Riverside Church, with its soaring Gothic tower, one of the tallest church towers in the world, is visible for quite a distance. It stands at one of the highest points of Manhattan’s Morningside Heights, surrounded by Columbia University and other colleges, and across the street from Grant’s Tomb.
World-renowned for its beautiful interior and for its diverse congregation and support of liberal views and social justice, it nevertheless, to some older New Yorkers, is still thought of as “Rockefeller’s Cathedral,” the reference being to John D. Jr.
Let’s dispose of the joke first: John D. Rockefeller, Jr. clearly had an edifice complex. Think The Cloisters, the museum of medieval art in upper Manhattan. Think Rockefeller Center, in central Manhattan. And, today, think Riverside Church on the Upper West Side.
Rockefeller and his younger brother William, both devout Baptists, and both leading members of Park Avenue Baptist Church near their homes on Manhattan’s east side Gold Coast, didn’t think small. Their money paid for Park Avenue’s building, and their interest in a more liberal, less strict version of Baptism gave them say over who would be its pastor. John D. chose Harry Emerson Fosdick, a leading figure in that movement, in 1926.
The entry corridor, which George G. spotted as the location for this week’s One-Clue Mystery
Around that time, the area around the Rockefeller mansions in the East 50s was changing and filling with offices and stores. Rockefeller decided on a move: the church would move uptown, and he would move out of the city to his Westchester County estate at Pocantico Hills, set on a 3,400-estate.
Guastavino terra-cotta tiles line some of the soaring vaults
For the church, he picked a site on Riverside Drive overlooking the Hudson River, and began a series of real estate trades to take over the entire two-block site, swapping parcels with individual owners and institutions. He hired architects, planned the huge tower to hold a 72-bell carillon he bought…and in the midst of all this activity, he asked not to be mentioned so that the church would not end up being “Rockefeller’s Cathedral.” Fat chance!
The chosen architects, Charles Collens and Henry Pelton, went to France with instructions to find a good model for the planned church, Gothic, of course: Rockefeller didn’t favor modernism in churches. The pair drove 2,500 miles around France looking at churches (that would make a great story in itself) before deciding on the 13th century Chartres cathedral as a starting point. Notes on others went into the design of interiors.
The church itself opened near the end of 1930. The rest of the buildings that fill the two-block site were added over the years since. One unique feature: unlike most church towers, Riverside’s is not empty space. Below the bells are 20 floors of offices and working spaces, originally the home of the church’s school.
The church’s nave can hold 2,400 people, seated
About the bells: the smallest weighs about ten pounds; the largest, at twenty tons, is claimed to be the largest tuned bell in the world. I don’t know who would dispute that…
At the moment, of course, it’s not possible to visit, but when the day comes and you’d like to, Riverside Church has a free Sunday tour led by volunteers. There are also two tours with fees. One visits the carillon and other parts of the tower; there’s a $25 fee. An arts and history tour is available for $15.
