St. James AME Zion Church
Architect: UnknownDate: 1836116 Cleveland Avenue, Ithaca, NYThe Zion Church traces its roots to 1796, when James Varick and seven fellow members withdrew from New York City’s John Street Methodist Church in protest over discriminatory treatment they received there. The African Methodist Episcopal Church was chartered in 1801, and by 1843 there were nineteen churches in New York State. According to the research prepared by Historic Ithaca for the National Register nomination, “The Zion church was the only national black church to officially declare against slavery, incorporating the measure in the first Book of Discipline in 1820. Zion ministers were expected to take an active part in the struggle for freedom.” The local A.M.E. Zion church congregation was chartered on December 16, 1833. A building lot was purchased on Wheat Street (now Cleveland Avenue) in 1836 for five dollars from Richard DeWitt, son of Simeon DeWitt. Construction on the single room, stone meeting house began in the same year and, as the congregation grew, the building was expanded upward and outward, making St. James the oldest continuously used church in the City of Ithaca. Many notable individuals, some of the most outspoken advocates for the abolition of slavery, attended and spoke at the Zion Church in Ithaca; they included Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Reverend Jermain W. Loguen. Reverend Loguen, the pastor of St. James from 1852 to 1879, ascended to the level of bishop within the African Methodist Episcopal Church. St. James A.M.E. Church is said to have been a station on the Underground Railroad, although there is little written record about individuals involved or the locations of the stations since harboring runaways was illegal and “stationmasters” were at great risk after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. An association with Harriet Tubman and Ithaca’s proximity to Auburn suggests that the church and its congregation, many of them former slaves, were actively ensuring safe passage for those seeking freedom. A monument to the members of Ithaca’s early black community who enlisted at St. James for Civil War service in New York’s 26th Regiment US Colored Infantry has been placed in a small park adjacent to the church’s east side. After the Civil War, as Ithaca’s black community grew, it was necessary to provide a larger sanctuary in the church. A clapboard-sided, two-story, gable roofed auditorium was added atop the stone “meeting house” between 1861 and 1872. A vestibule was added to the southeast corner in 1895, and the two-story belfry tower was completed in 1904. A 1910 renovation added the trapezoidal-shaped addition on the north façade, creating a kitchen on the ground floor and increasing the chancel and choir loft area in the sanctuary. The sanctuary annex, separated by tall glazed folding doors, was added in 1913. In 1945 the two large windows on the south wall of the sanctuary were moved to the east wall and replaced by a single, circular stained glass window in honor of the parish’s World War II servicemen. In 1906, seven Cornell University students, disgruntled by the discrimination they encountered in the fraternities, met at 421 N. Albany St. and founded the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African-Americans, Alpha Phi Alpha. St. James was instrumental in the establishment of the fraternity, providing a place to meet while offering moral support and guidance to early members. In recognition of its significance as a physical and spiritual representation of cultural and religious history in Ithaca and to the black community it continues to serve, the St. James A.M.E. Church was listed as a city historic landmark in 1975 and, one year later, was listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.LISTEN HERE
Immaculate Conception Church
Architect: UnknownDate: 1898 113 North Geneva Street, Ithaca, NYThe parish has been in existence since 1848, when Mass was celebrated in the former City Hall by the first pastor, Rev. M. Guilbride, although Catholicism first came to Ithaca as early as 1825. The first church, called St. Luke’s, was built on the site of the present Parish Center in 1851. A second church, Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was built at the corner of Geneva and Seneca Streets in 1863. The cornerstone for the present church was laid by Bishop Bernard J. McQuaid on September 20, 1896 and was dedicated on September 11, 1898. The Ithaca Journal reported on September 12 that the congregation “packed the building so that hundreds of people stood closely in the three wide aisles from the altar stairs to the three front entrances. Hundreds more stood outside who could not even glance into the building. The vast audience, because of the bright and variegated colors and flowers on the hats worn by the ladies, looked like a flower garden in full bloom.” The exterior is mainly Gothic Revival-style but with Romanesque Revival-style features, such as the use of large, rusticated stone blocks for the exterior walls. The stone is pinkish below the water table and orange/buff above it. There are three entrances, each with a Gothic arch, in the west (front) façade; the arched transoms are filled with stained glass. Above the central entrance is a rose window. There are two towers, a large one at the northwest corner and a small one at the southwest corner. On the northwest corner of the bell tower is a carved Madonna in a niche, with arched vents and a quatrefoil above. The stained glass windows in the apse are covered on the inside. The