St Thomas Church, New York

St Thomas Church, New York tickets: which one to buy

Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue stands at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 53rd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and entry is free, with donations welcome. It is an Episcopal church famous for its music, with a choir of men and boys trained at the Saint Thomas Choir School, the only church-affiliated boarding school for choristers in the United States, and for its Gothic Revival architecture. The church is a short walk from the Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller Center, Saint Patrick's Cathedral and the shops of Fifth Avenue, and the nearest subway station is Fifth Avenue/53rd Street.

Visitors interested in sacred music should attend choral evensong, sung on weekdays during the school year, or a concert in the church's music series, which requires tickets. Tours are offered after the Sunday morning service. The church is active, with daily services, and visitors should be quiet and respectful. Its tall reredos, a wall of carved saints behind the altar, is one of the great sights of New York's churches. The church offers a quiet refuge from the crowds of Midtown.

Visiting St Thomas Church, New York: what to see

The parish was founded in 1823, and after its previous building on this site burned in 1905, the present church was designed by the architects Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson, and it was built between 1911 and 1913 in the French Gothic style, adapted to a narrow corner site, with a single asymmetric tower. The facade on Fifth Avenue is decorated with carved figures of saints and a large rose window. Inside, the nave rises to a high vault, and the chancel is dominated by the great reredos, more than twenty-four metres high, carved with dozens of figures of saints, apostles, martyrs and figures from church history, designed by Goodhue with the sculptor Lee Lawrie.

The stained glass windows, many made by the English firm of James Powell and Sons and by American studios, fill the church with colour. The Bride's Door, on the Fifth Avenue facade, is known for a small dollar sign carved into its decoration, often said to be a stonemason's comment on wealthy weddings. The church has two organs: the Loening Organ in the gallery, built by Taylor and Boody in the style of the baroque period, and a large new organ in the chancel, built by Dobson Pipe Organ Builders and installed in 2018. Plaques recall the church's history and benefactors.

St Thomas Church, New York opening hours and the best time to go

The church is open daily, with services several times a day. Choral evensong is sung by the choir on weekday evenings and on Sunday afternoons from autumn to spring, and the choir is on break in summer. Christmas brings a performance of Handel's Messiah and crowded carol services, for which tickets or early arrival are needed. Spring and autumn are the most pleasant seasons in New York. Allow about half an hour for the church, and an hour if you attend evensong.