All Angel's Church (New York City)

It was formerly located on the southeast corner of West End Avenue and West Eighty-first and was built 1890 to neo-Gothic designs by Samuel B. Snook of J.B. Snook & Sons. It was later altered in 1896 by Karl Bitter Studio. The AIA Guide to NYC described it: “Turning the axis of this church diagonally to the street grid was a brilliant if subtle design decision which gave character to the intersection (at least until a less-subtle design decision gave it a superhuman television set [the Calhoun School] as competitor across the way). There is an intimate garden adjacent, created by the church’s geometry, reached from West 81st Street.”

The interior was described as spectacular in the New York Times. "Among its treasures was a two-and-a- half-story Tiffany window and a pulpit ringed with limestone angels that wrapped around the banister and paraded toward the top. There, a carved wooden angel leaned out and blew his trumpet into the center of the sanctuary.

"'There was a wonderful effect in the afternoon, when the setting sun, the afternoon sun, would hit the Tiffany window, which was on the northwest corner, and so it bathed the whole back end of the church in this very golden light, because there’s a lot of gold and gray-blue in that window. Of course you had oak pews, and you had the red carpeting, so all of that was made more golden out of the light.'"

It was hastily demolished 1979 and replaced by a large apartment building to the shock of the community.

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ALL ANGELS’ CHURCH
West End Avenue at 81st Street
1890 -1979

The neo-Gothic exterior of All Angels’ Episcopal Church was well regarded, but its interior was spectacular. Among its treasures was a two-anda- half-story Tiffany window and a pulpit ringed with limestone angels that wrapped around the banister and paraded toward the top. There, a carved wooden angel leaned out and blew his trumpet into the center of the sanctuary.

“What I would do in midweek would be to get the drums out and play them in the sanctuary,” said Paul Johnson, who was a member of the church’s music group in the 1970’s.

“No one else was using the sanctuary at the time and so my practicing didn’t bother anyone,’’ he added. “There was a wonderful effect in the afternoon, when the setting sun, the afternoon sun, would hit the Tiffany window, which was on the northwest corner, and so it bathed the whole back end of the church in this very golden light, because there’s a lot of gold and gray-blue in that window. Of course you had oak pews, and you had the red carpeting, so all of that was made more golden out of the light.

“That’s one of my very special memories; that’s just me being alone in the sanctuary.”