St. Patrick's Cathedral

The Cathedral of St. Patrick, often referred to as St. Patrick's Cathedral, is a decorated Neo-Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral church on 5th Avenue between E. 50th and 51st Streets in Midtown Manhattan. It is the seat of the archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, and sits directly across from Rockefeller Center. It is considered one of the most visible symbols of Roman Catholicism in New York City and the United States.

The Diocese of New York, created in 1808, was made an archdiocese by Pope Pius IX on July 19, 1850. In 1853, Archbishop John Joseph Hughes announced his intention to erect a new cathedral to replace the Old Saint Patrick's Cathedral in Lower Manhattan. The new cathedral was designed by James Renwick Jr. in the Gothic Revival style. On August 15, 1858, the cornerstone was laid. The location, while in the heart of present-day midtown Manhattan, was far north of the populous areas of New York City in the mid-1800s.

Work began in 1858, but stopped during the Civil War, and resumed in 1865. The cathedral was completed in 1878 and dedicated on May 25, 1879. The archbishop's house and rectory were added in 1880, both designed by James Renwick Jr., and an adjacent school (no longer in existence) opened in 1882. The spires were added in 1888, and at 329 feet and 6 inches, were in fact the tallest structures in New York City, and the second highest in the United States, at that time. The final East addition, including a Lady chapel, was designed by Charles T. Matthews and constructed between 1901 to 1906.

In 1927 and 1931, the cathedral was renovated, which included an enlargement of the sanctuary and the installation of a new organ. The cathedral and associated buildings were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976. A second more recent extensive restoration of the cathedral was begun in 2012 and was completed by September 17, 2015, in time for Pope Francis’ visit on September 24 and 25, 2015. The restoration cleaned the exterior marble, repaired stained glass windows, painted the ceiling, and repaired the flooring and steps, along with other restorations.

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Bryant Park Ice Skating Rink

Originally opened to the public in 1847, by the late 1970’s, Bryant Park had fallen into disrepair and was, like many of the City’s public spaces at that time, grimy, unkempt, and typically avoided by most New Yorkers. It was certainly not a place anyone would want to spend a lunch hour or afternoon.

The Bryant Park Restoration Corporation was founded in 1980 by Dan Biederman and Andrew Heiskell, chairman of Time Inc. and the New York Public Library. The BPRC’s goal was to clean up the park and make it once again a place people wanted to visit. After some initial successes, BPRC closed the park in 1988 to undertake a four-year project to build new park entrances with increased visibility from the street, enhance the landscape design and improve and repair paths and lighting. BPRC's plan also included restoring the park's monuments, renovating its restrooms, and building new restaurant pavilions and concession kiosks.

After a four-year effort, the park reopened in 1992 to widespread acclaim. It won numerous urban planning awards, and has been lauded as one of the signature examples of New York City's revival in the 1990s. With a low crime rate, the park became filled with office workers on sunny weekdays, city visitors on the weekends, and revelers during the holidays. Today, daily attendance counts often exceed 800 people per acre, making it the most densely occupied urban park in the world.

Bryant Park introduced the Holiday Shops in 2002, in an effort to draw people to the park even during the winter. Initially slow to gain traction, the now called “Winter Village” became a fixture of the Manhattan holiday scene in 2005 with the addition of New York's only free-admission ice skating rink, which includes a standalone dining and event space.

In September 2016, Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group took over the fine dining venues and Urbanspace was brought in to expand the holiday shops, which now offer a selection of local and homemade goods including a food market featuring many of the city’s restaurants.

The Bryant Park Winter Carnival is the final event of the season, and offers winter fun for the whole family. It will run from Friday, January 26 through Sunday, February 4 this year. All activities are free, admission to The Rink is free, and skate rental is $20.

Events Include:

Professional Skating Performances

Kid’s Skating Lessons

A Children’s Puppet Show on Ice

Curling Lessons

Fitness Classes from Yoga to Hiit Training at the Rink's Indoor Event Space

Karaoke & more!

For a full line-up of events, check the Bryant Park website here!

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St. John the Divine

The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, officially the Cathedral Church of Saint John: The Great Divine in the City and Diocese of New York, is located on Amsterdam Avenue between West 110th and 113th Streets in Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood. Designed in 1888 and begun in 1892, the cathedral’s construction has undergone radical stylistic changes and the interruption of two World Wars.

Originally designed in the Byzantine & Romanesque Revival styles, the plan changed after 1909 to a Gothic Revival design. After a large fire on December 18, 2001, it was closed for repairs and reopened in November 2008. Today, it still remains unfinished, with construction and restoration a continuing process. While original plans called for two towers on either side, only one was ever completed. As a result, it is often nicknamed St. John the Unfinished. It is the fourth largest Christian church in the world: the interior covers more than 121,000 square feet.

The building as it appears today is mostly the product of the second design campaign in the Gothic Revival Style. The cathedral is 601 feet in length, and the nave ceiling reaches 124 feet. At the west end of the nave, installed by stained glass artist Charles Connick and constructed out of 10,000 pieces of glass, is the largest rose window in the U.S.

Seven chapels radiating from the ambulatory behind the choir are each in a distinctive nationalistic style, some of them borrowing from outside the Gothic vocabulary. These chapels are known as the "Chapels of the Tongues", and they are devoted to: St. Ansgar, patron of Denmark, St. Boniface, apostle of the Germans, St. Columba, patron of Ireland and Scotland, St. Savior (Holy Savior), devoted to immigrants from the east, especially Africa and Asia; St. Martin of Tours, patron of the French, St. Ambrose, patron of Milan, and St. James, patron of Spain. These saints represent each of the seven most prominent groups of immigrants to enter New York City upon the opening of Ellis Island in 1892, the same year the cathedral's construction began.

In 2003, the cathedral was designated a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; however, shortly thereafter, the designation was unanimously overturned by the New York City Council, some of whose members favored landmark status for the cathedral's entire footprint, rather than just the building. Councilman Bill Perkins proposed that the protective status should also be extended to the cathedral's grounds in order to control development there. However, during the next 5 years, no move to designate a special status for the entire grounds was made.

In 2007, the cathedral leased the southeast corner of its property, which contained the Cathedral's playground and Rose Garden, to the AvalonBay Communities. AvalonBay completed construction of the Avalon Morningside Park, a modern 295 unit glass rental building, in 2008.

In 2016, a second residential building, the "Enclave" was built on the northern edge of the Cathedral's property, along 113th Street. Handel Architects designed the building for the Brodsky Organization, which has a 99-year lease on the land. The Enclave rises 16 stories high and holds 428 rental units. In total, the lease on the Enclave land pays the Cathedral about $3 million a year, the lease on the Avalon about $2.5 million.

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