The former First Baptist Church is a historic
Baptist church building located at 8601
Woodward Avenue in
Detroit,
Michigan. Built in 1909, it was designed by architect
Guy J. Vinton in the
Late Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
style. It is now the Peoples Community Church.
The building was added to the
National Register of Historic Places on August 3, 1982.
History
The First Baptist Church of Detroit was founded on October 20, 1827.
[First Baptist Church of Detroit](_blank)
from City of Detroit Planning and Development Department. The first church constructed by the congregation, a small frame structure, was built at the corner of Fort and Griswold Streets in 1831.
The frame structure was replaced with a spacious brick church in 1835. The congregation built larger structures in 1859-63 and 1871-75.
As members of the congregation moved outwards from downtown Detroit, the church followed, and in 1909 the church hired Guy J. Vinton to design and construct this church on Woodward.
However, after
World War II, membership decreased, and in 1957 the congregation sold the building to the Peoples Community Church.
The First Baptist congregation moved on to
Southfield and constructed a new church in 1965.
Description
The former First Baptist Church of Detroit is a rockfaced, limestone, Gothic-style church measuring 120 feet long by 110 feet wide. The front facade has a massive, Gothic-arched traceried window balanced with a large square flat-roofed corner tower containing the entryway. An educational wing is adjacent to the tower of similar design to the main church. The exterior of the church is notable for its lack of ornamentation, relying on its massive proportions for visual impact.
The interior of the church conforms to the
Akron plan, with a large, square, barrel-vaulted central auditorium containing wooden pews arranged in a semi-circle. Notably, a broad, curving balcony panelled with a Gothic arch motif completely encompasses the auditorium. The portion of the balcony over the sanctuary contains the choir loft and organ pipes. The transepts on both the main floor and balcony level are constructed to be used as either classrooms or, by opening partitions, overflow seating space.
References
Further reading
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External links
First Baptist Church of DetroitPeople's Community Church
{{National Register of Historic Places in Michigan
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan
Baptist churches in Detroit
Churches completed in 1909
20th-century Baptist churches in the United States
National Register of Historic Places in Detroit