KONRAD FIEDLER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

In 1887, Robertson completed the Young Women’s Christian Association, at 7 East 15th Street, of brick mixed with rocky-surfaced brownstone, the heavy half-round arches along the ground floor visually supporting the great weight of masonry above.
    Although now gone, the old Academy of Medicine building on West 43rd Street, of 1890, was also characteristic of Robertson’s design: deep-set windows and rock-faced stone, with two picturesque gables. One critic panned the building in a review in The Real Estate Record and Guide in 1891, calling it “vigorous to the point of rudeness.” This same critic found the nearby Century Association “very florid,” with “entirely meaningless” decoration.
    In 1892, Robertson finished St. Luke’s Church, at 141st and Convent Avenue, also in his signature Romanesque style with rock-faced, heavily modeled, deep red brownstone. It was to have a tower, never completed. But the church has a rich, rhythmic arcaded porch, and the architectural historian Andrew S. Dolkart calls it “one of the most powerful architectural statements in New York.”

Robertson continued to hew to the pictur-esque in later works, like the McIntyre Building at 18th and Broadway, the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew at 86th and West End, and the American Tract Society Building at 150 Nassau Street.

These works are memorable, but do not fully share the coherence of his sturdy rocky designs of the 1880s and early 1890s.

SHELBURNE FARMS ARCHIVE, SHELBURNE, VT.

Robert Henderson Robertson designed what is today St. John the Martyr Church, built in 1887.  It was the first phase of a larger church that was never completed.  The existing building is at right in the 1888 sketch [previous page].

View article on New York Times website