On Thursday, November 14, at 6:30pm, Barry Lewis, architectural historian and long-time host of a popular series of walking tours of New York City that air on PBS, will present a lecture entitled ”Midtown Fifth Avenue: Mirror of an Ever-Changing City.” The lecture follows the 5:30pm Choral Evensong and Said Eucharist and will be given in the church. All are invited to this free lecture that is followed by a reception in the Parish House.
Fifth Avenue in 1913 was, typical of New York, in the throes of fundamental change. The age of the “chateaux” was passing and elegant mansions, barely 35 years old, were being razed for the upscale commerce that Fifth Avenue is famous for. As the new Saint Thomas Church building rose at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street (the previous church building at the same location had been destroyed in a fire in 1905), its tower looked over an avenue that was going from mansion, to elegant shopping, to commercial high rises. Barry Lewis takes a look at this period when the Victorian skyline of New York was giving way to a 20th century scale.
