounding parents, she revisits her own relationships with both men and women. The result is a generous and thought-provoking chronicle of public altruism and private betrayal, high ideals and forbidden desire, love and forgiveness. —Donna Seaman -
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