Catholic Apostolic Church

History and architecture

The Catholic Apostolic Church, built in 1885-86, was one of architect Francis H. Kimball's earliest independent commissions in New York City. He had previously worked mostly in Hartford, Connecticut, where he supervised the construction of the Collegiate Gothic style buildings at Trinity College designed by English architect-theorist William Burges. The Church's foremost leaders, residents of Hartford, would have known Kimball's work.

A Christian Pentecostal sect established in England in the 1830s, the Catholic Apostolic Church formed a congregation in New York City in 1851. Kimball's beautiful design, executed in red brick laid in running bond and extensive red terra cotta above a brownstone base, is a sophisticated and original essay in the "muscular" Victorian Gothic style, as influenced by Burges. It was, as well, a masterful solution for a small midblock church, for a congregation with limited resources.

The church was widely admired for its design, proportions, color, beauty of materials, vigorous composition built around a central tower form, skilled ornament, and innovative use of terra cotta. Noted critic Montgomery Schuyler called it the most "scholarly Gothic work in New York." Kimball was in the forefront of architects in using exterior architectural terra cotta in New York during this period, and the Catholic Apostolic Church is significant in the history of American terra cotta.

It was one of the earliest churches in New York to employ structural terra cotta, which was manufactured by the Boston Terra Cotta Co., the leading East Coast firm at the time. The terra cotta's combed texture indicates the involvement of James Taylor, "the father of American terra cotta" who was then superintendent of the company. The church's facade is dominated by a central rose window within a pointed-arched surround, one of the most complex elements yet attempted in terra cotta in the United States.

The sculptural ornament also incorporates iconography of Apostle-Evangelists and angels. Despite dwindling membership, the Catholic Apostolic Church retained its building until 1995. It is currently the Church for All Nations, of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The virtually unaltered Catholic Apostolic Church building is considered to be one of the finest late-nineteenth-century churches in New York City.