3021 Grand Concourse
1898-99 church & rectory
1948 school

The Church of St. Philip Neri was established in 1898 by Rev. Daniel Burke, for the Italian laborers who were constructing the nearby Jerome Park Reservoir. This Neo Gothic structure has a cruciform plan, and was built with stone quarried from the reservoir by the parishioners themselves, hauled to the church site after work. The rectory is located north of the church, a three-story structure also in Neo-Gothic style.

In 1912 a fire destroyed the altar, but the stained-glass window in the rear and several pieces of statuary were saved. Eighty-five years later, another major fire devastated the century-old church, burning the slate roof and gutting the sanctuary. After several years of reconstruction, it was dedicated in 2002.

Adjacent to the rectory is the St. Philip Neri Elementary School, founded in 1913 by the Ursuline Sisters. The school building dates from 1948, and it’s a long, rectangular three-story brick structure with two projecting Gothic Revival style entrances on the Grand Concourse elevation: a three-story stone-clad entry pavilion with engaged towers suggesting it’s the primary entry, and a secondary entry clad in brick featuring a tall vertical window suggesting a stair hall.