James Renwick
James Renwick, Jr.
B. 1818 Bloomingdale, New York
D.1895 New York
James Renwick was the son of a prominent New York family. His father was an engineer and professor of natural philosophy at Columbia College, now Columbia University. Renwick entered Columbia University when he was only 12, graduating three years later in 1836 with an M.A. degree. He took a position as structural engineer with the Erie Railroad and then served as supervisor on the Croton Reservoir, acting as an assistant engineer on the Croton Aqueduct in New York City. Renwick received his first architectural commission in 1843 when he won the competition to design Grace Church in New York City, in the English Gothic style. Three years later he won the competition for the design of the Smithsonian Institution Building (now known as The Castle), in Washington D.C. in the Romanesque style. In 1849, Renwick designed The Free Academy Building (City College of New York), NYC, at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street. It was one of the first Gothic Revival college buildings on the East Coast.
Renwick went on to design St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, a mixture of German, French and English Gothic influences. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in the Second Empire style is now the home of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery. Other important Renwick buildings are St. Bartholomew’s Church, in New York City and All Saints’ Roman Catholic Church in the Victorian Gothic style in Harlem. A set of row houses in the Anglo-Italianate style on East Tenth Street, known as the Renwick Triangle, are among the most sought after properties in the East Village. Stanford White was born here in 1853; photographer Diane Arbus and actresses Molly Ringwald and Karen Allen have lived here. As supervising architect for New York’s Commission of Charities and Correction, he designed the Charity and Smallpox Hospitals on Roosevelt Island, the main building of the Children’s Hospital on Randall’s Island and the Inebriate and Lunatic Asylums on Ward’s Island. Renwick also designed the Greyston Conference Center at Teachers College in the Bronx, built in 1864.