View allAll Photos Tagged Realizations
The beautiful, tranquil, and awe-inspiring Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades (Los Angeles), California
Realization of a dire need in Biore strips, Madonna hits, a philosophy that doesn't involve naiviety(sp?), and, oh yeah, to find out where I put that gas bill.
Every human being has an innate urge for self-realization. At its most basic level, self-realization is manifest in the desire to reproduce and ensure the survival of the offspring. All living beings share the instinct of reproduction since, in its absence, they could have no continuity. Yet the...
FriendshipPod.com. The dilemna of the boy in Friendship Pod Affair is that due to someone's misplaced anger, his best intentions turn to disaster.
What if love powered everything you do?
1. Relationships are healed.
2. Prejudices are set aside.
3. People organically connect with one another.
4. More unity is attained in teams.
5. The connectedness of each person is more pure.
6. Creative unification leads to breakthrough.
7. And businesses incorporating the Friendship Pod start to thrive.
Simply register as a free member to immediately receive 100% FREE Lifetime Access to the membership site where your journey will begin.
Join Now at FriendshipPod.com.
The look on her face seems to say to me "I must punish myself, but I'm starting to forget the reason why..."
"Listen..." by Alpha Auer
January 22-February 28, 2013
(meet the artists: January 27, 1PM SLT :)
Realization of this military base at Frederiksoord is currently being developed in close collaboration with KIK (Kunst in Kolderveen), TAAK, The Society of Humanitarianism, Gemeente Westerveld, Province Drenthe and the Ministry of Defence. We encourage corporate representatives to join this unconventional collaboration. With this project we aim to provide the infrastructure for a horizontal civil investigation after the current condition of our welfare state.
The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine lies a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, on Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, California. It was founded and dedicated by Paramahansa Yogananda, on August 20, 1950.
Thinking of Andrew Wyeth.
I've always loved back-lighting. There is something, at once, somber and sparkling about a bright background yielding to a shadowed foreground.
Some might see this photo as ominous, as if the house on the left somehow harbors dark secrets certain to inspire circumspection and withdrawal.
And yet, the brownish grasses and subtly expressed row boats remind me of something Wyeth might have produced with a wink and a smile, allowing the viewer to infer what he or she wishes, not unlike in "Christina's World."
It is one of a number of things I learned from Wyeth while a young art student, a poor boy exposed to the many wonders that would come to define his world view and definition of self-realization.
The beautiful, tranquil, and awe-inspiring Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades (Los Angeles), California
I took this at the Self-Realization Fellowship center is in Eninitas California.
The Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens are open to all that seek to come here to relax their mind, body, and spirit. Walking the grounds here is so tranquil, you can look out over the open waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean or you can find a spot nested in the gardens that gives you shade and floral fragrance as you rest your mind.
I took this at the Self-Realization Fellowship center is in Eninitas California.
The Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens are open to all that seek to come here to relax their mind, body, and spirit. Walking the grounds here is so tranquil, you can look out over the open waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean or you can find a spot nested in the gardens that gives you shade and floral fragrance as you rest your mind.
Zinnias, with Washingtonia Palm trees beyond, growing in the gardens of the Self Realization Fellowship (SRF) in Encinitas, California.
August 18, 2010.
FriendshipPod.com. The dilemna of the boy in Friendship Pod Affair is that due to someone's misplaced anger, his best intentions turn to disaster.
What if love powered everything you do?
1. Relationships are healed.
2. Prejudices are set aside.
3. People organically connect with one another.
4. More unity is attained in teams.
5. The connectedness of each person is more pure.
6. Creative unification leads to breakthrough.
7. And businesses incorporating the Friendship Pod start to thrive.
Simply register as a free member to immediately receive 100% FREE Lifetime Access to the membership site where your journey will begin.
Join Now at FriendshipPod.com.
I took this at the Self-Realization Fellowship center is in Eninitas California.
The Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens are open to all that seek to come here to relax their mind, body, and spirit. Walking the grounds here is so tranquil, you can look out over the open waters of the mighty Pacific Ocean or you can find a spot nested in the gardens that gives you shade and floral fragrance as you rest your mind.
Realization of this military base camp at Frederiksoord is currently being developed in close collaboration with KIK (Kunst in Kolderveen), TAAK, The Society of Humanitarianism, Gemeente Westerveld and Defensie.
Midtown West, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States
The Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin complex, including the church, Clergy House, Mission House, Rectory and Lady Chapel, was designed by Pierre L. LeBrun of Napoleon LeBrun & Sons in 1894. The church, long a center of Anglo-Catholic worship, is a physical realization of the tenets of the Oxford Movement which sought to better the lives of the urban poor through nursing care, inspirational activity and the ritual of the Pre-Reformation Church in England. Built in 1895 to make full use of an irregular site, St. Mary's was designed both to realize the programmatic goals of its trustees and to evoke, in the church and Lady Chapel, the 13th- century French Gothic Style. The Clergy and Mission Houses, and the Rectory were cast in the 14th-century French Gothic style.
The result is one of the finest Gothic-inspired designs of New York's late 19th century. The steel frame construction of the church can be said to have made the building the first of its kind and size in the world, thus redefining the conventional methods of church construction. Among the building's several specific Anglo-Catholic characteristics are the subjects selected for the sculptures of J. Massey Rhind whose academic naturalism complements
LeBrun's architecture.
The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin
The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin has its origins in the growth of Anglo-Catholicism within the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of North America. In the third decade of the 19th century, a group of theologians - dons of Oxford's College House of Saint Mary-the-Virgin - initiated a religious movement to enhance the lives of the disaffected of the Industrial Revolution.
Reasserting an identity with the Pre-Re format ion Church of England, the founders of the Oxford Movement emphasized the importance of the sacraments, stressing the ideal of the priesthood and the authority of bishops but still rejecting the autocracy of the Pope.
This Anglo-Catholicism was characterized by a reintroduction of ritual and its accompanying furnishings, a dedication to mission work, a revival of religious orders, and a development of church architecture and art. Conceived in academe, Anglo-Catholicism, garbed in the mystery, color and richness of ceremonial worship, also manifested itself in the construction of new church buildings in slum neighborhoods.
This reassertion of ancient ritual found a sympathetic audience within the Camden Society , subsequently the Ecclesiological Society, which, through its publications, The Ecclesioloqist and a variety of architectural tracts, advocated the restoration of ancient churches and the building of new ones strictly according to the principles which they believed guided the medieval English builders.
In the 1860s the Ecclesiologists also had begun to accept certain French architectural elements â apses, in place of the traditional English flat ended chancels, for example.
By the 1860s Anglo-Catholicism had found a sympathetic audience among adherents of the American Episcopal Church. St. Mary's early history is inseparable from the life of the founder of the parish, the Reverend Thomas McKee Brown . Born in Philadelphia, the son of James Brown, he attended the Episcopal Academy for seven years and then matriculated at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, with the class of 1863.
The Civil War interrupted his academic career and he went to work. But soon after he resumed his studies - by arrangement with Trinity College - at the General Theological Seminary in New York. He received his Bachelor's degree from Trinity in 1864 and his Masters from the General Theological Seminary the following year. Before his ordination by Horatio Potter, Bishop of New York, on February 25, 1866, he served as curate at the Church of the Annunciation and at St. John's, in Brooklyn.
Following his ordination he was Rector of Trinity Church, East New York, for a year before returning to Manhattan to became curate for the Reverend Ferdinand C. Ewer of Christ Church, New York.6 At both the Church of the Annunciation and Christ Church the exalted ritual characteristic of Anglo-Catholicism was practiced.
