Greater Bethel AME Church

32 West 123rd Street | Harlem | built 1892

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.

1892
Library trustee Edgar K. Bourne designs a Harlem Library building with apartments above
After memberships fell at its Third Avenue home, the Harlem Library's trustees bought a site at 32 West 123rd Street in 1891. Edgar K. Bourne, who was both a library trustee and an architect, designed a four-story Renaissance Revival building there that opened in 1892. It held the library together with bachelor apartments whose rents helped fund it. Subscriptions climbed from 42 in 1891 to 700 by 1895.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1909
A Carnegie-funded Harlem Branch opens nearby, and the old library building is now a church
In 1909 the Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library opened at 9 West 124th Street in a McKim, Mead & White building funded by Andrew Carnegie. It continued the subscription library that began in 1825 and had merged into the public library system in 1903. The earlier building at 32 West 123rd Street is now owned and operated as a church by Bethel AME.
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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