First Presbyterian Church

7 West 11th Street | also 9 West 11th Street, 50 5th Avenue, 12 West 12th Street | Greenwich Village | built 1846

Open on the map8 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. 1846

    First Presbyterian Church opens its Gothic Revival building on Fifth Avenue

    The congregation, founded in 1716, built this church in 1844–46 to a Gothic Revival design by Joseph C. Wells. Wells based the sanctuary on the Church of St. Saviour in Bath, England, and modeled the tower on Magdalen Tower at Oxford.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1893

    McKim, Mead & White add the south transept

    The south transept was added in 1893–94 to a design by McKim, Mead & White. Later additions to the complex include the Alexander Chapel of 1937, with stained glass on Scottish themes.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1893

    The church begins installing memorial stained-glass windows in its sanctuary

    From 1893 to 1916 First Church filled its sanctuary with memorial stained-glass windows, a project that grew out of Dr. Howard Duffield's vision. The windows on the north side depict literary elements of the Scriptures, while those on the south side reflect the donors' interests and show historical figures who shaped Protestantism.

    Source: fpcnyc.org

  4. 1898

    First Church builds its South Wing beside the sanctuary

    According to the church's own account of its campus, the South Wing was built in 1898. It holds the Alexander Memorial Chapel and spacious rooms for gatherings, and it is one of three connected buildings that make up the complex, together with the 1846 sanctuary and the Mellin-Macnab Building to the north.

    Source: fpcnyc.org

  5. 1918

    First Presbyterian merges with two other congregations

    In 1918 First Presbyterian merged with the Presbyterian churches of Madison Square and University Place. The congregation dates to 1716 and held its first services in 1719.

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 1922

    May 21

    Harry Emerson Fosdick preaches "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"

    Pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick delivers a sermon at First Presbyterian Church arguing against Christian fundamentalism, later published and circulated under the title "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" The sermon helps ignite the national Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy within American Protestantism, and Fosdick's popularity as a preacher soon grows the congregation to a peak of 1,800 members by 1924.

    Source: Wikipedia

  7. 1937

    The Alexander Chapel is added to the church's parish house with windows on Scottish themes

    The church's stone Gothic Revival parish house at 7 West 11th Street, now called the South Wing, received the Alexander Chapel in 1937. The chapel's stained-glass windows carry Scottish themes. The wing's rooms were heavily renovated and remodeled in the 1990s, and many of them can now be rented.

    “…includes the Alexander Chapel added in 1937, with stained glass windows on Scottish themes…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2003

    Organ builder Sebastian Gluck installs the Rees Jones Memorial Pipe Organ in the Alexander Chapel

    The church commissioned two pipe organs from the builder Sebastian M. Gluck. The smaller one, the Rees Jones Memorial Pipe Organ, was installed in the Alexander Chapel in 2003 and is built in the Georgian English style. The large four-manual sanctuary organ followed in 2009.

    “…known as the Rees Jones Memorial Pipe Organ, is in the Georgian English style and was installed in Alexander Chapel in 2003…”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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