Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue: Master of Gothic and Art Deco
Church of the Intercession
Conservancy Board member, Lloyd P. Zuckerberg, left, and David Garrard Lowe
David Garrard Lowe with a slide of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
David Garrard Lowe with image of the interior of the Church of the Resurrection
Conservancy President, Peg Breen, speaks with attendees during the post-lecture reception.
Conservancy Professional Circle members Kim Lovejoy of EverGreene Architectural Arts, left, Walter Sedovic and Jill Gotthelf of Walter Sedovic Architects
Professional Circle Member Carlo Zaskorski of Zaskorski & Notaro Architects, left, and Colleen Heemeyer, Manager of Grants and Technical Services at the Conservancy
The Conservancy was very pleased to co-sponsor an event with the Beaux-Arts Alliance that featured David Garrard Lowe, who presented an illustrated lecture on renowned American architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue.
With wisdom and wit, Lowe always brings buildings and long-dead architects to life and the Nov. 22 event at the Church of the Resurrection was no exception.
Revealing many of mysteries behind Goodhue’s remarkable and troubled life, Lowe described the architect’s rise from poverty in the late 1800s to becoming “one of the greatest Art Deco architects in the history of America, long before Deco set the style at all.”
The attentive audience learned that Goodhue started out in life as a “true Connecticut Yankee” with almost no formal education. After running away from military school, Goodhue’s family sent Goodhue to begin an apprenticeship in New York under the famous Gothic Revival architect James Renwick.
“Goodhue got a wonderful education with Renwick,” Lowe said. “his family was so poor that Renwick started paying the rates (cost of apprenticeship) secretly, something Goodhue would never forget.”
Among Goodhue’s innumerable masterpieces are St. Bartholomew’s Church, St. Vincent Ferrer, West Point and the skyscraper capital of Nebraska. Goodhue also originated what Lowe described as “one of the most beautiful types ever designed,” the Cheltenham font.
“Goodhue was from the very beginning one of the greatest artists and architects in America. He started as an office boy, and pretty soon became Renwick’s secretary, but within a year he was what they call the ‘delineator’ of the buildings that Renwick was designing,” Lowe said. “He was a genius.”
Goodhue is interred—complete with marble effigy and carved renditions of his prominent buildings in the arch above his head—in another of his great works, the Church of the Intercession in Washington Heights. The Conservancy has been very active at Intercession for 25 years, providing technical assistance, referrals, and grants for the assessment, maintenance and repair of this large landmark facility. Assistance has included 3 Sacred Sites grants totaling $18,000, Historic Properties fund loan and grant funding totaling $110,000, and a $100,000 UMEZ-funded Upper Manhattan Historic Preservation Fund grant towards priority slate and copper roof repairs undertaken in 1998-2001. In 2005-2007, the Conservancy provided technical assistance, engineer and contractor referrals and a $10,000 Emergency Fund grant for the installation of emergency shoring at the severely cracked and displaced, two-story Guild Hall window bay.
