The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity
Holy Trinity needs your help to achieve this vision for a landmark organ for New York in a magnificent space for music, liturgy, and community. Whether you are a member of Holy Trinity, one of our neighbors, or a friend of Bach, your gifts towards this campaign will help transform Holy Trinity and establish New York as the center for the performance of the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach in the United States.
Give Now Make a PledgeYou can also make a one-time gift to the campaign by sending a Zelle to office@holytrinitynyc.org, or by mailing a gift to 3 W. 65th Street, New York, NY 10023. If you’d like to give through a donor-advised Fund, you can find Holy Trinity by searching for our EIN: 13-1685538.
The opportunity for a named gift to fully realize Paul Fritts & Co. Opus 54 is available. If you are interested in establishing a legacy for yourself or a loved one in New York, please contact Pastor Tim Weisman at pastortim@holytrinitynyc.org to start a conversation. For more information on legacy giving, click here.
Uniquely positioned near Lincoln Center, Holy Trinity is at the forefront of music, liturgy, and service in New York. Holy Trinity was the first Christian congregation to build a church on Central Park West.
In 1968, we founded Bach Vespers, the first series in the United States to blend the ancient tradition of Vespers with the cantatas of the great Lutheran composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Holy Trinity was among the first in New York to open its doors to the homeless in the 1980s, and we continue to welcome underhoused neighbors into the Community Room each week for conversation and a hot meal.
Holy Trinity recently celebrated 25 years since becoming the first Lutheran church in New York to declare its welcome to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity held its first service in 1868 at a former Dutch Reformed church on W. 21st Street in New York. In 1892, the congregation began a search for land outside the bustling business district and ultimately identified a plot facing Central Park on the Upper West Side. Designed by Schickel & Ditmars, the resulting building is the finest example of a Christian basilica on Central Park West: a double-height stone-over-steel structure with two towers and a central flèche evoking thirteenth-century Gothic architecture. The church was dedicated on May 15, 1904, five months before the 1-2-3 subway line opened one block away on Broadway.
In 1905, a young Ernest M. Skinner (who would become one of the greatest and most ingenious organbuilders in American history) installed Holy Trinity’s first pipe organ, his fifth overall. Over the next several decades, Ernest M. Skinner and the subsequent Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company would return to Holy Trinity several times, installing electro-pneumatic action, more reeds, larger and higher-pitched mixtures, new mutation stops, and even percussion stops like a harp, celesta, and chimes. In 1976, the organ at Holy Trinity was rebuilt again by Robert Turner, an organ builder from New Jersey, who doubled the size of the instrument, but whose work illustrated a movement in twentieth-century organ building that sought to outnumber the smooth, symphonic pipework by Ernest M. Skinner and Aeolian-Skinner with thin and harshly-voiced pipes that were more fashionable at the time.
By 2010, the organ at Holy Trinity had mechanically deteriorated to the point that another rebuild would be necessary. Since the organ by Robert Turner did not contain much worth preserving, Holy Trinity began conversations with Paul Fritts & Co. of Tacoma, Washington—which, like the E. M. Skinner Company, is a leading American organ builder of its time—with the desire to relocate Fritts Opus 16 to Holy Trinity on temporary basis while also commissioning a more comprehensive, culturally significant instrument for Holy Trinity and Bach Vespers.
Nearly fifteen years later, with the right combination of leadership, timing, and funding, we are making the dream of a distinguished, beautiful, and permanent organ at Holy Trinity a reality. When Fritts Opus 54 is installed beneath our twenty-foot-wide rose window; above a new, beautiful floor; opposite a larger, accessible chancel; joining prized stained glass by Louis Comfort Tiffany and mosaics by Charles Lamb; and enfolded by an air-conditioned nave, Holy Trinity will reaffirm its prominence as a glorious space for music, liturgy, and community in New York and a landmark on the Upper West Side.
Paul Fritts & Co. Organ Builders of Tacoma, Washington has distinguished itself as a preeminent builder of pipe organs in the United States. Since 1979, Paul Fritts has been committed to the highest levels of craftsmanship, and each of his firm’s instruments is a testament to their success in producing pipe organs that are both historically informed and musically exhilarating.
• Paul Fritts & Co. Opus 54, the first major pipe organ in New York designed specifically for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach
• Rebuilt, accessible chancel and performance platform
• New nave flooring appropriate to the historic space
• Flexible nave seating for a wide variety of events
• Cleaning and maintenance of stained glass windows
• Air conditioning for the nave
• Renovated restrooms on the lower level
• Improved lighting design
• Hardwired smoke detection system
