NoMad's "Little Church Around the Corner": the actors' church in New York

Two blocks from the Empire State Building, at 1 East 29th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenue, a stone fence breaks the row of NoMad's buildings. Beyond the gate there isn't another skyscraper but a garden, and at the far end of the garden a low church of red brick set back from the street: the Church of the Transfiguration, Episcopal, which nearly everyone in New York knows by another name, "The Little Church Around the Corner."

The building

The building was constructed and consecrated in 1849, in a neo-Gothic style inspired by English country parishes. The congregation had been founded the year before at the initiative of the rector George Hendric Houghton. Curiously, the church's architect has never been identified: the complex grew through successive additions over the decades, so irregularly that it earned the playful nickname "Holy Cucumber Vine." The only structure with a known author is the lych-gate, the stone canopy at the entrance (traditionally, in English churches, the spot where the coffin rested): it was designed by the architect Frederick Clarke Withers and built in 1896. It is one of the very few examples of its kind in Manhattan.

The nickname

The nickname comes from a story of 1870. When the actor George Holland died, the rector of a nearby parish refused to hold his funeral and suggested turning to the "little church around the corner," the little church just around the bend, "where they do that sort of thing" — actors, at the time, were viewed with suspicion by respectable society. Holland's friend Joseph Jefferson replied: "Then God bless the little church around the corner." From that day the name stuck, and with it the bond with the theatre: in 1923 the Episcopal Actors' Guild held its very first meeting right here, and over the years its officers included names such as Basil Rathbone, Tallulah Bankhead, Rex Harrison, and Charlton Heston. Inside, the stained-glass window dedicated to the actor Edwin Booth, donated in 1898, is the work of John LaFarge, one of the great American masters of glass.

There is also a lesser-known and harder chapter. During the Draft Riots of July 1863, the violent uprisings against conscription that targeted New York's African American population, the rector Houghton opened the church as a refuge: the sanctuary, the school, the library, and the vestry filled with people fleeing the mob. It is a documented episode that tells of a parish that took a stand, not a mere architectural backdrop.

What to see

What you actually see: the garden with the lych-gate, the neo-Gothic facade, and the dim interiors with their stained glass, including the LaFarge window. It is a place of quiet just steps from the chaos of Midtown, used by New Yorkers also for free weekday concerts. The church has been a city landmark since 1967 and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973.

Getting there

Getting there: the handiest subway stop is 28th Street on the Lexington Avenue line (6 trains), a couple of minutes' walk away; alternatively, 28th Street on the Broadway line (R, W trains). It's worth checking the opening hours before you go, as they can vary with services. It remains little visited by tourists despite its location: those walking along Fifth Avenue toward the Empire State Building pass it by without noticing.

Practical guides for Como

• Where to stay in Como
• What to see in Como in 2 days
• Where to eat in Como
• How to get to Como