Concurrently, Brown and a group of interested lay people combined to establish a new parish on a thoroughly Anglo-Catholic foundation. Although at this time such ritual was contrary to canon law, Bishop Potter not only suggested how the group might incorporate, he pointed out t±ie working class neighborhood where their church would be most effective.
The Society of the Free Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin was incorporated on December 5, 1868, under a provision of a New York State law. John Jacob Astor III, learning of the group's objective, gave the Society three lots on West 45th
Street .8 Within the month the corner stone of a new church building was laid by Bishop Potter. It is likely that the dedication of the church to Saint Mary-the-Virgin was inspired by the home church of the Oxford Movement.
The new church, built to the designs of William T. Hallett was opened by the Rev. Ferdinand Ewer on December 8, 1870 â the Feast of the Conception . From the b^inning the liturgy was highly ritualistic; indeed, it was noted in the Parish Register of a sister church that the first High Mass with incense was celebrated at St. Mary's on Christmas Day, 1877.
The building records reflect the dedication of St. Mary's clergy and sisters to the spiritual and physical well-being of this working class neighborhood: a new clergy and choir house to accommodate the men's guilds and the boys club, as well as the single clergymen, was finished in 1885; and within the next two years a house at 248 West 45th Street to shelter the women's guilds and the dispensary run by the new female order founded by Father Brown â the Sisters of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary â was given to serve as a Mission House.
The Society's trustees, burdened with mortgages, were continually faced with a lack of funds. The congregation included many of limited income, but several individuals were generous, among them, Miss Sara Louie Cooke.
On July 21, 1892, Miss Cooke died, leaving St. Mary's nearly $500,000. At the November trustees' meeting there was a lengthy discussion about whether to enlarge the present church or to purchase property for a new church. Subsequently, at a special meeting of the trustees it was resolved that the Treasurer should receive all moneys and property of Miss Cooke's estate.
The treasurer of the Society was Haley Fiske , who had been elected to the board of trustees on March 23, 1892 and on motion elected treasurer. Fiske was vice-president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. He was the assistant to both his predecessors at Metropolitan Life, Joseph Fairchild Knapp and John Rogers Hegeman, both great builders. It was Knapp who brought Metropolitan Life uptown to Madison Square and for whom Napoleon LeBrun & Sons designed the eleven-story office block at 1 Madison Avenue, .
It was Hegeman who expanded to the rest of the block and part of the block to the north , and it was Hegeman who commissioned the Metropolitan Life tower , all of these built from plans prepared by the LeBrun firm. There can be little doubt that Fiske was involved in all these projects.
Fiske took the initiative immediately. One month later an executive committee, consisting of the rector, the secretary and the treasurer, was created. The trustees had had a year to consider the alternatives: enlarging their existing edifice on West 45th Street or moving to a new site.
Two months later it was reported that 143 feet along the north side of West 46th Street and possibly one adjacent lot on West 47th Street could be purchased. Accumulating lots for the new church site â seven on West 46th Street â continued from January, 1894, until the following August when title was taken to the last of the five lots on West 47th Street . Both these streets were lined with the narrow rcwhouses of working class people and stables.
Concurrently, the Society's property on West 45th Street was sold and an architectural competition was announced. Father Brown had visited Europe in the summer of 1888; certainly he would have seen the great cathedrals as yell as the new English churches built for Anglo-Catholic congregations. The trustees stipulated a program with the following: a church in the French Gothic style of the 13th century; able to seat 800 exclusive of the chancel; the chancel to be apsidal and at least fifty feet in depth with an ambulatory; the building to extend north from West 46th Street with the chancel at the north end; the interior to be lofty; the elaboration of ornamental detail to be confined to the front and to the interior; no towers or spires; at least two chapels and a baptistry; the Rectory and the Sacristy to be on West 47th Street; and the Mission House for the Sisters and the Clergy House to be on West 46th Street â the Mission House on the east side of the site and the Clergy House on the West.
