Building Spotlight: CHURCH OF THE COVENANT

The finale of our series profiling each building in the Tudor City Historic District. We conclude with one of the enclave's oldest structures, The Church of the Covenant, a Presbyterian house of worship opened in 1871.

The church in 1934, wedged between
 The Woodstock and Hotel Tudor.

Its architect, J. Cleaveland Cady, designs a red-brick Victorian Gothic structure, consisting of two buildings ‒ a chapel and a parish house ‒ sharing a common wall.  (Cady is then at the beginning of his career, but goes on to design such famed edifices as the American Museum of Natural History and the original Metropolitan Opera House).

The parish house is enlarged in 1927 in an Elizabethan style with half-timbered walls, meant to harmonize with the rising Tudor City around it.

There's one final, more radical renovation in 1950, when the road outside is lowered 17 feet, part of the regrading of 42nd Street. A staircase and new entrance are added.

Details: a wooden entrance door with decorative hinges, a copper steeple, a pitched dormer..

In 1950, when 42nd Street is lowered, a granite base is added, along with a flight of bluestone steps. The entrance is moved from north side to the west side of the building. Above, the alterations being made, and below, an early drawing of the finished product.