• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to secondary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
  • Advertise
  • Contact our Team
  • In the News
  • For NYC Residents
    • NYC Free Parking Calendar 2020
    • ID NYC Card for Free Museum Admission
    • Where to Donate Goods or Volunteer

NYC on the Cheap

Get More New York City for Less Money

  • Aways
    Free
    • Best FREE Things to Do in New York City
    • FREE Museum Admission by Borough
    • FREE Museum Admission by Day of Week
    • NYC Museums With No Admission Fee Ever
    • FREE Tickets to Late Night TV Shows
    • FREE Tickets to Daytime TV Shows
  • Entertainment
    & the Arts
    • Family Fun
    • NYC Discount Tickets
    • Philadelphia Ticket Deals
    • Movies
    • NYC Free: Museum Admission by Day of Week
    • NYC Theater
  • Food & Drink
    Deals
    • Where to Eat in Times Square
    • Best Jewish delis for overstuffed sandwiches
    • All-You-Can-Eat Sushi Deals
    • Best NYC Lobster Restaurants
    • Best Happy Hours
    • Birthday Freebies: Restaurants
    • Daily Deals
  • Shopping
    in NYC
    • Ten Things for $1 in NYC
    • Scam Alert
    • Discounts for Seniors
    • Birthday Freebies: Retail Stores
    • Best Resale Shops
    • Cheapest Gas
  • Things
    to Do
    • Seasonal Events
    • Free & Cheap Weekend Events
    • NYC Historic Homes now Museums
    • Where to See Hamilton in NYC
    • NYC Theater
    • Carousels in All 5 Boros
    • 9/11 Memorial & Museum
    • Events in NYC Parks
    • Get Free Tickets to Late Night TV Shows
    • NYC Festivals
    • Getting Around
  • Family
    Fun
    • Best Musems for Kids in Manhattan
    • Carousels in all 5 Boroughs
  • Crisis
    Resources
  • Scam
    Alert
  • Getaways
    & Travel Deals
  • Free & Cheap
    Events
  • Best FREE Things to Do in NYC
  • NYC Sightseeing and Tours Discounts
  • Ticket Deals
  • Cheapest Gas Prices
  • For NYC Residents
You are here: Home / NYC Free / NYC Free: Sacred Sites Open House 2018
← Ice Cream Festival Returns to Bryant Park
Best NYC Free Events May 1-4 →

NYC Free: Sacred Sites Open House 2018

POSTED BY
Evelyn Kanter

nyc free eventsSacred Sites Open House is a weekend of FREE concerts and musical demonstrations, behind-the-scenes tour and more, of more than 100 of NYC’s most famous and most beloved religious institutions in all five boroughs, some of which have NYC Landmark designation.

This is the 8th annual Sacred Sites Open House weekend, May 5/6, and you don’t have to be religious to appreciate soaring architectural beauty or the beauty of soaring liturgical sounds of organ music or choir concerts.

Special tours include: Christ Church Riverdale; a Discover Brooklyn! Tour including exterior visits to nine sites in the “Borough of Churches”; Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan; and a musical walking tour of Staten Island’s Westerleigh (formerly National Prohibition Park) co-sponsored by Immanuel Union Church and the Westerleigh Improvement Society.

There are more than 50 concerts over the Sacred Sites Open House weekend, including at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and at Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum on the Lower East Side on Sunday, which co-incides with the Fourt Anual Greek-Jewish Street Festival.

Sponsored by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, this is the only statwide initiative in the country providing grants and hands-on technical assistance for the repair and restoration of historic religious buildings.

These buildings offer music, art, architecture, history and social programs.

This year’s theme, Sacred Sounds and Settings, provides a backdrop for showcasing musical and performance activities via organ demonstrations, concerts, and special guided tours of religious institutions.  Participating congregations will also highlight their cultural and social programs offered throughout the year.

The website lets you search by county and by type of program, including tours and concerts.

Many of the tours must be pre-booked, and some are already sold out, but you should check back closer to the date for cancellations.

Participate in the Landmarks Conservancy’s annual Sacred Sites Open House Photo Contest

Submit photo(s) of a sacred site (church, synagogue, temple, etc.) by May 7th for a chance to win a Best Buy gift certificate (1st prize: $100, 2nd prize: $50, and 3rd prize: $25).

Photo shown here is Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, Brooklyn photo credit: Katie Lentz, winner of the 2017 Photo Contest

List of tours, borough by borough, alphabetically:

Bronx

Christ Church Riverdale (5030 Henry Hudson Parkway East) and The Riverdale Choral Society) will present American Made from Brooklyn to Riverdale featuring American composers: Copland, Wallach, Porter, Gershwin, Paulus, and Effingera at 3:00 PM on Sunday, May 6th.  Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the door.

