Riverside Church
Riverside Church is an interdenominational church in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, associated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. The church was conceived by philanthropist businessman and Baptist John D. Rockefeller Jr. in conjunction with Baptist minister Harry Emerson Fosdick as a large, interdenominational church in Morningside Heights, which is surrounded by academic institutions.
Not to be confused with Riverside Baptist Church.Riverside Church
United States
1,750[1]
Mulberry Street Baptist Church
Fifth Avenue Baptist Church
Park Avenue Baptist Church
November 21, 1927
October 5, 1930
2,100
89 feet (27 m)
22
392 feet (119 m)
74 (carillon)
478, 490 Riverside Dr. & 81 Claremont Ave., Manhattan, New York
1930 (main building)
1957 (MLK Wing)
1962 (conversion of Stone Gym)
Allen & Collens, Henry C. Pelton (main building)
Collens, Willis & Beckonert (MLK Wing)
Louis E. Jallade (Stone Gym)
06101.001261[2]
2037
December 12, 2012[4]
October 18, 2012[2]
May 16, 2000[3]
The church occupies the block bounded by Riverside Drive, Claremont Avenue, 120th Street, and 122nd Street near Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus and across from Grant's Tomb. The original building opened in 1930; it was designed by Henry C. Pelton and Allen & Collens in the Neo-Gothic style. It contains a nave consisting of five architectural bays; a chancel at the front of the nave; a 22-story, 392-foot (119 m) tower above the nave; a narthex and chapel; and a cloistered passageway that connects to the eastern entrance on Claremont Avenue. Near the top of the tower is the church's main feature, a 74-bell carillon—the heaviest in the world—dedicated to Rockefeller Jr.'s mother Laura Spelman Rockefeller. A seven-story wing was built to the south of the original building in 1959 to a design by Collens, Willis & Beckonert, and was renamed for Martin Luther King Jr. in 1985. The Stone Gym to the southeast, built in 1915 as a dormitory, was designed by Louis E. Jallade and was converted to a gymnasium in 1962.
Riverside Church has been a focal point of global and national activism since its inception, and it has a long history of social justice in adherence to Fosdick's original vision of an "interdenominational, interracial, and international" church.[3] Its congregation includes members of more than forty ethnic groups. The church was designated as a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2000[3] and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.[4]
Organs [edit]
The two Riverside Church organs are located in the chancel and the seating gallery.[186] The chancel organ is the 14th largest in the world as of 2017.[187][188] It was furnished in 1930 by Hook and Hastings,[186][189] and was originally criticized as mediocre.[189] Aeolian-Skinner built an organ console in the chancel in 1948 and replaced the chancel organ in 1953–1954,[186] and the ceiling above the chancel and the front of the nave was coated with sealant to improve the chancel's acoustic qualities.[160] The chancel organ was opened with a concert in March 1955 with a concert by Virgil Fox and the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, attended by 3000 people.[190] In 1964, another Aeolian-Skinner organ was installed within the eastern wall of the nave's seating gallery; three years later, Anthony A. Bufano installed a five-manual console for the gallery organ.[186] M. P. Moller built another stop for the gallery organ, the Trompeta Majestatis, in 1978.[164][186] Two years later, the chancel organ received a new principal chorus with the addition of the Grand Chorus division. In the 1990s, the console was rewired, the chancel organ was cleaned, and the ceiling was covered with ten layers of sealant.[186]
The Interim Director of Music and organist is Alan Montgomery as of 2023.[191] Past organists at the Riverside Church include Virgil Fox (1946–1965),[192] Frederick Swann (1957–1982),[193] John Walker (1979–1992),[194] Timothy Smith (1992–2008),[195] and Christopher Johnson (2009–2021).[176]
While Riverside Church is interdenominational, it is associated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ.[228] In chronological order, the called senior ministers at Riverside Church have been:
Notable speakers[edit]
On April 4, 1967, a year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech called Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, in which he voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War, at Riverside Church.[233][234][235] The Rev. Jesse Jackson gave the eulogy at Jackie Robinson's funeral service in 1972.[236] In 1991, Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid activist and later South African president, spoke at Riverside following his release from prison.[237] Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan spoke there after the September 11, 2001, attacks,[238] and former U.S. president Bill Clinton spoke at the church in 2004.[239][240]
Speakers at Riverside Church have also included theologians Paul Tillich—who taught nearby—[241] and Reinhold Niebuhr;[237] civil-rights activists Cesar Chavez[237] and Desmond Tutu;[237][242] Cuban president Fidel Castro;[243] the 14th Dalai Lama;[123] and Abdullah II of Jordan.[123]
