The portal of Saint Bartholomew's Church in New York City

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 2001 by Percy Jr. Preston

The stonework was installed during the summer of 1902, and in October White heard from his fellow architect Cass Gilbert (1859-1934):

Allow me to congratulate you on the success of the work on St. Bartholomew's. The color is charming and the sculpture (of the frieze particularly) is an epoch making work in American Art....I have seen nothing on this side of the water which has given me more the impression of a vigorous, creative spirit than this frieze. (21)

Several months later, but before the doors were hung or the tympana and lintels put in place, the critic Montgomery Schuyler (1843-1914) wrote: "The one recent example of Romanesque is...Mr. Stanford White's very interesting and successful porch, or frontispiece, to St. Bartholomew's in Madison Avenue....It is really...a beautiful success." (22)

In working on the center doorway, O'Connor realized that the proportions of the doorway would be improved if he substituted a lintel carved with a frieze for the simple band of ornamentation between the tympanum and door. Accordingly he modeled a frieze depicting the Crucifixion and, after obtaining White's and Mrs. Vanderbilt's consent, had it cut in marble. (23) The other two sculptors were then asked to include lintels decorated with scenes from the Passion in their doorways. For the tympanum itself, O'Connor carved a composition of Jesus (depicted as a clean-shaven young man) seated on a throne with his arms raised to show his wounds. "Glory Glory Glory" is carved at the base of the throne. Two angels support a crown above his head. O'Connor's lintel is framed with two quotations from Isaiah: "for the transgression of my people was he stricken" (Isa. 53:8) and "thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob" (Isa 49:26).

The center doorway is decorated with an elegant tympanum border of marble carved with foliage. The same pattern is continued on the pilasters on either side of the door. At the level of the lintel are two small plaques that serve as capitals of the pilasters. On the left is the Revelation of Saint John and on the right Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Carved into the architrave directly over the plaques are "His angel unto John" (Rev. 1:1) and "And he did eat" (Gen. 3:6).

For the north doorway Herbert Adams created a tympanum showing Mary with the infant Jesus framed by a garland of fruits with a kneeling angel on either side. His lintel depicts the procession of Jesus' followers carrying the shrouded corpse to the gave.

Martiny's tympanum for the south door shows Jesus and John the Baptist as infants. John holds a baptismal shell in one hand and a cross in the other. The lintel shows Jesus carrying the cross on the way to Calvary.

In October 1903, after the lintels, tympana, and doors were in place, Mrs. Vanderbilt wrote Stanford White:

I am indeed very much pleased with the doors, as well as with the tympanums and the work on the portico at St. Bartholomew's, and I am sure it must be the opinion of everyone who sees the completed work that it is very beautiful and appropriate and that it will mark an era in American Art. The promise of the early designs has been perfectly fulfilled, and it shows most careful work.