  • Since 1964, the Riverdale Choral Society, a volunteer chorus, has been bringing joy to the community through performances of high-quality choral music. Through live concerts and community outreach, the chorus enriches the cultural life of the greater Riverdale area.
  • Christ Church resembles a rural English medieval parish church.  Constructed in 1866 to the designs of Richard M. Upjohn, it is an excellent example of both Gothic Revival country church architecture and Upjohn’s early commissions.

Brooklyn

Join the Brooklyn Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and the Landmarks Conservancy as we kick off Sacred Sites Open House with Loreto Aramendi in Concert on Sunday, April 22nd at 4:00 PM at Plymouth Church (57 Orange Street, Brooklyn).

Tickets are $20 ($10 Students & Seniors) and can be purchased at the door.

  • Ms. Aramendi studied at the Conservatoire of San Sebastian (Spain) and collaborated with the Basque Symphony Orchestra for many years.  She is currently a professor at the F. Escudero Conservatoire in San Sebastian and main organist of the Cavaillé-Coll organ (1863) of the Basilique of Santa María del Coro.
  • She will present Organ Music and Transcriptions of Buxtehude, Fauré, Ligeti, Liszt, Pärt, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns and Tournemire on Plymouth Church’s historic 1937 Aeolian-Skinner Pipe Organ.
  • Plymouth Church was designed by Joseph C. Well (1850) and is an example of 19th century urban tabernacle architecture with Italianate and colonial motifs.  The barn-like church building, with its pews arranged in an arc before the pulpit, resemble more an auditorium or theater than what had traditionally been considered a church,  In 1866, the church’s original pipe organ was replaced by E. and G. G. Hook, which installed what was then the largest organ in the United States, expanded further by Aeolian-Skinner in 1937.  In 1907–09, the church installed stained-glass windows by the noted J&R Lamb Studios.
  • The windows in Plymouth Church are unique in that they do not depict any biblical scenes. Instead they focus on the history of democracy in England and the USA.
  • Plymouth Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1961 and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1966.

Discover Brooklyn! Tour  Brooklyn is known as the “Borough of Churches” and on Sunday, May 6th from 10:30 am – 12:45 pm, Marianne Hurley of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission will lead visitors on a tour of the varied architectural religious styles of the City’s first historic district, Brooklyn Heights.

Exterior site visits will include: Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the first Roman Catholic parish in Brooklyn Heights (1842); Plymouth Church, where Henry Ward Beecher was the pastor from 1847 until 1887; First Presbyterian Church (1846), one of Brooklyn Heights’ earliest congregations; Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church (1887);  The First Unitarian Congregational Society (1846);  Minard Lafever’s masterpiece, The Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity (1847); The Brooklyn Heights Synagogue (1858);  Congregation B’nai Avraham (1844);  Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral (1844), one of the earliest Romanesque Revival buildings in America.  The tour will conclude at Richard Upjohn’s Gothic Revival Grace Church with an interior walk-through and a short presentation by Paul Olson, Grace Organist.

The tour will meet at Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 55 Cranberry Street between Hicks and Henry.

SOLD OUT


On Sunday, May 6th at 3:15 pm members of the Union Church of Bay Ridge (7915 Ridge Boulevard) will be on hand to provide a guided tour and history of the church’s stained glass windows. Notable windows include Resurrection installed 1896, by Tiffany Studios and He Is Risen c. 1924 by Louis Lederle.

Following the tour at 4:00 pm, join the Brooklyn Chapter of the American Guild of Organists for its 2018 Members’ Organ Recital featuring Aaron Comins, Stephen Danziger, Victor Frost, Nick Martellacci, Mark Victor Smith, Maria Rayzvasser, John A. Wolfe, and Ellen Wright.

  • The concert and tour are FREE. Advance registration recommended. Click here to register for the tour

On Saturday May 5th in partnership with the Central Brooklyn Jazz Consortium, the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church (85 South Oxford Street) will host a panel discussion on women in jazz, Jazz! The Women’s Viewpoint, at 3:00 pm with musical performance by award-winning musician, Martha Redbone.

Guided tours of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian are Sunday, May 6th from 1:00 -4:00 pm, and will include demonstration of the church’s 1910 Austin Organ.

  •  Advance Registration not required.

Manhattan

At 1:00 pm on Sunday May 6th enjoy an up close look at Marble Collegiate Church’s (1 West 29th Street) new organ, designed by Sebastian Glück, president of Glück Pipe Organs.  Visitors will be treated to an organ demonstration led by Marble’s Director of Music, Kenneth V. Dake, followed by a docent-led tour of the historic church building.

