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| photo by Alice Lum |
In 1884, when the devout Baptist John D. Rockefeller
permanently moved his family from Cleveland to New York City, he was probably
already well aware of the works of Edward Judson. On
March 20, 1881 The New York Times had reported that the “Baptist papers refer with
great satisfaction to the course of the Rev. Edward Judson, of Orange, N.J..” The paper explained, “He resigns his
pastorate in a wealthy church to become a missionary in New-York City. He begins work in September. Meantime, he is to finish a life of his
father, Adoniram Judson, the famous missionary to Burmah.”
Judson had good reason to want to finish his father’s
biography. Deemed by The New York Times the
“first missionary to foreign lands,” Adoniram Judson spent forty years
spreading Christianity abroad; especially in Burma where he translated the
entire Bible into Burmese. His
missionary work was not always appreciated by the locals and he spent two years
imprisoned at Ava and at Oung-pen-la. He
died at sea in 1850 and was buried in the Indian Ocean. Edward Judson was troubled that because of the
burial at sea his father had no material memorial.
At the time, Washington Square served as a sort of demarcation
point between the elegant, refined residential district of Fifth Avenue, and
the squalid immigrant neighborhood on the southern side of the park. Minetta Lane nearby was the called "Little Africa" where the
black population here swelled with emancipated slaves just after the Civil War. And crowded into the district's tenements, described by
Jacob Riis described as “vile rookeries,” were impoverished European
immigrants.
The New-York Tribune said “Dr. Judson had conceived the idea
of doing for the neglected masses of New-York what his father had done in India. He believed that there were thousands of
people in the great city to whom the word of God was unknown, and he proposed
to carry it to them, as his father did to the heathen, among whom he lived for
six years before he had made a convert, and still kept up the fight.”
Judson took to the pulpit at the Berean Baptist Church on
Downing Street. He instituted programs
of education, recreation, health and nutrition.
And he envisioned a memorial church to his father that would close the
Washington Square gap between the poor and the rich.
By the time Judson sat down with John D. Rockefeller, his dream
was taking form. The Judson Memorial
would be a complex—church, children’s home, young men’s building and
tower. By October 2, 1889 plans were
well underway. The New York Times
reported that “The Rev. Edward Judson, pastor of the Berean Baptist Church,
corner of Bedford and Downing streets, who has undertaken to erect a church
edifice, Young Men’s Building and Children’s Home as a memorial to his father,
Adoniram Judson, was secured $220,000 of the $280,000 required.” Rockefeller was the largest donor, giving
$40,000.
The newspaper praised Judson’s own work. “His son has done an excellent work in lower
New-York during the last eight or nine years, and the undertaking he now has in
hand will serve at once to commemorate his father’s memory and to aid in his
own mission work in this city.”
The large plot of land at the west corner of South Washington
Square and Thompson Street had already been purchased and the architect
selected. Judson went to the top, giving the commission
to McKim, Mead & White. As was often
the case, the firm turned to Europe for inspiration and for the Judson Memorial
found it in Rome’s towers of San Georgio in Velabro, and that of San Lorenzo in
Lucina.
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| The tower of San Giorgio in Rome served as inspiration for the Judson tower -- photo Wikimedia Commons, by Zelo |
Eight months later the cornerstone was laid “with proper ceremony,” according
to The Times on June 30, 1890. Reportedly over 2,000 people were on hand for
the ceremony. The cornerstone box was “of an especially
elaborate design” and contained a copy of the Burmese Bible as translated by
Adoniram Judson, a copy of his son’s biography of him, various Burmese tracts, and
other expected items like coins and newspapers.
The Times predicted that the building “will stand in many
ways unique among the hundreds of temples of Christianity in this city.” During the service, the Rev. Dr. George Dana
Boardman made note of the strategic position of the plot. “It is on the border of a dense tenement
house district, and yet only a stone’s throw from a most respectable and
aristocratic neighborhood, from which we hope many will come to join us in our
work.”
“The property will be a very handsome one when completed,”
said The Times, and it mentioned that McKim, Mead & White was
simultaneously at work designing the Washington Memorial Arch on the opposite
of the square. The Judson Memorial plans
included “a church building, a one hundred and sixty-five-foot tower, a
children’s home, and a young men’s building.
All will be distinct, yet on the same frontage, and all will be
Romanesque in style, strongly influenced by an early basilica treatment.”
While the church building was a monument to Judson; other
prominent Baptists would be memorialized.
