Saint Vincent Ferrer Priory and School ARCHITECT: William Schickel DATE: 1880-81 STYLE: Victorian Gothic, Church

The St. Vincent Ferrer Complex consists of four buildings; the church (a designated New York City Landmark), the priory, the Holy Name Society Building, and the school, all of which display elements based on the Gothic style and form a unified ensemble. The Dominican Fathers, the Roman Catholic order who developed the complex, purchased the site two years after the close of the Civil War in order to serve the spiritual and educational needs of the community.

The priory (1880-81), the oldest of the four, is a late, simple rendition of the Victorian Gothic by William Schickel, a noted 19th-century New York architect. The church (1916) is by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and was considered by him to be his finest work in the ecclesiastical field. The Holy Name Society building was built in 1930 from designs by Wilfrid Edwards Anthony and harmonizes sympathetically with the two earlier structures. The school was designed and built in 1948 by the firm of Elliot L. Chisling-Ferrenz & Taylor.