  • Marble Collegiate traces its history back to the city’s first church, a Reformed congregation established by Dutch colonists in 1628.  Completed in 1854 to the design of Samuel A. Warner, the Early Romanesque Revival building is clad entirely in Tuckahoe marble and has Gothic trim and a Wren-like steeple.
  • The church has had a number of famous preachers, most prominent among them the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale.

SOLD OUT


Kehila Kedosha Janina (280 Broome Street) was founded by immigrant Jews who came to New York from Ioannina, Greece in 1902-1924. The members of today’s congregation are descendants of the original founders. The synagogue is the only Romaniaote synagogue in the Western Hemisphere.

Two docent led tours of the synagogue and its museum highlighting Greek Jewry will be offered at 10:00 am and 11:00 am on Sunday, May 6th.

  • Click here to register for 10 am tour.  11am tour is  SOLD OUT

On Saturday, May 5th at 2:00 pm, come for a special tour of the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer’s (869 Lexington Avenue) magnificent 86-rank Schantz organ, installed in 2000.  The organ occupies a commanding place below the rose window on the church’s west wall.SOLD OUT


Join tour guide and author Anthony W. Robins, on Sunday May 6th at 3:00 pm for an insider’s tour of the Art Deco gem, Hebrew Tabernacle (551 Fort Washington Avenue)

Built in 1932 to house the Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist, this building has been home to the synagogue since 1973 and is a rare Art Deco house of worship, one of perhaps a dozen in New York City.  It is an especially rare Deco church for the Christian Scientists, who generally preferred more traditional styles.

SOLD OUT

Spots are still available for a Jane’s Walk tour of Art Deco architecture in Washington Heights, including the Hebrew Tabernacle, which and will include a brief organ demonstration by Ralph Selig, an expert in German-Jewish liturgical music.


On Saturday and Sunday May 5th and 6th enjoy full days of instrumental and vocal music presented by various artists at St. Francis Xavier Cabrini Shrine (701 Fort Washington Ave.)  Located in Northern Manhattan, the historic Shrine rises above the Hudson River on a scenic wooded site chosen by the saint herself.  The building is a unique mid-century site, with a wealth of metalwork, decorative brickwork, stained glass windows, and mosaics, including a breathtaking panoramic mosaic of her life and mission.

Saturday, May 5:

10:00 – 10:30 Organ Demonstration by Dave Schmauch and Phyllis Katz
Dave will reveal the inner workings of the rare Tamburini pipe organ in the loft of Cabrini Chapel (Giovanni Tamburini, Cremona Italy, 1960). Phyllis will demonstrate its uniqueness and range.

11:00 – 11:30 Harp and Marian Chant by Ruth Cunningham
Gregorian chants to Mary featured on some of Ruth’s recordings by Anonymous 4;
Original settings and improvisations of medieval Latin texts for voice and medieval harp.

1:00 – 1:30 Vocal Music by Gudrun Bühler, Soprano, accompanied by Maxim Anikushin, Pianist
Classical and contemporary music in honor of the Blessed Mother

2:00 – 2:30 Piano and Organ Music by Maxim Anikushin
Music by Chopin, Mozart and Ligeti; Schubert-Liszt “The Elfking”, Stravinsky “Russian Dance”

3:00 – 3:30 Flute and Electro-acoustic Music by Yael Acher”KAT” Modiano
Bach and original works by this extraordinary multiple- genre flutist, composer, and educator

4:00 – 4:30 Performance on Cabrini’s Tamburini Organ by Paolo Bordignon,
Music of Bach, Handel, Mozart played by this well-known organist. The harpsichordist for the New York Philharmonic.

Sunday, May 6:

12:30 – 1:00 Flute: Bach and Original Works by Yael Acher”KAT” Modiano (See Saturday)

1:15 – 1:45 Organ: Bach, Handel, Mozart by Paolo Bordignon (See Saturday)

2:00 – 2:30 Harp and Marian Chant by Ruth Cunningham (See Saturday)

3:00 – 4:00 Mass in Spanish

4:30 – 5:00 Guitar, Tenor, music exquisitely sung and played by Juan, ‘Junior’ Gil
Songs of inspiration and exultation by the director of Radio Catolica International.

Advance Registration not required.

