The Church of St. Luke in the Fields
Encyclopedia
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, located a 487 Hudson Street
Hudson Street (Manhattan)
Hudson Street is a north/south oriented street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Running from TriBeCa to Greenwich Village and through Hudson Square, Hudson Street has two distinct one-way traffic patterns that meet at Abingdon Square, at the street's intersection with Eighth Avenue and...
. The church is affiliated with the St. Luke's School
St. Luke's School (Manhattan)
St. Luke's School is a small independent, Episcopal primary school in Greenwich Village at 487 Hudson Street, Manhattan. Total enrollment is about 200 in kindergarten through eighth grade, with about twenty children in each grade, divided into a Lower School and an Upper School . It is located on...
, an elementary school located on the same block. Both are located within the Greenwich Village Historic District, created in 1969.
History
The church was founded in 1820 on farmland donated by Trinity Church, to accommodate the expansion of New York City northward into Greenwich VillageGreenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. The original church building was reminiscent of an English village church, with a square tower at one end, but made of brick and built in the Federal style
Federal architecture
Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the United States between c. 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815. This style shares its name with its era, the Federal Period. The name Federal style is also used in association with furniture design...
. It was part of a complex laid out by Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore was an American professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College, now Columbia University. He donated land from his family estate for the foundation of the General Theological Seminary, where he was a professor of Biblical learning and compiled a two-volume...
– who would serve as the church's first pastor – which included adjoining stone row houses, which the church rented out. Greenwich Village at the time was a sanctuary for people fleeing the endemic diseases of the city proper, and the name of the new parish – St. Luke in the Fields – was chosen to evoke the pastoral quality of the area.
When the surrounding neighborhood become predominantly poor and largely composed of immigrants in the late 1880s, the congregation moved north to West 141st Street, and St. Luke's became a chapel of Trinity Church, only regaining its independendence in 1976 under rector Ledlie Laughlin.
Other prominent rectors in the past have included John Murray Forbes
John Murray Forbes
John Murray Forbes was an American railroad magnate, merchant, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was president of both the Michigan Central railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in the 1850s....
, who helped to bring the Oxford Movement
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
to the United States and Edward Schlueter, who served from 1911 until the 1940s, and developed programs which served the community, such as children's summer camps. Schlueter also had the church sanctuary redesigned in high Medieval style.
The church building was damaged by fire twice, in 1886 and on March 6, 1981. After the latter fire, which gutted the building, it was reconstructed by Hugh Hardy
Hugh Hardy
Hugh Hardy is a leading American architect born in Majorca, Spain in 1932. He is best known for his work designing theaters, performing arts venues, public spaces, and cultural facilities across the United States....
of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, who restored much of its original Federal style touches. The reconstruction was completed in 1985.
Activism
For many years, the church distributed bread to the poor after the 10am service on Saturdays. This "Leake Dole of Bread" was provided for in the will of John LeakeJohn Leake
Sir John Leake was an English Admiral in the Royal Navy and a politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1715.Leake was born at Rotherhithe, the second son of Richard Leake, Master Gunner of England....
.
Starting in the 1980s, the HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic deeply affected the Village community. The AIDS Project of St. Luke's was founded in 1987, providing Saturday dinner and weekend teas to tens of thousands of afflicted persons. One of the priests ministering to AIDS patients back then was the former actress Molly McGreevey
Molly McGreevey
Molly McGreevey is an American actress, who played Polly Longworth on the daytime television soap opera Ryan's Hope.- Biography :...
. St. Luke's is actively involved with the gay and lesbian community, participating with its own contingent at the annual Gay Pride March. On June 26, 2011, the church held a Festive Choral Evensong
Evening Prayer (Anglican)
Evening Prayer is a liturgy in use in the Anglican Communion and celebrated in the late afternoon or evening...
for Gay Pride service.
Music
St. Luke's is known for its vibrant musical life. The choir of the church performs several concerts yearly, with a series of three concerts each spring season. In the past these concerts have included performances such as the New York premiere of Telemann's St. Matthew Passion, the Tenebrae settings of composer Richard ToensingRichard Toensing
Richard Toensing is an American composer and music educator. He studied composition at St. Olaf College and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1967...
and many other works. The choir has made several recordings. In addition to the choir, the church is known for its vigorous congregational singing. Mr. David Shuler is the organist and choirmaster of the church.
The Orchestra of St. Luke's
Orchestra of St. Luke's
The Orchestra of St. Luke's is an American chamber orchestra based in New York City.It was founded in the summer of 1979 at the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York....
draws its name from the church.
Organ
The current organ at the church was installed in 1986 after the 1981 fire destroyed the previous organ. It is almost identical to the one that was destroyed, which had been installed in 1979, less than two years before the fire. Its keys are mechanical, though the stops operate electrically. It has 27 stops and 1,670 pipes.In popular culture
- The church was used as a location for the 2008 film Doubt.