Our Lady Of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church

History and architecture

Constructed on the north side of West 142nd Street, Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church is located on a mid-block site measuring 75 by 100 feet. Built by the O' Reilly Brothers in 1902-04, the firm's design incorporates architectural elements from three distinguished structures: the National Academy of Design ; St. Patrick's Cathedral , and the A. T. Stewart Mansion .

Founded in 1901 by Father Joseph H. McMahon, a noted liturgist and supporter of liberal causes, the church purchased seven building lots from the City of New York in 1901, costing $64,000. During construction, services were held in a former dance academy located at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and West 145th Street. Although neighborhood residents argued that De Forest's 1886 deed restrictions prohibited structures that were not residential, the courts refused to block construction and in May 1902 the cornerstone was laid.

Despite the unusual provenance of its building elements, O' Reilly Brothers succeeded in creating a new structure from recycled, mostly neo-Gothic, elements. The east facade, which remained visible until the construction of the apartment building at No. 302 Convent Avenue and the Convent of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1912, has two sources: the row of pointed-arch windows are from the National Academy of Design, and the larger single window with neo-Gothic tracery is from east end of St. Patrick's Cathedral, near Madison Avenue.

The apse, at the building's north end, incorporates elements obtained from St. Patrick's Cathedral that were replaced by the new Lady Chapel in 1901-6. It consists of a large central window with tracery flanked by smaller side windows and buttresses terminating in pinnacles. The elaborately carved marble pedestals, which flank the wide front steps, came from the A. T. Stewart mansion, demolished in 1901.

Dedicated by Archbishop John M. Farley in December 1902, the church attracted more than two thousand, mostly second and third generation, Irish and German families as congregants. McMahon died in 1939 and was succeeded by Monsignor John Stanley. Over the next decade there was a substantial drop in parishioners, from 5,600 to fewer than 2,700 persons. In recent years Our Lady of Lourdes has attracted a large number of Hispanic and African-American worshipers. To mark the parish's seventy-fifth anniversary, in March 1976, the jazz pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, a resident of No. 63 Hamilton Terrace, supervised a "Feast Day" and "Jazz" mass.