Queens

Discover Queens! Tour   Queens is the most diverse county in the United States. With nearly half of the 2.3 million residents born abroad, its neighborhoods are home to families that hail from over 120 countries and speak over 135 languages.  On Sunday May 6th visitors will enjoy musical performances that highlight Flushing’s religious diversity. Presented by the Queens Historical Society, sites include: First Baptist Church of Flushing (14210 Sanford Ave), Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Temple (143-63 Beech Ave); Ebenezer Baptist Church (3612 Prince St); and the Hindu Temple Society of North America (45-57 Bowne St).

Staten Island

Enjoy a musical walking tour of Westerleigh (formerly National Prohibition Park) on Saturday, May 5th at 10:00 am co-sponsored by Immanuel Union Church and the Westerleigh Improvement Society.  The tour will be led by architect Mark Anderson and departs from Immanuel Union Church (693 Jewett Avenue). 

 Immanuel Union traces its roots to temperance movement of the nineteenth century and was associated with National Prohibition Park, today known as the neighborhood of Westerleigh.  The Church’s building began with the Deems’ Memorial Chapel (William A. Lambert, 1895) which was expanded in 1916 (James Whitford, Sr.) with a later addition in 1957 (James Whitford, Jr.).  Immanuel Union Church is currently under consideration for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

  •  Advance Registration suggested.  Click here to register.

Click on the Open House Sites https://sacredsitesopenhouse.org/project/open-house-sites/ or Map https://sacredsitesopenhouse.org/maps/ tabs to begin planning your weekend adventure.

Search Open House Sites

Browse Open House Sites

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Posted by Evelyn Kanter on May 1, 2018 | Updated May 2, 2018 Filed Under: NYC Free

Reader Interactions

What do you think about this? We welcome your comments. Cancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Get Free Email Updates

Be the first to know about NYC free and cheap events, discounts and deals by signing up for our FREE enewsletter.

Latest News Trending Now

  • Queens Drive-in Returns to Flushing Meadows Corona Park
    Queens Drive-in Returns to Flushing Meadows Corona Park
  • 101 FREE & Cheap Things to Do This Week March 1-7
    101 FREE & Cheap Things to Do This Week March 1-7
  • Van Gogh Immersive 360-Degree Exhibit Experience Tickets Now on Sale
    Van Gogh Immersive 360-Degree Exhibit Experience Tickets Now on Sale
  • Frick Madison Opens March 18; Tickets on Sale
    Frick Madison Opens March 18; Tickets on Sale
  • 51 Free, Cheap & Virtual Things to Do This Weekend
    51 Free, Cheap & Virtual Things to Do This Weekend
  • Best FREE Things to Do in New York City
    Best FREE Things to Do in New York City
  • NYC Free: Museum Admission with Bank Card
    NYC Free: Museum Admission with Bank Card
  • Dolly Parton 75th Birthday Celebration is Online & FREE
    Dolly Parton 75th Birthday Celebration is Online & FREE
  • 5 Best All You Can Eat Sushi Deals in NYC
    5 Best All You Can Eat Sushi Deals in NYC
  • Free and Cheap Events Calendar
    Free and Cheap Events Calendar

Search by Category

Footer

About NYC on the Cheap

NYC does not have to be expensive when you know where the deals and freebies are.

We’re here to help you save money on NYC restaurants, theater, museums, shopping, events and more, as we have been doing since 2010.

Get more NYC for less money with NYCOTC. That’s our motto and we’re sticking to it.

Contact us: info@nyconthecheap.com

Who We Are

Your chief guide is Evelyn Kanter, a lifelong New Yorker and award-winning professional journalist.

Evelyn Kanter is a former consumer reporter for WABC-TV Eyewitness News and WCBS Radio Newsradio 88, the author of several NYC travel guidebooks and mobile apps, and zillions of newspaper and magazine articles, including for the NY Times, NY Post, NY Daily News and New York Magazine. Nobody  can match those NYC credentials.

Disclosure

NYC on the Cheap has an affiliate relationship with several companies which offer discounts and deals on this site.  When you purchase from one of these advertiser links, we earn a small commission.

If you’d like to help keep NYCOTC in the business of helping you save money, this is a great way to do it. It’s a win-win because the direct links save you both time searching for great deals and money.

Best Seller: NYC Guidebook by Evelyn Kanter

100 Things to do in NYC Before You Die

© 2021 NYC on the Cheap. Living On The Cheap® and On the Cheap® are registered trademarks owned by Living On The Cheap Inc. Site design by Five J's Design.
All the stories on our site are protected by copyright and any unauthorized copying is strictly prohibited. Plus, it is just not nice.

Email subscription form header
Subscribe for free to NYC on the Cheap and never miss a free event or discount deal.
Our daily newsletter is the FREE. fast. and easy way to find out about New York City deals, discounts, free events, and more.
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.