St. Monica's Church on East 79th Street

I confess to having a weakness for churches and other houses of worship that take me back to historic European roots of these places, as well as the modern ones ( that is why I am doing the old Central Synagogue next).

St. Monica's is another one of those places designed to fool the visitor from say, Milan, that it is much, much older than it is...yet it is not too slavishly fussy a place, either.

Let's see what we have on the net --YES, built in 1926 for $126,000 ( if you adjust that for inflation over time it would be several million of course today).

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Church of St. Monica
Photographed in 2008
General information
Architectural style	Gothic Revival
Town or city	New York, New York
Country	United States of America
Construction started	1926 (for school and convent);1955 (for convent)[1]
Cost	$120,000(for 1926 school and convent); $275,000 (for 1955 convent)[1]
Client	Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York
Design and construction
Architect	Schickel & Ditmars (for church);[2] Thomas Dunn of 37 West 57th Street (for 1926 school and convent);[1] Brown-Guenther-Booss of 1860 Broadway (for 1955 convent)[1]

The Church of St. Monica, commonly referred to as St. Monica's, is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located at 413 East 79th Street, Manhattan, New York City. The parish was established in 1879.^[3]

Contents

History

The fourth Catholic parish on the Upper East Side, St. Monica's was founded by Fr. John Treanor, pastor of the Church of St. Lawrence O'Toole (now the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola). Fr. James J. Dougherty was appointed the first pastor, and in 1880 he began conducting Mass over a feed store at 404 East 78th Street. The following year, he purchased land for the construction of the church and school. Construction of the first church building was completed in 1883.^[4] In 1892, the address was listed as 409 E 79th Street.^[5]
The Rev. John J. Boyle served as acting rector at St. Monica's before becoming the founding pastor of St. Luke's Church (Bronx, New York).^[6]

Buildings

The current Gothic Revival church building was erected in 1906 to the designs of the esteemed Roman Catholic church-building architectural firm of Schickel & Ditmars.^[2]
The Rev. Arthur J. Kenny, rector, had a three- and four-story brick school and convent with tile roof at 410 East 80th Street, built in 1926 to designs of Thomas Dunn of 37 West 57th Street for $120,000 ($1,560,000 in current dollar terms). A three-story convent at 405–413 East 79th Street was built in 1955 to designs by Brown-Guenther-Booss of 1860 Broadway for $275,000 ($2,360,000 in current dollar terms).^[1]

Pastors

• Rev. John Treanor (1879–1880)
• Rev. James J. Dougherty (1880-1890s)
• Rev. John J. Boyle (Acting Rector in 1890s)
• Rev. James P. Hughes was assigned here (presumably as assistant) in 1904; while Rev. William S. Creedan was transferred from here to St. Andrew's Church (Manhattan)^[7]
• Rev. Arthur J. Kenny (1920s)

St. Monica's Parish School

The parish school opened in 1883, operated by the Sisters of Charity of New York. The Sisters of St. Francis assumed operations in 1944. After several years of declining enrollment, however, the school was closed in 1974.