Because of the unfavorable reception to the announced competition, 17, the trustees withdrew it, and the commission was given to the LeBrun firm. Pierre LeBrun's plans were accepted on October 11, 1894. It should not be overlooked that Haley Fiske knew the firm well. Indeed, the LeBrun office was located in the new Home Office building they designed for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at 1 Madison Avenue.
The Architect
Pierre La jus LeBrun has not received the attention that he is due. Because of the name of the firm, Napoleon LeBrun & Sons, both Pierre and his brother Michel have been all but anonymous. That it was Pierre LeBrun who designed St. Mary's is indicated in the Society's minutes. His father, Napoleon LeBrun, represented the firm at the initial stages of the project. Napoleon Eugene Charles LeBrun , was born to French emigrant parents in Riiladelphia. At fifteen years of age he was placed in the office of Thomas Ustick Walter , where he remained for six years. LeBrun began his own practice in 1841 in Philadelphia but moved to New York in 1864 where the choice in 1870 of his Second Empire style Masonic Temple competition submission did much to establish his reputation. In the same year his son Pierre joined him and the firm became Napoleon LeBrun & Son. Father and sons were active members of the new American Institute of Architects.
The firm's work can be divided into two periods, an early one spanning the 1870s into the mid-80s and a later one from the later 1880s until the firm's dissolution in 1909. The earlier is robust â the Church of Saint John-the-Baptist, 1872, West 30th Street and the Fire Department Headquarters, 1886, East 67th Street. Ihe later work was significantly different. Building elevations became more planar; ornament, based on historic prototypes, was used more judiciously. The first Metropolitan Life building was an example of a new building type given stylistic character through the application of ornament, as is LeBrun's still-extant Home Insurance Company facade on Broadway above Murray Street.
If little is known of Pierre LeBrun's formal architectural education, his three trips abroad in the service of the Willard Architectural Commission are documented. Levi Hale Willard, a wealthy businessman, died in 1883 leaving to the newly founded Metropolitan Museum of Art $100,000 toward the creation of a collection of models and casts illustrative of the art and science of architecture, to be made under the direction of a commission chosen by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. In his will Willard nominated Napoleon LeBrun as president of this commission; Willard, a friend, had often discussed with LeBrun the need to cultivate a popular taste for architecture. Pierre LeBrun was appointed the commission's purchasing agent. The younger LeBrun visited the significant sites and met with the suppliers of casts in Paris, Munich and Rome.
The historical accuracy characterizing the ornament of the Church of Saint-Mary-the-Virgin appears to have been informed by the 13th century French Gothic examples in the Willard Collection. This is true of the firm's other later buildings; regardless of whether they are fire stations or skyscrapers, style is determined by the integrity of the ornament.
The Sculptor
John Massey Rhind was born in Edinburgh where both his father and grandfather were architectural sculptors, a profession that his brothers followed as well. He studied in London - with Jules-Aime Dalou -and in Paris. His style can be associated with the academic naturalism of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Rhind came to this country in 1889. Credited for his ability to make his sculpture an integral part of a larger design, Rhind's earliest work in this country was for ecclesiastical buildings.
His first commission in this country was the bronze tympanum over the entrance to the Chapel of the Good Shepherd at the General Theological Seminary . His bronze panel, "Flight to a City of Refuge," won the commission for one of the three pairs of doors given to Trinity Church in memory of John Jacob Astor III. In a letter to the Society's trustees, dated April 15, 1895, he offered to carve a statue of the virgin and Child for the trumeau , the post between the doors within the main entrance. Two months later he was invited to submit a sketch for the tympanum, the design now over the door .
In addition to the trumeau and the tympanum, the following are from the hand of J. Massey Rhind: the two freestanding statues flanking the main entrance, Saints George and Michael ; the three freestanding statues that make up the Calvary over the main entrance ; the freestanding statue of a seated St. Cecilia in the niche above the Clergy House entrance ; the tympanum above the lady Chapel entrance on West 47th Street and the impost heads supporting the drip molding over this entrance.
