A vintage postcard shows the church on an otherwise vacant Broadway block. The parish house is seen on West 76th street. (copyright expired)
The feverish development of the Upper West Side in the last quarter of the 19th century necessitated schools, police stations, churches and other supporting infrastructure. A meeting in Leslie Hall on 83rd Street and Broadway in June 1896 resulted in the formation of the Manhattan Congregational Church, headed by Reverend Dr. Henry A. Stimson. (Stimson had been pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle since 1893.) The congregation grew as rapidly as the district's population and in January 1900 it purchased an L-shaped lot on Broadway and West 76th Street. (The 20-foot-wide corner lot was not included in the sale).
The Broadway portion of the vacant plot was 80 feet wide. The church purchased the parcel for $80,000 (just over $3 million in 2026). The Treasury noted in its April 1902 issue, "This property has proved to be very valuable. It is in the centre of a dense population and on a main artery."
Brothers Arthur A. and Charles W. Stoughton formed the architectural firm of Stoughton & Stoughton. When the church purchased the Broadway plot, the Stoughtons had just put the finishing touches on their design for the Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Riverside Park. They now were given the commission for the church building.
Stoughton & Stoughton's plans, filed on May 4, 1900, called for a 76-foot-wide "stone church" at a cost of $70,000. It would bring the total cost, including land, to $5.7 million today. The architects called the style "Louis XII Gothic." The New York Times architectural columnist Christopher Gray would deem it a century later, "a broad, lacy Parisian-style house of worship."
Stoughton & Stoughton released this water colored rendering. American Architect & Building News, August 8, 1903 (copyright expired)
On June 24, 1900, the New-York Tribune addressed the oddly shaped plot:
The problem has been to erect an adequate, modern church building on inside lots. The church owns four lots, with a small L in the rear opening in Seventy-sixth-st. Members say that the building will be a return to the original idea of a house of God, as being something more than merely a place for formal public worship.
The article predicted, "The main front will be a somewhat elaborate facade." The New York Times, on November 10, remarked, "Many architectural novelties are to be introduced in the Manhattan Congregational Church, about to be erected at Broadway and Seventy-sixth Street," adding, "The material will be of red brick, and the face, with its deeply recessed windows, will be richly ornamented in stone and terra cotta."
The main entrance "will open directly upon the social rooms of the church, which will open freely into one another, and together will constitute a large and hospitable foyer for the church property, which will be in the rear," said the New-York Tribune. On the second floor were a hall, meeting rooms for Sunday school and similar uses, and a library. The New-York Tribune predicted they would be "a rallying place for the neighborhood for all sorts of meetings."
The church auditorium would be 72-by-72 feet and could accommodate as many as 900 worshipers. Decades before air conditioning, the article said the church would have "ample provision for air from from large wells in the four corners and from the west front through the secular hall as well as through its own roof." The parish house on 76th Street would hold a choir room, a "sunny kindergarten," and committee rooms.
The cornerstone was laid on April 19, 1901 with "appropriate ceremonies," according to The New York Times. In reporting on the event, the newspaper said, "The Manhattan Church promises to be one of the most notable buildings of the upper west side, as it differs radically from the usual church edifice, particular in interior arrangements." The article was referring to the church proper in the rear.
The single Broadway entrance sat within a projecting pavilion decorated with Gothic crockets. Three double-height stained-glass windows sat below a parapet, which was interrupted by an acute gable holding a small rose window. The building's hipped roof was pierced by two diminutive dormers and frosted with lacy iron cresting and pinnacles. From its center rose a stone, Gothic fleche that sprouted gargoyles. It prompted comment from The New York Times. "A bronze spire towering above the structure to a height nearly equal to that of the roof line from the street will make the church a notable feature of that part of the city." (The fleche was, in fact, not merely decorative, but part of the ventilation system and provided a release of hot air in the summer months.)
As the dedication neared, the New-York Tribune published a photo of the church and Rev. Henry Stimson on January 6, 1902 (copyright expired)
With construction completed, on January 6, 1902, the New-York Tribune reported that "the building had cost $139,000, of which $132,000 had already been subscribed." Rev. Stimson was asking the congregation to make up the difference before the next Sunday "so that the church might be dedicated...free from debt."
Born in New York City in 1844, Reverend Dr. Henry A. Stimson had a fascinating background. The New York Sun said, "in his early career [he] was a frontiersman and Indian fighter with Col. William F. Cody. He carried the Christian religion into the Indian camps." Stimson served in the Civil War and "after the close of hostilities" in the West, resumed his missionary work with Native American tribes.
Rev. Stimson was outspoken in his views, not only from the pulpit but in his letters to the editors of local newspapers. On November 5, 1906, for instance, he wrote to The New York Times to rail against concerts, like those of the Philharmonic on Sunday nights. He said in part, "'Sunday Concert' has long been the Mother Hubbard garment which is made to cover all kinds of naked uncleanness."
And he used the Titanic tragedy to attempt to derail women's demands for equal rights. He wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times on April 22, 1912, "If some of the women who are seeking to lead public opinion had a little broader view they would talk very differently about 'the women first.'" He said if women had equal rights and were not given first access to life boats, "What a cry of shame and horror would have gone up everywhere!"
P. L. Sperr shot this photograph on December 21, 1927. from the collection of the New York Public Library
World War I changed attitudes and traditions throughout the world. On January 19, 1917, The New York Sun reported that Stimson had resigned after 21 years in the pulpit of the Manhattan Congregational Church. The article said, "Dr. Stimson said the ending of the war would bring new and vital problems to the churches of America and that the churches must have men of strength and health to lead them in that critical time."
Stimson was replaced by the Rev. William T. McElveen, who came from Evanston, Illinois. His would be a short pastorship. On September 29, 1919, the New-York Tribune reported that he had resigned. Disgruntled with the metropolitan lifestyle of New Yorkers, he complained, "New York is the most difficult field for a church in all America, I believe. Members are here today and gone tomorrow...What will be done with Manhattan Church? I am almost too discouraged with New York to care."
The electric lighting fixtures were as novel as was the building's exterior architecture. catalog of Lyon & Healy, edition II. (copyright expired)
Taking McElveen's place was Reverend Edward H. Emmett, whose forward thinking views were in stark contrast to those of his predecessor. On November 29, 1919, for instance, the New-York Tribune reported, "An unusual union service will take place at Manhattan Congregational Church...at 11 a.m., when the congregation of that church and of the New Synagogue will join in worship."
And in response to the ebb and flow of membership that had so troubled Rev. McElveen, Emmett took a very modern approach. On October 6, 1921, The Evening World reported, "It pays to advertise even the church, figures from the Manhattan Congregational at Broadway and 76th Street show." During a four-month period of public advertisement, said the article, the church "got 10,000 lines of publicity and received 189 new regular attendants." The newspaper said, "Advertising sells religion, is the verdict of the Manhattan Congregational Church."
from the collection of the New York Public Library
Rev. Emmett's modern thinking soon turned to real estate. So-called "skyscraper churches" were appearing throughout American's largest cities. Vintage church buildings were being demolished to be replaced by hotels or apartment buildings which retained space for the church. The congregations therefore reaped rental income from the residential and commercial spaces.
In 1927, Emmett announced that the Manhattan Congregational Church would be replaced by a hotel and church structure. Demolition of Stoughton & Stoughton's unique and masterful building began in May 1928. It was replaced by the 24-story Manhattan Towers Hotel designed by Tillion & Tillion.
The replacement building follows the original L-shape plot. photograph by the author
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