Fort Washington Presbyterian Church

21 Wadsworth Avenue | Washington Heights | built 1914

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1912

    August

    Thomas Hastings is chosen to design a new Presbyterian church

    In April 1912 the trustees of West-Park Presbyterian Church bought a vacant lot at 174th Street and Wadsworth Avenue for a daughter church. On August 24 the Record & Guide announced that Thomas S. Hastings would design it, one of his first commissions without his partner John Merven Carrère, who had died in a car crash the year before. Hastings used Georgian details, including four Doric columns at the entrance and a bell tower with free-standing Corinthian columns.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  2. 1913

    December 14

    Fort Washington Presbyterian Church formally opens to a full congregation

    The new church at 174th Street and Wadsworth Avenue opened on the morning of December 14, 1913, and the New-York Tribune reported the next day that the congregation filled every seat. Construction cost $321,000, well above the $200,000 first projected, which is roughly $10.5 million in 2025 dollars. The Tribune described the design as a blend of English Georgian Renaissance and American Colonial styles.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  3. 1915

    October

    Pastor Daniel Hoffman Martin grows the congregation from 69 to 600 members

    Daniel Hoffman Martin took the pulpit when the church opened, with sixty-nine members on the roll. By his second anniversary as pastor in October 1915, the Evening Post reported the roll at six hundred and called the church's growth a continuous revival. Martin was outspoken on politics and morality from the pulpit until he died in January 1920, months after being struck by a car on Broadway.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  4. 1917

    May 13

    The church raises a large American flag on a 35-foot pole

    Two months after the United States entered World War I, a large American flag donated by Dr. Charles V. Paterno was unfurled on a 35-foot pole in front of the church. The New York Times reported that about 1,200 people attended the ceremony on May 13, 1917. In 1918 the church began accepting clothing for destitute French and Belgians on behalf of the American Red Cross.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

  5. 1982

    The congregation transfers the church to a Spanish-speaking parish

    In 1982 the Fort Washington Presbyterian Church congregation transferred the property to the Primera Iglesia Española de Washington Heights, a Hispanic congregation formed in 1948. The building was renamed Iglesia Presbiteriana Fort Washington Heights and has served a Spanish-speaking congregation ever since.

    Source: Daytonian in Manhattan

Further reading

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