Beatty and Berlenbach | Bronze Plaque for Public Buildings | Extant | Forest Hills | Religious Building | 1955 | Sometimes building campaigns fall short or parish needs change. St. Mel’s Auditorium was built for the neighboring St. Mel’s School as a 900-seat gathering space over a 400-seat basement cafeteria. Today St. Mel’s Auditorium is St. Mel’s Church and the auditorium serves as the main sanctuary, complete with contemporary stained glass. A metallic steeple has been added on top of the flat roof of the auditorium.
Furman, Joseph J. | Honorable Mention | Extant | Forest Hills | Religious Building | 1949 | There were two Jewish Centers honored in 1949 (the Jewish Center of Kew Gardens Hills being the other). Here, a more restrained modernism was employed with a slightly convex front facade faced in a warm stone block and featuring a center, three-door entrance topped by tall stained glass windows. There is very little overt detailing, only with small Jewish symbols and phrases carved above the entrance doors. The principal side elevation also features the same stone and a long bay of stained glass windows framed in concrete. At the rear of the site is a five-story school building. This structure is clad in yellow brick that harmonizes well with the stone of the Jewish Center, a cantilevered entrance canopy, and International style casement windows.
Baylinson, S. Brian | Bronze Plaque for Public Buildings | Extant | Kew Gardens Hills | Religious Building | 1949 | This temple is described as modified Georgian Colonial, mostly relating to the use of brick, wood-framed white windows and doors, and symmetrical facade orientation. The design was employed to fit into the the neighborhood, but with the evolution of the community, the Center now seems like one of the oldest structures in the area. There is a low rise youth center to the north with classical elements and originally there was space to the south for expansion, that is now filled with a bank.
John O'Malley and Associates | Bronze Plaque for Public Buildings | Extant | Long Island City | Religious Building | 1969 | The front facade of this community center is dominated by a tiled mosaic in bright oranges and reds above the entrance and fronting a center stairhall. The rest of the exterior is tan brick with limestone trim. The award program also claims the building featured a motorized assembly hall, an unusual descriptor that could possibly refer to the ability to alter the space to serve other purposes.
Boegel and Allodi | Bronze Plaque for Schools and Colleges | Extant | Bellerose | Religious Building | 1966 | St. Gregory’s Auditorium is an addition to St. Gregory the Great School, itself founded in 1953. The school faces 87th Avenue but the auditorium faces a service road of Cross Island Parkway and an embankment of the parkway itself. The building’s design uses traditional materials of red brick. limestone trim, and Vermont slate on the roof. The building’s name is inscribed above the entrance.