Design of the Saint Mary-the-Virgin Complex
As with the other buildings in the LeBrun firm's later period, the clue to historic style of St. Mary's is in the ornament concentrated around doorways and windows . The Willard casts included details from ecclesiastical and domestic Gothic buildings â Chartres, Paris, and Rouen. Thirteenth-century French Gothic ornament defines the major features of the tall limestone facade of the church , the central of the three buildings on West 46th Street. The keyed limestone door and window surrounds, the drip moldings and the tracery of the pierced terra cotta parapets of the flanking, orange brick Clergy and Mission Houses are characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style. The contemporary architectural critic, Montgomery Schuyler, found the historically appropriate ornament and the long thin, orange Tiffany bricks pleasing but thought that the treatment of the 46th Street facades lacked "bite."
However, to the 20th century observer the functional economy of the flatness of this range and the irregular disposition of the fenestration are also pleasing. All of these elements, as well as the elegant naturalism of Rhind's sculpture are expressive of the late 19th century. The ornament of the Rectory on West 47th Street, confined to the keyed door and windcw surrounds and drip moldings , is characteristic of the 14th-century French Gothic style also. But the ornament of the Lady Chapel and its entrance reverts to the 13th-century French Gothic of the church facade. Although there is more depth to the range of St. Mary's buildings along West 47th Street, their planar aspect â especially the tall apsidal end of the church itself, unccampramised by sham buttresses â reveals their late 19th-century origin.
The cornerstone was laid on December 8, 1894. All of the newspaper accounts of the building, shortly before its opening exactly one year later, expressed amazement at the speed with which the church, "one of the purest examples of French Gothic of the 13th century in this country," was erected. But a reporter for the Evening Post explained that an elaborate structure like St. Mary's could not have been built in such a short time with conventional methods; the steel skeleton made St. Mary's "the first of its kind and size to be built in this or any other country." It is this use of a steel frame, a technique then associated only with the construction of tall buildings particularly in Chicago, that gave St. Mary's the nickname "the Chicago Church."22
In plan it is the central, block-through body of the church that dominates St. Mary's irregular site. This arrangement, with the Clergy House and the Mission House flanking the church's main entrance on West 46th Street and the Rectory and the Lady Chapel girdling the church's apsidal end on West 47th Street, was dictated by the trustees' program. The programmatic goals of spatial flexibility and a lofty interior with a vaulted ceiling would appear to be contradictory aims within such a confined area. LeBrun took advantage of the most advanced construction technique, calling in Purdy & Henderson, the construction engineers, to fabricate a steel frame to support his design . The foundation walls and the steel footings were carried dcwn to rock . large, diagonal compression braces at basement level anchor the bases of the vertical columns.
To support the vaults steel transverse and diagonal ribs spring from the eighteen steel columns, nine on each side of the nave , which support the braced saddle-back roof frame above. The upper members of this skeletal imitation of Gothic structure are progressively thinner. The side walls are of brick; the arches of the nave arcade, springing from steel corbels riveted to the columns, are of brick also, as are the the walls above them.
St. Mary's had become famous all over the country for the extremely ritualistic character of its services. The requirements of this liturgy were foremost iri the planning of St. Mary's: a long nave and lofty interior, side aisles and ambulatory, a deep chancel and ancillary chapels. But the building's Anglo-Catholic specificity was proclaimed in more subtle ways. The sculptural subjects Rhind was commissioned to carve, the trumeau figure and the tympanum program especially, are specific references to pre-Reformation Catholicism. Ihe contrast between the limestone and the brick of the West 46th Street facade defines the ceremonial entrance. Ihe 13th-century ornament identifies St. Mary's with the new Anglo-Catholic churches being built in England in the 1860s and later. The inspiration for St. Mary's architecture can be found in the tradition of the Oxford Movement itself â the emphasis upon ritual requiring side aisles, deep chancels, ambulatories and lofty ceilings. It can be said that St. Mary's redefined the manner in which churches could be constructed.