interior of the church was originally decorated in the neo-Gothic or Second Gothic Revival-style popular at the end of the 19th century. In the 1940s, the church was remodeled to roughly its present appearance, retaining major original features. Entering the foyer, on the left, are steps leading to the organ and choir loft, which is located below the western rose window. Above the main entrance into the nave are frosted glass windows. Side aisles are formed by large Gothic arches supported by pink marble Corinthian columns; within the side aisles are paired stained glass windows. The trusswork in the ceiling is of wood. The altar area contains a wooden altar of Gothic design that features inlaid Florentine mosaics. Above this is a reredos of carved oak that supports a tapestry hand woven in Belgium and purchased from the Rambusch Decorating Company of New York. The tapestry is a version of Antonio Murillo’s The Immaculate Conception and was installed in 1998, concluding a multi-year renovation of the church to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the founding of the parish and the 100th anniversary of the building’s construction. Immaculate Conception received Historic Ithaca’ s Preservation Award for excellence in 1997. Facing the altar, on the left or Gospel side, is the Altar of Christ the King, made of marble. The walnut reredos contains four paintings showing Christ as teacher, with Mary and Martha; as priest at Emmaus; as the Good Shepherd; and as king. The statue above the altar represents Christ and the Sacred Heart. On the right or Epistle side (facing the altar) is an altar dedicated to St. Joseph. The table is supported by columns and has a reredos of carved Italian marble. The reredos contains altar cards of black Belgian marble with gold lettering. Above is a statue of St. Joseph with a canopy of walnut and gold. The south transcept forms a small chapel with an altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Associated with the church is the Parish Center, located in a former residence next to the church on North Geneva St.; the Immaculate Conception Shop, also located in a former residence next to the church on West Seneca St.; and Immaculate Conception School on West Buffalo Street, near North Plain St. LISTEN HERE
St. Catherine's Greek Orthodox Church
Architect: William Henry MillerDate: 1884 120 West Seneca Street, Ithaca, NYThis church on the northeast corner of Seneca and Geneva streets was originally built in 1884 for the First Congregational Society of Ithaca, which formed in 1873 after severing its ties with the Protestant Reformed Dutch Church. Designed by William Henry Miller (1848-1922), the Congregational Church was his first major non-residential commission and is considered to be the architect's most significant non-Cornell building. Miller studied under Charles Babcock, Cornell's first Professor of Architecture. Babcock designed Cornell University's Sage Chapel (1875) and Sage Hall (1873) and the influence of these High Victorian Gothic buildings is evident in Miller's design for the Congregational Church and the closely related Barnes Hall (1887) on the Cornell campus, in particular the windows and exposed roof trusses. The building displays a transition between the High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles. The use of red and black brickwork and rusticated stone belt courses exemplifies the contrast of materials and color typical of the High Victorian Gothic style. The heavy massing, corner placement of the pyramidal-topped tower, and rounded-arched openings are representative of the Romanesque Revival style. The battered rough-cut stone base is capped with a string course of white stone carved and painted with the following Biblical quotation beginning at the northwest corner:Come unto me all that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. He that believeth in me hath everlasting life. Jesus said unto him I am the way, the truth: and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. Amen. The building has a gable-on-hip roof configuration, which creates dormer windows on the south and west facades. That same open roof structure emphasizes spaciousness in the interior with windows that allow natural light to fill the space. The builders, Richardson and Campbell, used 250,000 bricks for the church with an additional 50,000 for the 11-foot-tall tower. The masons built a furnace in the street to heat the bricks before dipping them in tar to create the black trim and decorative patterns on the exterior. Several memorial windows made by the legendary studio of Louis E. Tiffany of New York City grace the interior. A tripartite window was installed in the apse in June 1885. The window depicting Christ in Benediction was installed in 1898 in memory of Almira and Leonard Treman, who lived two blocks away from the church. Many members of the extended Treman family lived nearby on N. Geneva Street. The church underwent various renovations, including moving the pipe organ, rearranging galleries, and installing electric lights in 1921. In 1960 the Congregational Church moved to a new building on Highland Road in Cayuga Heights. Ithaca College bought the building and used it for the music and ballet schools until their move to South Hill in 1966. The Greek Orthodox congregation, which had come together in the late 1950s, bought St. Catherine's. As a result, changes were made on the interior, reflecting the ritual needs of the denomination. They moved many elements, including the altar and baptismal font, from its church on Bryant Avenue, the former Cosmopolitan Club. Sunday services were held in the Parish Hall while renovations were made on the church proper. The altar screen, called the Iconostatis, was extended by five feet and redesigned to fit its new location. Many other improvements were made in 1967, including the hanging of a crystal prism chandelier, a gift from the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation in Endicott, NY. The congregation has continued to add traditional furniture to the interior, including a bishop's throne, icon stands, and candle stands. Some of the wonderfully carved pieces were imported from Greece. One installed pulpit was made by a local woodworker, with iconography by his wife, a member of the choir. LISTEN HERE
