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Church of St. Thomas the Apostle is a closed Roman Catholic parish church in New York City that has been threatened with demolition and been the subject of a landmarks preservation debate. The church is located at 260-262 W. 118th St., southwest corner of St. Nicholas Avenue, in Harlem, Manhattan. The parish was established in 1889;〔Remigius Lafort, S.T.D., Censor, ''(The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X. Volume 3: The Province of Baltimore and the Province of New York, Section 1: Comprising the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn, Buffalo and Ogdensburg Together with some Supplementary Articles on Religious Communities of Women. )''. (New York City: The Catholic Editing Company, 1914), p.376.〕 staffed by the Salesians of Don Bosco from 1979 to 2003; and closed in 2003 because of a diminished congregation and structural problems. == History == The parish was established in 1889 for Irish immigrants. Later German immigrants replaced the Irish; however, African Americans were originally directed to worship elsewhere.〔("Church of St. Thomas the Apostle (Roman Catholic) )."〕 Later the congregation became primarily African American.〔 The present church was built 1907 to designs by Thomas H. Poole & Company, and dedicated the same year. The interior was noted for its remarkable fan vaulting and celebrated German stained glass (from the still operating studio of Mayer of Munich, famed stained glass makers for the Holy See and Catholic churches around the world). The AIA Guide to NYC describes the church as follows: “No name is to be found on this church, but its finely detailed neo-Gothic façade, prominently entered via a stairway and an arcaded porch, demands attention.”〔Norval White and Elliot Willensky, AIA Guide to New York City, rev. ed., (New York: Collier Books, 1978), 272.〕 The church had many notable connections, including Harry Belafonte's family, who worshipped there; "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was said to have been baptized in this church; Hulan E. Jack, the first black borough president of Manhattan, was buried from here."〔 Lacking funds, clergy, and students for its attached parish school, the Catholic Order of Salesians of Don Bosco assumed control over the church and school in 1979, and are largely assumed to have rescued the church, closing the school and reusing it as a community center/computer skills training facility for young women. The training center remained open after the church's closure.〔J. Russiello, ''(A Sympathetic Planning Hierarchy for Redundant Churches: A Comparison of Continued Use and Reuse in Denmark, England and the United States of America )'' (MSc Conservation of Historic Buildings, University of Bath, 2008), p.163-164, 350.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「St. Thomas the Apostle Church (Manhattan)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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