Riverside Church history

Allen & Collens's plan was described by architect Robert A. M. Stern as the culmination of a "craving for a tall cathedral among people of everyday tall ideas", which had started when St John's was proposed in 1889.

Cornelius Woelfkin, who became the church's minister in 1912, started leading the church in a more modernist direction.

The congregation sold its old headquarters in 1919 and bought land at Park Avenue and 63rd Street the following year.

The final service in the Fifth Avenue location was held on April 3, 1922, and the renamed Park Avenue Baptist Church held its first class in the new location the next week.

In 1924, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated $500,000 to the Cathedral of St John the Divine in Morningside Heights, which was further uptown from the Park Avenue location, in an unsuccessful attempt to influence the cathedral's ideology in a progressive direction.

At the end of May 1925, Fosdick agreed to become minister of the Park Avenue Baptist Church.

The building committee removed the apartment towers from the church plan and Allen, Collens, and Pelton were selected to design the new church in February 1926.

On November 21, 1927, the church's ceremonial cornerstone was laid, marking the start of construction.

The Park Avenue church building and three adjacent rowhouses was sold for $1.5 million in April 1928.

While construction was ongoing, the congregation temporarily relocated to Temple Beth-El on Fifth Avenue and 76th Street for nine months starting in July 1929.

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

The land was swapped in 1931 after Rockefeller offered to finance part of the dormitory's construction.

In 1932, he announced he would pay for a $350,000 landscaping of the adjacent, decrepit Sakura Park.

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.

In June 1945, Fosdick announced he would step down as senior minister the following May.

By May 1946, the congregation had 3,500 members, an increase of 800 in twenty years.

Wing, to the south of the existing church, started in 1955.

In 1956, halfway through McCracken's tenure, the church conducted an internal report and found the organizational structure was disorganized and that most staff did not feel any single person was in charge.

The wing was dedicated in December 1959 and contained additional facilities for the church's programs.

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

Rockefeller purchased the Stone Gym, an existing Union Theological Seminary building southeast of the original church, and reopened it as a community facility in April 1962 after a five-year renovation.

In April 1967, McCracken announced he would leave his position as senior minister, citing health issues.

Following a 1972 metropolitan mission study, several ministries aimed toward ameliorating social conditions in the New York City area were formed at Riverside Church.

By a vote in August 1977, William Sloane Coffin was selected as the next senior minister of Riverside Church.

Coffin announced his intention to resign in July 1987 to become the president of disarmament organization SANE/Freeze, and held his last sermon that December.

In February 1989, the committee chose James A. Forbes, a professor at nearby Union Theological Seminary, for the position.

The dispute was resolved when Dyson resigned in October 1992.

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.

In December 1998, the congregation voted to officially nominate the church for landmark status.

The accused basketball director resigned in 2002 while the accusation of financial mismanagement was prolonged through several years of court cases, although the New York Supreme Court had dismissed a lawsuit over the topic.

Another nationwide, year-long search for a new senior minister commenced and in August 2008, it was announced Brad Braxton had been selected as the sixth senior minister of Riverside Church.

In June 2009, Braxton submitted a letter of resignation due to these disputes.

In June 2014, Amy K. Butler was selected as the church's seventh senior minister, becoming the first woman to hold that job.

In September 2018, it was announced Riverside Church would buy the neighboring McGiffert Hall at Claremont Avenue and 122nd Street for $45 million.