Description
The Church of Saint Mary-the-Virgin is a complex of five interconnected buildings : the church itself which runs north and south through this block between West 46th and 47th Streets; the Clergy House to the left of the church and the Mission House to the right of the church, both on West 46th Street; the Rectory to the right of the church's apsidal end and the Lady Chapel to the left , both on West 47th Street. All of these buildings, except the church which is faced with limestone, are of an orange , Tiffany brick. All have granite bases.
Church
The tall, planar limestone facade , forty-six feet wide and 130 feet high from the curb to the cross on the gable, is framed by thin, faceted buttresses and articulated in three horizontal sections: the lowest containing the main entrance; the middle section with the rose window; and the top, a gable containing a smaller round window flanked by the buttress pinnacles.
A great deal of 13th-century Gothic ornament is concentrated within the pointed arch entrance which contains paired doorways separated by the trumeau and Rhind's canopied statue of the Virgin Mary and Child. Two heavy oak doors with decorative foliated iron work slide away from the trumeau into the walls to reveal paired, glazed-panel swinging doors with brass fittings below leaded stained-glass transoms. Pendant lamps of iron and glass are fixed to the doorways' lintel and outer posts. The subjects of Rhind's three-tiered tympanum above are familiar Anglo-Catholic subjects.. In niches across the lowest tier are ten worthies flanking a central niche containing a closed door, the five on the left appear to be Old Testament personifications and the five on the right may represent the fathers of the early Christian church. On the middle tier are a seated Virgin and Child attended by adoring shepherds and wise men.
At the top the Virgin in an aura ascends between angels disposed upon clouds into the tympanum's foliate border.24 Ihe drip molding of the arch rests on imposts articulated as faces, the one on the left blindfolded to represent Heresy, the one on the right clear-eyed and crowned representing Faith. Flanking the entrance arch, two canopied niches, capped with crocketed and finialed pinnacles, shelter Rhind's statues of
Saint George on the left and Saint Michael on the right. Faces, representing differing physiognomies, project from the canopies' pendant tracery.
In the middle section a tall, blind pointed arch frames the slightly recessed rose window and Calvary with figures by Phind below it. Gargoyle-adorned pinnacles mark the base of the blind arch; aedicular elements facing the corner buttresses have crockets and finials, reliefs of rosettes and leaves, and gargoyles projecting from above their dosserets.
The rose window reverses the conventional direction of the arches and balusters within ; at Notre-Dame, Paris, and at Chartres the arches radiate out, not in as they do here. The window is filled with leaded stained glass in geometric patterns manufactured by Arnold and Locke. The middle section is capped by a foliated cornice frcan which two gargoyles project .
The gable is flanked by the pinnacles terminating the facade's corner buttresses. A round window containing a qua trefoil is in the center of the gable. The gable coping is crocketed. The cross surmounting the gable is of gilded, pressed copper.
Above the church's side aisles and ambulatory the exterior walls of the clerestory, partially visible from both West 46th and 47th Streets, are faced with limestone.
On both sides of the clerestory eight out of nine panelled bays, separated by minimal and token buttressing, contain the tall, two-light windows of plate tracery with drip moldings. The windows are filled with leaded glass in geometric patterns, manufactured by Arnold & Locke. The steep saddleback roof is slate-covered. A fleche of pressed copper rises from the ridge line between bays eight and nine .
Though visible from West 46th Street, the fleche is seen best from West 47th Street where it is the terminal feature above the church's five apse windows and steep roof. Only the center three of these five windows contain the glass specifically projected for them and manufactured by C. F. Kempe & Co., Ltd., London.
The Clergy House
The Clergy House is four stories with a penthouse which is invisible from West 46th Street. Constructed of orange Tiffany brick with a granite base and limestone water table up to the first story sills, the keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, string courses, sills, drip moldings, and lintels are of limestone and the cornice and pierced balustrade above are of terra cotta. Ihe window and door grilles are iron; .
