34 Facts About Riverside Church

Riverside Church is an interdenominational church in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on the block bounded by Riverside Drive, Claremont Avenue, 120th Street and 122nd Street near Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus and across from Grant's Tomb.

Riverside Church has been a focal point of global and national activism since its inception, and it has a long history of social justice in adherence to Fosdick's original vision of an "interdenominational, interracial, and international" church.

Several small Baptist congregations, including the Mulberry Street Baptist Riverside Church that was established in 1823 by a group of 16 congregants, were founded in Manhattan after the American Revolutionary War.

The businessman William Rockefeller was the first of several Rockefeller family members to attend the Fifth Avenue Baptist Riverside Church; he became a major financial backer of the church in the 1870s.

Riverside Church ultimately chose a larger site at the southeastern corner of Riverside Drive and 122nd Street on the neighborhood's western border, which overlooked Riverside Park to the west and Claremont Park to the north.

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Rockefeller felt the Riverside Church Drive site was more easily visible because it abutted the Hudson River and would be seen by recreational users of Riverside Church Drive.

In exchange, Riverside Church received a small plot to its south, allowing for the construction of the chapel and a proposed cloister passage to Claremont Avenue.

The first officers of Riverside Church were elected in December 1930 and the church was formally dedicated with an interdenominational service two months later.

In 1935, the land under the church was deeded to Rockefeller and he purchased a lot at Riverside Drive and 122nd Street from St Luke's Hospital, after which he owned all of the land along the eastern side of Riverside Drive between 120th and 122nd Streets.

Riverside Church became a community icon and a religious center of Morningside Heights.

In 1960, Riverside Church's congregation voted to join the United Church of Christ, the successor denomination to the Congregational Christian Churches.

Less than a year later, civil rights leader James Forman interrupted a sermon at Riverside Church, citing it as one of several churches from which Black Americans could ask for reparations for slavery.

Riverside Church formed a committee that conducted a nationwide search for its next senior minister over the next year.

In 1996, Riverside Church started conducting a study on the building's current use and services, and the following October, Body Lawson, Ben Paul Associated Architects and Planners published the Riverside Church Master Plan.

Riverside Church occupies a 454-by-100-foot lot between Riverside Drive to the west, 122nd Street to the north, Claremont Avenue to the east, and 120th Street to the south.

Riverside Church's design is partially derived from Chartres Cathedral in France but incorporates designs of several Gothic churches in France and Spain.

Double doors to the west lead to Riverside Church Drive and a passage to the south leads to the MLK Wing.

The main entrance is through the chapel doors on Riverside Church Drive to the west; there are entrances to the basement from 120th Street.

The section of the MLK Wing above the second floor is set back from Riverside Church Drive, and the windows on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors are recessed between buttressed arches.

Riverside Church's basement includes several modern amenities such as a 250-seat movie theater and a gymnasium with a full-size basketball court.

Two Riverside Church organs are located in the chancel and the seating gallery.

Past organists at the Riverside Church include Virgil Fox, Frederick Swann, John Walker, and Timothy Smith .

Riverside Church's main building contains 51 stained glass windows, excluding small grisaille windows.

When Riverside Church was completed, there was controversy over the inclusion of Einstein, a living Jewish man, because the other figures represented people who had since died.

Chapel entrance on Riverside Church Drive south of the main entrance contains two archivolts that are supported by two sets of columns.

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Riverside Church was conceived as a complex social-services center from the outset; the building has meeting rooms, classrooms, a daycare center, a kindergarten, library, auditorium, and a gymnasium.

Riverside Church provides various social services, including a food bank, barber training, clothing distribution, a shower project, and confidential HIV tests and HIV counseling.

In 2007, The New York Times said Riverside Church has frequently "been likened to the Vatican for America's mainstream Protestants".

Riverside Church's Coming Home ministry, which was founded in 1985, helps ex-prisoners after they have been released.

Riverside Church's advocacy of the homeless originated from a similar ministry, the Clothing Room and Food Pantry, which was a subdivision of the Social Services Department.

Riverside Church participated in the Sanctuary movement during the 1980s, and was among numerous congregations nationwide that sheltered and assisted undocumented immigrants.

In 2011, as part of the Occupy Faith movement, Riverside Church donated tents to Occupy Wall Street protesters and sheltered them during cold and inclement weather, and after the evacuation of Zuccotti Park.

Riverside Church participates in the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

Speakers at Riverside Church have included theologians Paul Tillich—who taught nearby— and Reinhold Niebuhr; civil-rights activists Cesar Chavez and Desmond Tutu; Cuban president Fidel Castro; the 14th Dalai Lama; and Abdullah II of Jordan.