New York Avenue Presbyterian Church
The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA), currently the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States. It is located at the intersection of 13th Street and New York Avenue at 1313 New York Avenue (MAP). It is situated among several tall modern building in D.C.’s Downtown neighborhood. However, its tall steeple helps it stand out. And on this bike ride I stopped by and spent a little time there learning more about it.
The church was formed in 1859-60 but traces its roots to 1803 as the F Street Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and another congregation founded in 1820 on its current site, the Second Presbyterian Church. After the merger the church was named the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, taking its name from the avenue that separated it from a tannery across the street at that time, and the original church building was constructed in the Colonial Revival style with Italianate details as designed by Architect Edward Haviland. The current church building was built in 1950 and is a replica of the original 19th century building designed by Haviland.
The church is located four blocks from The White House. And due to its proximity to the White House, a number of U.S. presidents have attended services there. In fact, eleven sitting presidents have worshiped in either the existing church or the original one, beginning with John Quincey Adams. The others were Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, William Henry Harrison, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Benjamin Harrison, Dwight D. Eisenhower and, most recently, Richard Nixon. Members of presidents’ cabinets, congressmen and senators, and the Supreme Court justices have also attended over the years.
Of those who have attended, Abraham Lincoln was the most active and prominent presidential parishioner. President and Mrs. Lincoln first visited the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church shortly after he took office on March 4, 1861 and just after the church’s original building was completed. Lincoln rented a pew for $50 a year, and even had a reserved hitching post outside for the family’s small horse-drawn carriage. The Lincoln hitching post is still there today. The family worshiped regularly there during the Civil War. And while attending, President Lincoln and the pastor at that time, Rev. Dr. Phineas Densmore Gurley, developed a relationship in which they frequently discussed theology. Gurley presided over the funeral of Lincoln’s son, William Wallace Lincoln, in 1862, and then over the funeral of President Lincoln himself three years later.
Later after President Lincoln’s death, the church’s steeple, then the tallest in the city, was destroyed in a storm and rebuilt through the generosity of Mary Harlan Lincoln, widow of the president’s son Robert Todd Lincoln. When the original church building was replaced in the early 1950’s the Lincoln Memorial Tower with its belfry and four-sided clock was disassembled and rebuilt. Additionally, the bells in steeple tower were a gift to the church in 1929 from Mary Lincoln Isham, one of Lincoln’s granddaughters. The largest bell bears an inscription in the president’s memory. And inside the church in addition to the the family pew, there is a Lincoln stained glass window, an early emancipation document, and other memorabilia.
The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church is more than just a building or historic church. It has remained active over the years, and continues to do so today. From the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking from the church’s s pulpit to warn about the consequences of the war in Vietnam in the late 1960’s, to voting in 1998 to become a “More Light” congregation and work toward “the full participation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) people in the life, ministry and witness of the church and in society”, to its current online worship services due to the coronavirus pandemic, the church continues to be active in the community. In fact, approximately 1,200 people currently come to the church building on a weekly basis for a wide range of purposes, including meeting with a tutor in Community Club or a social worker at the McClendon Center, receiving a cup of coffee or an article of needed clothing through the Radcliffe Room ministry for the homeless, attending one of a number of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or worship with one of the four congregations the church hosts. The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church is a church that is reformed and always reforming.
[Click on the thumbnails above to view the full size photos]
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