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Knickerbocker Spires

Before the age of the skyscrapers, New York’s church spires dominated the horizon and dwarfed their neighbours just like in the medieval towns and cities of the old world — as this photo from the 1900s shows.

Here St Patrick’s Cathedral holds court, with the St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church poking up a few blocks down Fifth Avenue.

Slightly north on that same boulevard sits the grand renaissance palazzo of the University Club, with the spire of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church poking up behind it.

Published at 5:06 pm on Thursday 27 September 2018. Categories: Architecture Errant Thoughts History New York Tags: , , , .
Comments

What might the hulking shapes behind St Patrick’s be?

— LGClark 28 Sep 2018 7:08 pm

Reminds me of a post of yours from years ago in which you described Albany as resembling an Eastern European capital (until Rocky shoehorned in the Empire State Plaza, when the resemblance only became stronger).

— K. Dontoh 29 Sep 2018 3:47 pm
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