Calvary Baptist Church
Architect/Builder: UnknownDate: 1917507 North Albany Street, Ithaca, NYIthaca’s first known group of African American worshippers met informally in 1825. In 1833, a separate contingent formed the African Methodist Church, which met in the house of a Rev. Johnson, their first pastor. The congregation of the present St. James A.M.E. Zion Church began construction on a meeting house in 1836. In 1857, an offshoot from the Methodist church was organized and became known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church (colored). That church was located on North Albany Street. In 1903, after several conferences and negotiations, the church took the name Calvary Baptist Church and was under the leadership of Rev. Lomax. In 1917, under the direction of Rev. W.H. White, the present church was constructed, a one-story Spanish Colonial Revival-style building on a raised stone basement. The main entry was marked by a two-story tower in the southwest corner of the structure. A stained glass window of Jesus the Good Shepherd, dedicated to the memory of Anna Wallace Wilson, Richard W. Wallace, and Louise Wallace Burrell, was placed in the center of the front façade and remains there today. Following Rev. White, Rev. B. H. Payne began his tenure as pastor, a term that lasted nearly forty years, until 1965. During this time, the building underwent a number of structural changes and upgrades and was rededicated in 1954. It was during Rev. Louis Cunningham’s pastorate, from 1965 to 1974, that the building’s tower was removed, front façade reconfigured, brick front installed, siding placed over the side and rear exterior walls, and a two-story concrete block addition built on the back of the church. On the interior, a dividing wall was inserted to create a foyer, separating the entryway from the sanctuary. The foyer serves as a meeting place and gallery for memorial plaques and photographs of the congregation and former pastors. The many changes instituted by Rev. Cunningham reflect his ministry’s emphasis on education and Bible study, and his wish to attract students from the local colleges to church services. The basement also was upgraded to create meeting, teaching, and fellowship space. In the 1980s, wood paneling was installed in the sanctuary, which covers drawings that children in the congregation had drawn on the walls. In 2004, the current pastor, Rev. Wright, a member of the congregation since childhood, came to Calvary as interim pastor and was installed as pastor the next year. From the entrance, members of the congregation climb steps to the foyer to enter the sanctuary, which contains eleven rows of oak pews divided by a wide aisle. The altar area contains an elaborate oak lectern and seats for the choir, both of which face the congregation. A series of stained glass windows line the sanctuary walls. LISTEN HERE
First Presbyterian Church
Architect: J. Cleveland CadyDate: 1901315 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NYAccounts of early nineteenth century Ithaca describe a rough pioneer settlement prone to lawlessness and opposed to organized religion. Nonetheless, in 1804, under the leadership of Reverend Gerritt Mandeville, a small group of 13 established Ithaca’s first congregation, the Presbyterian Society. After 10 years, a discouraged Mandeville left his struggling congregation of 20, and the church came under the guidance of Reverend William Wisner, a commanding leader whose perseverance won the community’s respect. By 1827 the congregation had increased to nearly 200. The first Presbyterian meeting house was built in 1816 on a large parcel deeded to the church by Ithaca’s founder Simeon DeWitt, who decreed that the property’s southern portion be preserved as a public square. In the mid-1850s it was agreed that maintenance of the Public Square, now DeWitt Park, would be the responsibility of the village, a legal agreement that remains in effect today. The original meeting house cornerstone is on display in the vestibule at the First Presbyterian Church's North Cayuga Street entrance. A notable accomplishment of the early church was the sponsorship in 1834 of the missionary work of Dr. Samuel Parker and his associate Dr. Marcus Whitman in the Nez Perce Indian country west of the Rocky Mountains. A white marble tablet honoring Dr. Parker and Dr. Whitman is located in the church vestibule, along with a stone monument on the church’s south side. In 1853 the burgeoning congregation replaced the meeting house with a Gothic Revival-style church designed by James Renwick, architect of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. By the end of the century the congregation had again outgrown their church, and, in mid 1899, embarked on a two-and-a-half year campaign to construct a new church. The selected architect for the third and current church, J. Cleveland Cady of the