Just Off Fifth: St. Ambrose Episcopal Church at 15 West 130th Street

St. Ambrose Episcopal Church at 15 West 130th Street is a craggy structure designed by James W. Pirsson in 1873-1875 for the Presbyterian Church of the Puritans.  Grounded in the Romanesque Revival work popularized by the great Boston-based architect Henry Hobson Richardson, it packs a monumental sense of mass into a relatively small structure. Pirsson… Continue reading

Just Off Fifth: 15 and 17 East 128th Street

15 and 17 East 128th Street are a charming pair of neighbors, with the former’s Italianate detailing a catalogue of Neo-Grec effects and the latter surviving as one of New York’s earliest surviving houses in the French Second Empire style.

20-24 Mount Morris Park West

20-24 Mount Morris Park West is an attractive triple-apartment building built with three separate entrances in 1900 – two on Mount Morris Park and one ofn West 122nd Street.  Containing 21 apartments, it displays a variant on the Beaux Arts style.  The yellow brick is unusual.

The Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church

Called “one of the oddest church buildings in New York” by historian Andrew Dolkart, the astonishing Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church is a massive pile of Romanesque, Classical and High Eclectic effects that maintains a fortress-like presence on its corner.  The interior is almost equally unusual; architect Thomas H. Poole designed the building in 1905-1906…. Continue reading

11-14 Mount Morris Park West

11-14 Mount Morris Park West is one of Harlem’s best rows, designed in 1889 by James E. Ware in a massive Richardsonian-inspired style that includes a turret-like bay on the corner dwelling and stonework and steep gables throughout. Ware is best known for inventing the “dumbbell plan” for New York tenements, which allows light into… Continue reading