There appear to be two entrances, but the more ornamented one on the right with the cross as its terminal feature is the entrance to the left side aisle of the church. One enters the Clergy House itself through the doorway on the left.
The paneled-wood doors with wrought-iron grilles are set below transoms of leaded glass which are in a geometric pattern. Individual iron lanterns are suspended on short chains from the lintels of these two doorways. Above the Clergy house entrance is a canopied niche sheltering Rhind's statue of St. Cecilia , a memorial to an admired church organist, Dr. William Prentice.
Windows are capped by drip moldings with foliated
stops. Three second story window heads carry blind cinquefoil arches. The windows have one-over-one wood sash. The cornice is of richly molded terra cotta in a foliated pattern . Twenty alternating panels of flamboyant tracery make up the pierced terra-cotta parapet. The present coping is of sections of poured concrete slab.
The Mission House
Except for its width âit is narrower â and certain details, the Mission House is identical to the Clergy House. The hanging lantern at the Mission House entrance has been replaced with a more modern fixture .
Because the Mission House is narrower than the Clergy House there are fewer windows and only thirteen alternating terra cotta panels make up the parapet.
The Rectory
Like the Clergy and Mission Houses on West 46th Street, the Rectory at 144 West 47th Street is of orange Tiffany brick on a granite base with a limestone water table. The keyed and ornamental door and window surrounds, sills, stringcourses, and drip moldings are limestone.
The Rectory entrance has its original bluestone stoop and basement areaway. The double doors with their brass fittings are of paneled oak, two over two, with a transom of plate glass above. The Rectory shelters the sacristy and vestry rooms, as well as the living quarters of the rector and his family.
Windows containing one-over-one wood sash some with leaded glass in a geometric pattern, are capped by drip moldings with foliate stops. Of special interest is the bow window at the second story set within splayed reveals.
The lintel is an iron "I" beam decorated with five iron rosettes, while the casing is of wood as are the two narrow shafts at the angles of the bcw, and the drip molding carries an ornamental finial. The gable coping, chimney and chimney pots are terra cotta. The eastern end of the slate covered roof is broached, its hip adorned with a pressed copper finial.
The Lady Chapel
In a letter to his fellow trustees dated Dec. 15, 1894, Haley Fiske offered to build the Lady Chapel. He indicated that he would like to move the west windows from the West 45th Street church to this chapel. Like the Rectory, the Clergy and the Mission Houses, the chapel is built of the orange Tiffany brick; the water table, the chapel's elaborately carved entrance, the keyed window surrounds, string courses, drip moldings, imbricated pinnacles, keyed and crocketed gable coping and crowning cross are all of limestone.
The entrance screens the recessed area between the chapel and the Rectory. Rhind's tympanum, above the oak entrance doors, depicts the Annunciation and is framed by an archivolt, intricately carved as a rose vine, supported on colonnettes.
The crocketed drip molding springs from two imposts, given the form of portrait heads carved by Rhind of Fiske's son and daughter, which resolves into an ogee that breaks through the top of the screening spandrel course to support a cross, now missing. Three lancets, the taller in the center, light the chapel; the drip moldings spring from foliated imposts.
The round window in the gable contains a quatrefoil filled with leaded stained glass.
Exterior Changes
In the ninety-five years since the opening of St. Mary's on West 46th Street, little of the church's exterior aspect has changed. Drawings indicate that there was once a balustrade fronting the Calvary above the main entrance, and another across the facade at the foot of the gable.
The Rectory gable is missing its crowning finial and the cross atop the Lady Chapel entrance is missing. Drawings indicate â and coping fragments corroborate â that there were basement areaways in front of the Clergy and Mission Houses. Only one basement areaway exists today, that of the Rectory. An unsympathetic composite material has been clumsily used to repair tracery and foliated ornament. In 1962 repair and repointing the church's stone facade was carried out.
- From the 1989 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report