New York firm of Cady, Berg and See, was challenged to construct a building for the “Modern Church” described as a multi-functional organization which, in addition to religious services, conducted social events, prayer meetings, Bible study, Sunday school programs, and other related activities. Cady designed the church in the Romanesque Revival style, the hallmarks of which include medieval references such as rough cut stone, deep arched entrances, and paired and grouped arched windows. The first service in the newly completed auditorium was held in October 1901. The one-hundred-foot bell tower with its “slit” windows also recalls the character of medieval architecture. The church’s buff colored Ohio sandstone exterior is trimmed with Indiana limestone. Overall, exterior decoration is intentionally minimal, in keeping with the overriding stylistic objective to visually unite the structure with the natural surroundings and to create a combined sense of solidity, massiveness, and repose. The western apse contains a series of stained glass windows designed and probably fabricated by the firm of Maitland, Armstrong and Co. of New York. Windows with a variegated, streaked, and opalescent glass resemble the highly popular and much copied style of Louis C. Tiffany’s studio. In contrast to the dark intimacy of the apse, the expansive view into the auditorium reveals diffused light streaming from tripartite leaded glass windows in the side aisles and dormer windows above. The dominant feature of the space is the enormous barrel-vaulted coffered ceiling that rests on four golden-colored “marbleized” columns with Byzantine capitals. In 2001, a major renovation of the sanctuary was begun with the purpose of accommodating the space to take on a new organ console and to improve acoustics. Carpet was removed, tile installed, pews repositioned, new lighting added, and the entire chancel area was rebuilt to function more like a stage with the choir loft centered in the back of the chancel. A special construction below the façade pipes allowed for postivpipes. A different arrangement of the antiphonalpipes was added in the narthex and a large organ (and movable) console now sits in the chancel. The organ (Stephen Russell/Vermont) features four manuals, 84 ranks and almost 5,000 pipes, many of which are behind the chancel in a constructed 2-story process reaching to the ceiling. The narthex chapel was then finished to allow for all windows to be visible and to permit space for small services. Social and meeting rooms are located in the lower story and include the cozy Fireside Room. The unusual paneling in this room is fabricated from the walnut pew doors salvaged from the 1853 church; holes from the fasteners of subscription plaques date from the early church practice of renting pews. The cornerstone, laid at the building’s southwest corner in May of 1900, displays the dates of all three edifices of the First Presbyterian Church--an emblem of its rich history and a reminder of its place in the Ithaca’s early development. The First Presbyterian Church is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places and located within the locally designated DeWitt Park Historic District. LISTEN HERE
First Baptist Church
Architect: William Henry MillerDate: 1890 309 North Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NYIn 1826, under the guidance of the Reverend O.C. Comstock of Trumansburg, a small group of Tompkins County residents adopted the name of the First Baptist Church of Christ of Ithaca and began meeting regularly in the Tompkins County Courthouse, located at the northeast corner of Dewitt Park, currently the site of the Old County Courthouse. The growing congregation purchased land adjacent to DeWitt Park and built a 47 by 70-foot wooden building, topped by a 110-foot high spire featuring a clock. When the church was lost to a fire in January of 1854, the congregation wasted no time raising money to build a brick church in the Gothic Revival-style, completed in 1855. The Reverend Robert T. Jones, an Englishman who came to Ithaca in 1880 with the help of Cornell's President Schurman, embarked on an ambitious plan to "pull down the old building and make room for a larger more modern one." Together they secured pledges from various community members and well-connected businessmen, including John D. Rockefeller, who provided $12,000 toward construction with the requirement that the amount be matched by other contributors within a specific period of time. Ithaca architect William Henry Miller donated his services to design the third church. Construction of the rusticated grey limestone, Romanesque Revival- style building was completed in 1890. String courses of local Llenroc siltstone form the canted window sills and the decorative belt courses on the stepped gable end of the main facade. This gable-end is trimmed with copper and topped with a carved cross. A notable feature of the church is the tower that tapers upward and is terminated with a pyramid-shaped, copper trimmed, slate roof. Near the top, the taper brings into relief "pillars" at three corners and, at the fourth, an elongated corner "turret." In 1974, facing expensive structural repairs and changing educational and programming needs, the congregation considered demolition of the building and sale of their property. The plan, however, became the subject of local controversy and instead of demolition the church initiated a substantial fundraising effort to repair and renovate in 1977. The work allowed the church to achieve the desired flexibility of space and uses on the