Metropolitan Baptist Church

2163 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard | also 2165 Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard, 151 West 128th Street, 2161 Adam C Powell Boulevard | Harlem | built 1885

Open on the map3 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. 1885

    The New York Presbyterian Church builds a chapel on West 128th Street

    Architect John Rochester Thomas designs a chapel and lecture room, completed in 1885, for the New York Presbyterian Church, which has moved uptown from West 111th Street. A larger sanctuary by Richard R. Davis follows in 1890, combining Romanesque and Gothic Revival elements, with granite facing and a slate roof in the form of a partial cone.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1918

    Metropolitan Baptist Church buys the former Presbyterian building

    Metropolitan Baptist Church, a congregation founded in 1912 and one of the first African-American congregations in Harlem, acquires the former Presbyterian building at 151 West 128th Street in 1918. It had previously met at the Metropolitan Baptist Tabernacle at 120 West 138th Street, a site later known as Liberty Hall, a center of the Back-to-Africa movement.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1981

    February 3

    The city designates the church a landmark

    New York City designates the Metropolitan Baptist Church building a landmark on February 3, 1981, and it is added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The building was originally built in two sections for a Presbyterian congregation, and a planned corner tower was never built.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 46 buildings with stories in Harlem