“The children’s home will be a memorial to Hiram Deats. There will be a memorial window for each of
the three Mrs. Judson, and a marble baptistery to the memory of Boardman, the
first Baptist missionary to the Karens.
There will also be memorial windows to Drs. Hague, Dowling, and
Gillette, whose lives were identified with Baptist foreign missions.”
“In the young men’s building it is proposed to provide
furnished rooms with a library, reading room, and gymnasium,” reported The
Times. “The revenue from this will go to
the mission work of the church.”
With construction underway, the financial footing of the
project seemed secure. The total
projected cost, including the land, was $320,500 (over $7 million today). Of that amount only about $90,000 still
needed to be raised.
As the building rose, at least one additional memorial was
included. On September 21, 1891 The
Times reported on the unveiling of “an ice-water fountain at the corner of the
Judson Memorial Church…which has been erected to the memory of Duncan Dunbar,
who for nearly forty years was pastor of the Macdougal Street Baptist Church.” The white marble fountain which dispensed
water cooled by a coil of pipe on which a block of ice was laid was especially
appropriate.
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| Now protected by an iron cage, the marble fountain once dispensed ingeniously-cooled water -- photo by Alice Lum |
According to the newspaper “Mr. Dunbar had conceived the
idea of having a free drinking fountain, he said, many years ago, while on a
voyage from Halifax, in the course of which the water on board gave out and the
reverend gentleman learned the value of a pint of water.”
Artist John La Farge received the commission for the stained
glass windows in the church—the single largest glass commission he would ever
receive. By the time the project was
completed La Farge would produce seventeen windows: ten monumental figure
memorials, two suites of glass for stair landings, a circular stair light, and
three figure circular windows. (Although
La Farge expert James L. Yarnall attributes the rose window to the artist; the
church’s website is less sure, saying the designer is “unknown.”)
Completed in 1892 the Italian Renaissance complex commanded
the attention of the Square. Clad in
yellow Roman brick banded in splendid terra cotta, the buildings did not rely
on ostentatious decoration; but on the dignity and classic lines of their
historic precedents. The ten-story
campanile, or bell tower, created the focal point and stole attention from the
handsome church it served. The projected
cost of $320,500 proved conservative.
The final costs as recorded by the “New York City Guide” decades later
was $450,000.
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| The completed complex -- The Architectural Review April 3, 1893 (copyright expired) |
The Architectural Review made note of the Roman models the
architects relied on. “As example which
will serve to emphasize the importance of regarding similarity of use where a
precedent is to be closely followed may be found in [the tower] of the Judson
Memorial on Washington Square.” The
Review disapproved of the architects’ straying from the originals. “But both these towers depend for their
beauty largely on the plain shaft with blank arcades crowned by an open
story. In the Judson Memorial one of the
conditions seems to have been a series of rooms in the tower one over the
other. The open windows of these rooms
seriously injure the design adopted for the tower, and should have suggested a
different treatment springing from the conditions in hand.”
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| Architectural Review objected to the open windows in the tower -- photo by Alice Lum |
Architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler obsessed with his
own definition of “monument” and objected to the term being applied to the
tower. “The church-tower, as a
church-tower, much be distinguished from the tower of the skyscraper by being
obviously monumental. And, in this
connection at any rate, monumentality connotes uselessness. So it must, by its beauty, be its own excuse
for being” This is why, he believed,
that “the tower on the Judson Memorial Church is not satisfactory,
architecturally considered, as a memorial.”
When it came to the church building, however, The Architectural
Review was much more approving. “The
church itself follows precedent with complete and scholarly knowledge, yet with
more freedom and therefore more successfully.
It is, in fact, a development from the Roman churches which suggests its
design.”
The formal dedication of the structure finally was held on
January 23, 1893. Edward Judson said at
the time “Standing as it does between the rich and the poor, the wealthy on the
north side and the needy on the south side of Washington Square, this church
has large opportunities for the great and good work in which it is engaged.” At the time of the dedication the church had
raised $415,000, but still needed more.
The following year the Judson Memorial did something that
may have proved shocking to some. It
erected a large illuminated cross on the pinnacle of the tower; a brilliant
beacon that could be seen for blocks. It was an innovative and unexpected use
of electricity; possibly raising the eyebrows of the more conservative
neighbors.
That same year Edward Judson’s spirit of outreach and
inclusion was demonstrated when the newly organized congregation of Greek
Orthodox worshipers assembled in the basement of the church. The Greek church, only the second of its kind
in the city, was rebuffed by Roman Catholic and other denominations as it
searched for temporary space to worship.
