West Park Presbyterian Church
165 West 86th Street | Upper West Side | built 1885
Open on the map13 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1879
Pastor Anson Phelps Atterbury begins a century of church activism and welcomes Chinese worshippers
The congregation hired Anson Phelps Atterbury as pastor in 1879, beginning more than a century of activism by the church. Atterbury promoted ethnic inclusion and, at the height of anti-Chinese hysteria in the 1880s, invited Chinese congregants to worship. Seventy-five years later the church was active in the civil rights, anti-Vietnam War and anti-nuclear movements, and it later helped found a West Side senior-housing federation and hosted the original West Side Food Pantry.
- 1883
The 84th Street Presbyterian Church buys five lots on Tenth Avenue and builds a chapel by Leopold Eidlitz
In 1883 the congregation bought five lots at the northeast corner of 86th Street and what was then Tenth Avenue for $30,000, planning to move here. Pastor Atterbury hired Leopold Eidlitz to design a brick Victorian Gothic chapel at the east end of the site. It was finished in 1885, and the western part of the lot was left empty for a future sanctuary.
- 1890
Henry Kilburn's red-sandstone Romanesque Revival sanctuary holds its first service
Work started on April 22, 1889, with the cornerstone going in that May 16. The 900-seat church held its first service on May 18, 1890, and the work was declared complete on June 26. Kilburn clad the building in Longmeadow and Lake Superior sandstone, echoed H. H. Richardson's rugged Romanesque, and re-clad Eidlitz's chapel and added a tower to unify the complex.
- 1911
West Presbyterian, the millionaires' church of Russell Sage and Jay Gould, merges here with Park Presbyterian
In 1911 Park Presbyterian merged with West Presbyterian, a 42nd Street congregation that by 1890 had a reputation as the millionaires' gate to heaven. Its members had included Russell Sage and Jay Gould. Midtown commercial growth and a dispute that drove off some of those prominent men left both churches competing for members. The merged West Park congregation made this building its home.
- 1987
God's Love We Deliver moves into the church kitchen and begins delivering 50 meals a day
In 1987 the meal-delivery charity for people with AIDS set up in the kitchen of West Park Presbyterian at Amsterdam and 86th Street and started delivering 50 meals a day. The Gay Men's Chorus gave it a walk-in freezer, and its first van, called Little Blue, was donated by Borough President David Dinkins. The charity dates its start to 1985, when the Cabrini hospice worker Ganga Stone delivered a meal to a man living with AIDS.
Source: glwd.org
- 2001
Red sandstone flakes tint the snow, and a sidewalk shed goes up around the church
Around 2001 the congregation noticed small particles flaking off the red sandstone facade and turning snow reddish. The city required a sidewalk shed to protect people below. Lacking money for repairs, the church eventually bought the shed from the rental company and paid a contractor to maintain it until 2018. When the Westside Rag reported on it in 2019, the shed had stood for 18 years.
Source: westsiderag.com
- 2004
Related Companies proposes razing West-Park for a condo tower and a glass church
By April 2004 the church's building committee had chosen Related Companies to explore redevelopment. Related's plan was to demolish the two connected buildings and put up a condominium tower, with new church quarters projecting from the corner. The architects Franke, Gottsegen, Cox drew a prow-shaped stone base with glass panels rising to a 125-foot carillon tower, and in return Related would have offered the church $16 million of credit for building fees.
Source: The New York Times
- 2004
Neighbors form Friends of West-Park and propose selling part of the church instead
When neighbors learned the plan meant demolition and a high-rise that could block air and light, they formed Friends of West-Park. Its architects proposed keeping three walls, repairing the red sandstone, preserving the stained glass and gutting the interior so the 40-foot sanctuary could be raised to balcony level. Part of the building would be sold to a nonprofit, probably a school, and two neighboring buildings had agreed to pay for air-rights easements, likely above $2.5 million.
Source: The New York Times
- 2010
The Landmarks Commission designates the church over the objections of its pastor
At the July 2009 hearing 56 witnesses spoke for designation, including Councilmember Gale Brewer and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal. Thirteen opposed it, among them the church's pastor Robert Brasher and its ecumenical associate minister Katherine Kurs. The Commission designated the church an individual landmark on January 12, 2010, calling it among the best Romanesque Revival religious buildings in the city.
- 2022
Owners of the shrinking congregation seek to demolish the landmarked church, citing $49.8 million in repairs
By 2022 the congregation was down to 12 or fewer members, with no pastor, and the church's owners were pursuing a sale to Alchemy Properties, which planned a 19-story tower on the site. They estimated repairs at $49.824 million, including $18 million for the facade. The architecture writer Paul Goldberger said he found it hard to believe no other user existed, but had no way of knowing how much effort the congregation had made to find a buyer who would keep the building.
Source: Untapped New York
- 2023
Mark Ruffalo corners Mayor Eric Adams at the Tribeca Film Festival over the church
In June 2023 celebrities joined the fight over the church. Mark Ruffalo, a neighbor, spoke at a public hearing, and Wendell Pierce, Amy Schumer and the rapper Common also backed preservation. At the Tribeca Film Festival, Ruffalo buttonholed Mayor Eric Adams to argue for the building, which led to a formal meeting with City Hall officials. Church leaders, speaking for a congregation of about a dozen people, found it baffling that their plan had become a political melodrama.
Source: The New York Times
- 2025
The church serves an eviction notice on the Center at West Park, its arts tenant
In June 2025 the church, whose congregation had voted in 2020 to go ahead with a real estate deal, served an eviction notice on its tenant, the arts group the Center at West Park. The deal, valued at more than $30 million, would replace the building with market-rate housing and give the church a 10,000-square-foot space, with a $9 million allowance from the developer. The center, backed by actors including Mark Ruffalo and Matt Dillon, offered to stay three more years.
Source: The New York Times
- 2026
The Center at West Park offers $7.2 million over ten years to keep the church standing
On July 13, 2026, the Center at West Park, which had been evicted from the church the previous summer, brought the Landmarks Preservation Commission a $12 million plan it said would preserve the building. It would pay the congregation $720,000 a year, or $60,000 a month, for ten years, $7.2 million in all. The center also said it had set up a separate $5 million preservation fund, dedicated to repairing and restoring the building and taking down the long-standing sidewalk shed, with the Presbytery paying nothing.
Source: westsiderag.com
Further reading
- West-Park Presbyterian ChurchWikipedia
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