The Park Avenue Christian Church is located at 1010

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...

at 85th Street, on the

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. The building houses the Park Avenue Christian Church (The Park) congregation of the

Disciples of Christ The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...

and

United Church of Christ The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Anabaptist traditions, and with approximately 4 ...

. It also shares its facilities and cosponsors interfaith events with the

Reform Reform ( lat, reformo) means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill#The Yorkshire Associati ...

Temple of Universal Judaism (TUJ), also known as Congregation Da'at Elohim. The Rev. Kaji S. Douša has served as Senior Pastor since 2016. She is the first woman and the first Black woman to be called to this role, the second African-American after the Rev. Alvin Jackson, Pastor Emeritus.

Architecture

In 1911, the original owners, the South Dutch Reformed Church, commissioned the firm of

Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson Ralph Adams Cram (December 16, 1863 – September 22, 1942) was a prolific and influential American architect of collegiate and ecclesiastical buildings, often in the Gothic Revival style. Cram & Ferguson and Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson are partne ...

, to design the Park Avenue sanctuary. Their designer, English architect William Heywood, was clearly inspired by the features of La Sainte-Chapelle in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, which were translated into the stately proportions and the slender 70-foot spire (''

flèche Flèche or Fleche may refer to: *Flèche (architecture), a type of church spire *Flèche (cycling), a team cycling competition *Flèche (fencing) The flèche is an aggressive offensive fencing technique used with foil and épée. Background ...

'') of its New York counterpart.

Buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es enabled the building to stand without any steel girding. The east

stained glass window Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

was designed by

Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art NouveauL ...

for the South Reformed Church's previous location at 38th Street and Madison Avenue, then re-installed here. The other stained glass is the work of Tiffany's one-time employee, artist and businesswoman Mary Elizabeth Tillinghast.pg. 94, After passing through the hands of the Park Avenue Presbyterian Church, the building was finally acquired in 1945 by the Christian Church. The original rectory was replaced in 1963 by a much larger five storey facility which in addition to church facilities also houses the church's day school. A 56-rank organ, built by Holtkamp, was installed in 1982. Major restoration of the sanctuary building was completed in 1993. The building is an architectural "landmark" of New York City.

History

The Park was formed by nine former members of the Ebenezer Church of New York City in 1810, out of a "fervent desire to embrace a pure and simple understanding of church life as found in the New Testament," part of a wider movement that led to the formation of the

movement and denomination. Beginning with its participation in the movement to abolish slavery during the 19th century, the Church has espoused an ethical commitment to pursue social justice. One of its current emphases is a commitment to diversity, using the phrase “Divinity of Diversity” as a touchstone statement for this commitment. The Park's commitment to justice includes deconstruction of systems of oppression such as white supremacy, xenophobia, sexism, and includes helping to increase the number of Open and Affirming congregations and to eliminate bias regarding sexual orientation. The congregation continues to be committed to the ecumenical movement for Christian unity, community service, interfaith acceptance, peacemaking and a major involvement in the arts, especially music. Since 1989 the church has sponsored a Saturday Lunch Program for the hungry and/or homeless in its facilities. In 2010, The Park became a dually affiliated congregation not only with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), its historic affiliation, but also with the

. In 2016, the park called its first female Senior Minister, The Rev.

Kaji Douša Kaji Spellman Douša (born August 22) is an American Christian minister and immigration rights activist who served as the chair of the New Sanctuary Coalition NYC. Biography Douša is the senior pastor of the Park Avenue Christian Church in M ...

Temple of Universal Judaism

TUJ was founded in 1974 by Rabbi Roy A. Rosenberg as a haven for interfaith couples and families, while also welcoming

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

s from other backgrounds, as well as non-Jews interested in

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

. The congregation holds services once a month and on

Jewish holiday Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or ''Yamim Tovim'' ( he, ימים טובים, , Good Days, or singular , in transliterated Hebrew []), are holidays observed in Judaism and by JewsThis article focuses on practices of mainstre ...

s. As an example of its efforts to follow the imperative of ''tikkun olam'' ("repairing the world") through social action and interfaith cooperation, TUJ holds various events together with The Park, such as the joint annual commemoration in honor of

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...

, and his friend in the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

, Rabbi

Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Joshua Heschel (January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972) was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Heschel, a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Jewish T ...

References

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External links

Park Avenue Christian Church homepageTemple of Universal Judaism homepage
* {{Park Avenue 1810 establishments in New York (state) 20th-century Reformed Church in America church buildings Christian and Jewish interfaith dialogue Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregations Christian organizations established in 1974 Churches completed in 1911 Churches in Manhattan Park Avenue Ralph Adams Cram church buildings Reform synagogues in New York City Religious organizations established in 1810 Synagogues in Manhattan Upper East Side