“Just as the situation became most perplexing the Rev. Dr.
Edward Judson, pastor of the Memorial Baptist Church, came forward and tendered
to the Greeks the use of the basement of his church…and the offer was
gratefully accepted,” reported The Times on January 8, 1894.
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| The Greek Orthodox congregation most likely worshiped in this room -- photograph the New-York Tribune January 16, 1898 (copyright expired) |
Judson’s vision of the rich and the poor coming together in
his new church never came to be. The
money that had once flowed in came to a near standstill and in 1906 the $90,000
deficit still remained. The preacher
knocked on the door of John Rockefeller once again and the millionaire exhibited
his trademark mantra of financial responsibility. In June he promised Judson that he would
provide $40,000 if the minister would first raise $50,000 by October 1.
Judson set off on an exhausting appeal. He sent out 1,500 letters, made
personal visits to wealthy citizens, placed advertisements and issued
circulars. As he told a reporter “I have
been devoting all my time and strength to the accomplishment of this splendid
result.” But by the middle of September,
with the time running out, he still was short $10,000.
Judson wrote an appeal that appeared in the New-York
Tribune. In part he said “No stone has
been left unturned. I have just rounded
the corner of $40,000, but the remaining $10,000 will be the hardest to raise,
because I have got about to the end of my resources. Much of the money given so far and subscribed
is conditional on the whole amount being raised, so that if we fail we shall
not only lose Mr. Rockefeller’s $40,000 but a good many thousands besides. I cannot bear the thought of this, and so
appeal to your readers in our time of greatest need.”
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| A postman poses next to the mailbox outside the church entrance in 1900 -- photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York, http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWRZIFQE&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=579 |
Sadly, Judson’s heart was apparently broken, for when he
died in 1914 the church was still paying off its debt. His death prompted a movement to clear up the
balance. On March 13, 1915 the New-York
Tribune reported that “New York Baptists are taking the lead in putting the
Judson Memorial Church on a sound basis.”
A plan was to clear the church of debt so the income from the rooms in
the young men’s building (ranging from $12,000 to $15,000 annually) could be
used by the for the organization’s works.
The work of the church among the poor was evidenced in the
bitter winter of 1918 when coal became in such short supply that the schools
were threatened with closing. Now
neighborhood children, with no heat at home, were in danger. Judson Memorial came to the rescue.
On January 27 that year the Anabel Parker McCann reported in
the New-York Tribune “If the doors of New York schools are closed next week for
want of coal, the youngsters living in the neighborhood of Washington Square
will feel sorry ‘not a little bit.’ Not
they. They will let out whoops of
delight, and as soon as they are out of bed in the morning, make a ‘bee-line’
for Judson Memorial Church, on the south side of the Square, where they will be
kept warm and happy until bedtime comes.”
Here plans were laid to provide the children exercise in the gymnasium
and “a plate of hot soup and maybe some coffee at noon, and last, but not
least, will spend an hour or longer every evening in the Judson movie show.”
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| photo by Alice Lum |
Edward Judson’s tradition of outreach continued throughout
the century. It offered firewood, fresh
milk, sewing classes, health care, and employment counseling to those in
need. When Howard Moody became pastor in
1956 he expanded on the tradition. He
founded the Village Aid and Service Center that would offer help to drug addicts,
provide shelter for runaways and abused women, make abortion counseling
available, and reach out to AIDS victims when the social stigma of the
disease made assistance nearly impossible.
Moody, a social activist, joined in the civil rights
demonstrations and anti-war protests of the 1960’s and ‘70’s; many of which
were staged in the Square directly in front of the church. The church was active in the gay rights,
women’s rights and civil rights movements.
Also in the 1960’s, in an effort to help struggling artists,
he arranged art exhibitions in the church.
Unknown abstract and Pop artists who exhibited here later became famous;
among them Claes Oldenburg, Tom Wesselman and Jim Dine. The church also sponsored performances by
artists like Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono and “happenings” by Alan Kaprow.
In the 1990’s, with Rev. Peter Laarman as pastor, the church
affiliated with Baptist Church and the United Church of Christ.
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| photo by Alice Lum |
The magnificent La Farge windows were restored in the 1990’s
by the Cummings Studio. Today McKim,
Mead & White’s wonderful complex remains the anchor of the south side of Washington
Square; and the Edward Judson’s founding concept continues 120 years later.
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