By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Q Our church, the Roman Catholic Church of St. John the Martyr, is sand-wiched between other buildings at 250 East 72nd Street in Manhattan. When was it built and who designed it? We are applying for a grant that would help us to repair our roof and make other very critical repairs. ... Susan Trammell, trustee of St. John the Martyr, Manhat-tan

A  Your church is actually the chapel of a much larger project proposed in 1886 for the Knox Church and designed by Robert Henderson Robertson. The project was to have included the corner lot on Second Avenue.
    Robertson (1849-1919) originally con-ceived a building with a 125-foot-high corner tower and at least seven pairs or triplets of round arches. The church’s Romanesque style and heavy, rocky-looking brownstone were his trademark in 1880s New York, just as convoluted facades are the signature of Frank Geh-ry today.
    In 1886, The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that the exterior would be of Belleville stone, probably referring to the variably near-red or cocoa-colored stone quarried in Essex County, N.J., and that the slate roof would be of red Akron tiles.
   In 1887, the congregation took pos-session of a portion of the proposed church, a small chapel facing 72nd Street. As built, the original chapel de-sign was flipped from right to left. It cost $25,000 and seated 700, and in 1888 The New York Times said the church would build the rest of the structure in the next year.
     But it was never executed, and in 1891 The Times reported that at least 36 of the most influential members intended to secede over the projected appoint-ment of a new pastor. The unhappy pa-rishioners charged that the church min-utes had been altered and that the rival faction was throwing “dust in the eyes of church members.”
    In 1904, the Knox congregation sold its chapel to St. John’s. In that year The Times reported that St. John’s pos-sessed a remarkable reliquary, contain-ing a section of the rope used in the scourging of Jesus; part of the red robe worn by Jesus after the scourging; pieces of the cross; the table of the Last Supper; the crib of Jesus; and bone fragments of the 12 apostles.

AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND BUILDING NEWS/OFFICE FOR METROPOLITAN HISTORY

    By 1912, Msgr. Michael J. Lavelle, the rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, had possession of the reliquary and according to The Times, parishioners were clamoring for its return. The Times added that there was “no foundation” for a report that the archdiocese was suspicious of its authenticity, and said that the artifacts were unquestionably genuine.
    The chapel stands today little changed from 1887. But the reliquary is not there, said the Rev. Sean Harlow, the church’s pastor.
    R. H. Robertson is sometimes confused with the architect Henry Hobson Richardson, who was also a master of the use of rocky-looking brownstone, as in his 1877 Trinity Church in Boston.
    Robertson began practicing around 1872. A Presbyterian, member of many clubs and expert golfer and horseman, he was well connected in the Protestant establishment.
    An early work in his tectonic manner was the 1884 Madison Avenue Methodist Church, which stood at 60th and Madison. A central tower dominated this chunky, rectangular form, and the open belfry of the round-arched tower and deep-set paired windows flanking the doorway gave this a slightly haunted look, with a resonance to modern eyes of Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting “The Scream.”
    The next year, his St. James’ Episcopal Church opened at 71st and Madison with a similar form and surface treatment, but a more complex Madison Avenue facade. Most of Robertson’s design was removed in a 1920s alteration, although that work reused the reddish brown-stone of the original.