Landmarking is not a panacea; Harlem’s most spectacular churches prove it. These were four cathedral-scaled Roman Catholic edifices. Landmarked or not, all but one — the smallest, Saint Aloysius Church on West 132nd Street (1904, designed by Renwick, Aspinwald & Russell) — have been dramatically altered, made to become but a mere shadow of what they were.
St. Charles Borromeo, a neo-Gothic essay on 141st Street, is imposing enough externally (1904, designed by George H. Streeton). In order not to offend white parishioners elsewhere, before the 1950s, this was where Harlem’s Black Catholics were directed to worship and educate their children. Following a 1968 fire, instead of restoring the three-story nave, a small, one-story room was built inside its soaring, burned-out shell.
Saint Thomas the Apostle Church on 118th Street (1907, Thomas H. Poole and Sons) was such an exquisite example of the 16th-century English Gothic Perpendicular style that, even cut in half and used as an event space, it’s still a moving place.
“The Saint Patrick’s of Harlem,” All Saints Church on Madison Avenue at 129th Street (1894, designed by James W. Renwick Jr., the architect of St. Patrick’s Cathedral), is now the auditorium for Sean Combs’ Capital Prep charter school.
Thanks to the fight to try to save St. Thomas Church, valiantly led by Bill Perkins and Congressman Charles B. Rangel, both All Saints and Saint Aloysius Church were designated individual New York City Landmarks. But the fates of each were radically different. A highly-colored terracotta masterpiece, Saint Aloysius has been lovingly restored. But at All Saints, like St. Thomas’ Church, as if Visigoth barbarians had invaded uptown, stained glass windows have been removed, with pews and paintings stripped from both and sent on to white suburban congregations. Similarly, side altars taken from Harlem were installed downtown at St. Patrick’s, along with marble statuary.
So no, securing official governmental “protection” cannot do everything to safeguard the buildings that formed the backdrop of our history. Only our own eternal vigilance, sending texts or raising hell when necessary, can do that. And sometimes, though I’m loath to admit it, even just saving part of something, from structures which are marvelously made and could never be duplicated, can be good enough, at least temporarily.
I say this, because all over Europe and even in America, whether the Summer Palace outside of St. Petersburg in Russia, the Frauenkirche church in Dresden, or the White House after it was burned by the British in the War of 1812, meaningful buildings, shared as a part of our collective memory, have been restored to ameliorate our losses and make us more whole.
729 and 731 Saint Nicholas Ave. are two exceptional houses supposedly protected in the Hamilton Heights-Sugar Hill Historic District extension from 2000 to 2001. The exuberant bow-fronted facades are two of the most original and satisfying in all of Harlem; perhaps in the entire city or whole country. Each residence features picturesque massing, including the iconic conical roofs of Norman towers, and tall, distended chimneys.
Like the lost freestanding dwelling that once occupied the corner at 146th Street, the two row houses, which survive from a group that was meant to be four houses, celebrate their definitive medieval vernacular architecture transferred to the city. Faced with rugged Manhattan schist, excavated from their foundations, articulated like Norman originals, with red brick detailing, they are further distinguished by unglazed yellow terra cotta ornament and imbricated cedar shingles, hidden by asphalt replacements. Curved windows no longer speak of sophisticated subtlety. Dignified double front doors and replacement stoops with serpentine bronze railings, like none you’ve ever seen, are also gone. And still, these venerable houses are so remarkable.
St. Nicholas Avenue’s earliest speculative houses, they were devised for builder William Thompson and designed by Boston architect Theodore Minot Clark. A Harvard graduate, Clark started as an associate of the innovative designer Henry Hobson Richardson. Teaching at MIT, he went on to fill the editorship of the American Architect and Building News.
Quite a commodious house, 725, though built for Nathan Hobart, was first occupied by Sigmund Bergmann, a colleague-collaborator of Thomas Alva Edison. Happily living here with his wife and daughters, serving as director of the General Incandescent Arc Light Company, by 1900, he moved to Berlin to establish an electronics empire of his own.
729 and 731 St. Nicholas Ave. were completed in 1886. (Photo from writer’s collection) 
It’s hard to imagine that such extraordinarily sinuous stoops were destroyed. (Photo from writer’s collection) 
After just ten years of existence, 725 St. Nicholas Ave. was razed. (Photo from writer’s collection 
The rich juxtaposition of contrasting materials here is unparalleled. Inside, not surprisingly, the parlors are ovals. 
Prose submitted for architectural poetry
This was when the flourishing three-year-old Heights Club decided to move across 146th Street, to better serve its growing elite membership in a far larger clubhouse. It was beautifully appointed, the garden planted with welcoming roses and a large magnolia tree beside the open porch. Stretching behind the house from 146th to 149th Streets were the New York Tennis Club’s many clay courts. (New York’s oldest tennis club in 1886; in 1901, the group relocated to the Bronx). Some would evolve into the African American Cosmopolitan Tennis Club, where the young Althea Gibson perfected her game.
With the 1904 opening of the Broadway IRT Subway, already anticipating the A Train to come in 1932, 725 was doomed. It’s been gone since 1906. The millionaire’s mansion was replaced by a 40-unit apartment house by commercial architect Lorenz F.J. Weiher.
A passionate booster of the Washington Heights district, as this section was known prior to becoming a Black neighborhood, Nathan Hobart was a senior member of the dry goods firm Minot, Hooper & Co., commission merchants. Instead of living in the grand corner house, he lived at 729. In addition to three servants, his family boasted his wife and their seven children, several of whom were devoted tennis enthusiasts.
Howard MacNutt and his wife, Mary Stokes MacNutt, lived at 731. Conventionally rich and respectable, she, a determined club woman, and he, the manager of the Hoffman House Hotel, were, in many ways, unexceptional. Most unusually, however, both were crucial promoters of the Baháʼí Faith. Established in Persia, Bahaism is a 19th-century monotheistic religion espousing the spiritual unity of all humanity and oneness with God. An essential validity is accorded to all religions by the Bahais. The spiritual practice adopted by Alain Locke, eliminating racial prejudice and gender inequality and fostering world unity are its major tenet.
Such egalitarianism is not expected among the upper class. But then neither are the antics of Mrs. MacNutt’s brother, businessman Edward Stiles Stokes, who, in 1901, died in bed at his sister’s house.
In 1872, Stokes shot his former friend and sometime partner, infamous financier Jim Fisk. Fierce rivalry for the charms and affection of beautiful actress and singer Josephine (Josie) Mansfield led to the men’s ruthless betrayal and double-crosses. Their quarrel ended in Fisk’s death after Stokes shot him. The clothes, jewels, and cash Fisk had lavished on Mansfield make her seem so much like a femme fatale of today. So does the rapidity with which emotions change. After Stokes was sent to Sing-Sing, it took no time at all for his lover to leave for France in the company of a famed and talented male impersonator!
All over Harlem, buildings wait patiently to reveal their stories to those interested. Someday, 729 and 731 St. Nicholas Ave. might just be restored to their previous grandeur. But until then, there is still so much that remains to teach and enjoy.