Church building in Manhattan, United States of America
The
Unitarian Church of All Souls
at 1157
Lexington Avenue
at
East 80th Street
in the
Upper East Side
of
Manhattan
,
New York City
was built in 1932 and was designed by Hobart Upjohn –
Richard Upjohn
's grandson – in the
Neo-colonial style
[1]
with a Regency-influenced brick base.
[2]
It is the congregation's fourth sanctuary.
[1]
The congregation, dating back to 1819, was the first
Unitarian Universalist
congregation in the city.
[3]
It has provided a pulpit for some of the movement's leading theologians and has also recorded many eminent persons in its membership.
History
[
edit
]
All Souls was the first
Unitarian
congregation to be organized in New York and originated in 1819 when Lucy Channing Russell invited forty friends and neighbors into her
Lower Manhattan
home, to listen to an address by her brother,
William Ellery Channing
, the minister of the
Federal Street Church
in
Boston
. Channing was making a stop in New York while traveling to
Baltimore
to preach the famous sermon in which he would articulate the distinctive tenets of Unitarian Christianity, the most salient of which were the rejection of the
Trinity
in favor of absolute
Monotheism
, and the imperative to interpret the
Bible
through reason. In New York, the enthusiasm aroused by Channing culminated in the formation of the
First Congregational Church (Unitarian)
, which proceeded to erect its first building in 1820?21, on
Chambers Street
between
Church Street
and
Chapel Street
,
[1]
before it had even found a minister. The task of recruitment was difficult since few ministers could be persuaded to venture away from the stability of the Unitarian heartland in
New England
and risk their careers in new congregations beyond. Finally, on December 18, 1821,
William Ware
was installed as the first minister.
In 1845, the congregation moved to a new building at 548 Broadway
[1]
and renamed itself the
Church of the Divine Unity
the following year. In 1855, the present name, All Souls, was taken by an American church for the first time when the congregation dedicated its third building, at 249 Fourth Avenue (now
Park Avenue South
) at
20th Street
. The new church was designed by
Jacob Wrey Mould
and featured bands of red and white bricks and
Caen stone
, which led to the colloquial names of "The Holy Zebra" and "The Beefsteak Church."
[1]
In partnership with minister
Henry Whitney Bellows
, who served for over four decades from 1839 to 1882, All Souls grew to include some of the leading social reformers and cultural figures of the city, such as
Peter Cooper
,
Herman Melville
, and others. One noted member was the novelist
Catharine Sedgwick
, who remarked upon the diverse backgrounds of the people who were attracted to the freedom of ethical inquiry which All Souls offered: "strangers from inland and outland, English radicals and daughters of
Erin
, Germans and Hollanders, philosophic
gentiles
and unbelieving
Jews
. . . In this, our ass'n, there is at least one of every sort." In evolving from its roots in Unitarian Christianity, All Souls has embraced an enlarging religious pluralism that continues to this day.
All Souls relocated to its current building on the
Upper East Side
at 1157
Lexington Avenue
at
80th Street
in 1932, designed by
Richard Upjohn
's grandson,
Hobart Upjohn
, in the
Colonial Revival style
[1]
with a Regency-influenced base.
[2]
Forrest Church
, the prolific author and theologian, then served as Senior Minister for almost thirty years until the beginning of 2007, when, due to terminal
cancer
, he was succeeded by Galen Guengerich and assumed the less strenuous duties of Minister of Public Theology. Church's charismatic style has been credited with the revitalization of the congregation.
[1]
Notable members
[
edit
]
- George Fisher Baker
, financier, philanthropist
- William Cullen Bryant
, poet, journalist
[1]
- Peter Cooper
industrialist, philanthropist (founder of
Cooper Union
)
[1]
- Nathaniel Currier
, lithographer, co-founder of
Currier and Ives
[1]
- Dorman Bridgman Eaton
, lawyer, civil service reformer
- Caroline Kirkland
, writer
- Herman Melville
, writer
[1]
- Laura Pedersen
, author, journalist, playwright, humorist
- Louisa Lee Schuyler
,
Sanitary Commission
organizer, founder of America's first nursing school at
Bellevue Hospital
- Catharine Sedgwick
, writer
- Samuel Prowse Warren
; organist at Unitarian Church of All Souls from 1865 to 1868
[4]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
Notes
Further reading
- "Unitarian Church of All Souls,"
The New York City Organ Project, The New York City Chapter of the
American Guild of Organists
- Kring, Walter Donald.
History of the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City
in 3 vols.
- Liberals Among the Orthodox: Unitarian Beginnings in New York City, 1819-1839
(Boston:
Beacon Press
, 1974)
- Henry Whitney Bellows
(Boston:
Skinner House
, 1979)
- Safely Onward
(New York: Unitarian Church of All Souls, 1991)
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
|
Buildings
|
---|
59th?72nd Sts
| |
---|
72nd?86th Sts
| |
---|
86th?96th Sts
| |
---|
Former
| |
---|
|
|
Culture
|
---|
Shops, restaurants
| |
---|
Museums
| |
---|
Theaters/performing arts
| |
---|
Galleries
| |
---|
Hotels
| |
---|
Social clubs
| |
---|
Former
| |
---|
|
|
|
Education
|
---|
Libraries
| |
---|
Primary and secondary
| |
---|
Post-secondary
| |
---|
Other institutions
| |
---|
|
|
Religion
|
---|
Churches, chapels
| |
---|
Synagogues
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
---|
Australia
| |
---|
Canada
| |
---|
Ireland
| |
---|
Romania
| |
---|
United Kingdom
| |
---|
United States
|
- Massachusetts
- All Souls Church
- Arlington Street Church
- Bernardston Congregational Unitarian Church
- Brattle Street Church
- First Parish in Cambridge
- First Church in Boston
- First Church in Roxbury
- First Church in Salem
- First Church of Christ, Unitarian
- First Parish Church (Duxbury, Massachusetts)
- First Parish Church (Taunton, Massachusetts)
- First Parish Church (Waltham, Massachusetts)
- First Parish Church in Plymouth
- First Parish Church of Dorchester
- First Parish Church, Arlington Massachusetts
- First Parish in Malden
- First Parish of Sudbury
- First Parish Unitarian Church
- First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church of Scituate
- First Religious Society Church and Parish Hall
- First Unitarian Church (Peabody, Massachusetts)
- First Unitarian Church (Somerville, Massachusetts)
- First Unitarian Church (Stoneham, Massachusetts)
- First Unitarian Society in Newton
- First Universalist Church (Provincetown, Massachusetts)
- First Universalist Church (Salem, Massachusetts)
- First Universalist Church (Somerville, Massachusetts)
- Follen Church Society-Unitarian Universalist
- Housatonic Congregational Church
- King's Chapel
- North Parish Church
- Old Ship Church
- Second Unitarian Church
- Theodore Parker Unitarian Universalist Church
- Unitarian Church of Barnstable
- Unitarian Memorial Church
- Unitarian Society
- Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford and the Osgood House
- United First Parish Church
- Universalist Society Meetinghouse
- Wollaston Unitarian Church
|
---|