interior. The church's original sloped floor was leveled as part of the 1977-78 remodeling. With the removal of some of the original seating, two corner offices were created adjacent to the entrance doors. Original interior features include the curved wooden pews and a raised pulpit with the baptistery and organ pit located behind the altar. The two Ohio sandstone columns, with their carved angel capitals, were free-standing with additional seating under these small "side chapels." The main sanctuary's vaulted ceiling is on an east-west axis, supported by three wooden crossbeam truss assemblies. William Henry Miller's original interior has been described as having a “rose-brick color overlaid with the same gold stenciling used on the vaulted ceiling." The pale wainscot surrounding the sanctuary and the gas-operated candelabras mounted on the south and north walls are also original features. The large window on the west wall of the main sanctuary was dedicated to the Reverend Robert Jones, who served the church for 35 years. Remodeling in the 1920s created the current "choir loft" and exposed a large, round-arched window above the chancel. The chancel was renovated in 1932 to accommodate a new organ. The north-south corridors lead to the assembly room with offices located in the rear of the building. The building's interior features are inspiring, its details subtle and its natural light pleasing. The exterior of the building is handsome and notable for its use of natural materials. The First Baptist Church is included in the locally designated DeWitt Park Historic District and is listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. LISTEN HERE
St Paul's United Methodist Church
Architect: Brown & DavisDate: 1909402 North Aurora Street, Ithaca, NYThe stately stone structure at the corner of Court and Aurora streets is the third Methodist church to be built on this site. The first, a wooden Greek Revival-style building with a dome-topped steeple and housing the community’s first church bell, was erected in 1820. By 1864, the congregation had outgrown the 44 by 58-foot sanctuary, and the wooden structure was torn down to make way for a much larger red brick church. This church also proved to be too small and was razed. The third, and current, church building, dedicated in 1909, looks much as it did when it was new, except that a tower once rose from the center of the nave. Declared unsafe, the tower was removed in 1925. The Romanesque Revival-style church was designed by the firm of Brown & Davis, who maintained offices in Cincinnati and Chicago. The uniform rock-faced exterior stone finish is highlighted with round-arched window openings and belt courses of smooth stone. Carved foliated capitals support the arched openings of the entrance turret. Inside, the woodwork, which dominates the interior, was produced by the Ithaca contracting firm of Spencer and Spencer. The sanctuary is voluminous with the chancel recessed in an arched niche and curved balcony creating the mezzanine level within the space. The octagon pattern on the ceiling was the location of the art glass dome and tower removed in 1925. The sheer size of St. Paul’s is impressive. Its three stories offer many rooms and meeting spaces; the sanctuary can seat 750; and the connecting education wing, added in the 1950s, even has a gymnasium, now with a 37-foot diameter meditative labyrinth that is open to the public on Wednesday afternoons. The sanctuary is set aglow by two of the church’s glorious stained glass windows, patterned after the paintings “The Light of the World” by William Holman Hunt and “The Ascension” by Gottlieb Peter Biermann. The bases of these windows are of Tiffany style glass and design. Another large window is dedicated to Frederick Bates and his wife, Rev. Juanita Breckenridge Bates, an early leader in the local suffrage movement. Other stained glass windows, including some saved from the earlier brick church, grace St. Paul’s many rooms. Long known as the First Methodist Church, St. Paul’s took its new name in 1960 when it was joined by the congregation of Ithaca’s State Street Methodist Church. In 2013, St. Paul’s made significant improvements to the structure, including new bathrooms, other interior remodeling, improved lighting, and window repairs and replacements. LISTEN HERE
First Unitarian Society of Ithaca
Architect: William Henry MillerDate: 1894 306 North Aurora Street, Ithaca, NYEncouraged by Ezra Cornell to establish a liberal church in the community, the Church of Christian Unity was formed in 1865. Ezra Cornell and Andrew D. White were active in the early services. The congregation’s first building was erected in 1873 at the corner of Buffalo Street and Terrace Place. On December 12, 1874, Ezra Cornell’s funeral was held at the church. Twenty years later, the wooden structure was destroyed by a fire. The congregation met immediately and made plans for a new building. William Henry Miller, a member of the Unitarian congregation, donated his design services in memory of his mother. The cornerstone was set in 1893 for the rock-faced gray stone Romanesque Revival-style building, which was completed the following year. The original renderings of the building illustrated a smaller steeple with a pyramidal roof. Charles White, a church member, strongly felt that the steeple should be more prominent so that Cornell University students walking up and down Buffalo Street hill would be sure to see it. In 1992, a new addition was constructed, linking the Church to the Parish house and providing additional classroom space. The architect, John Cake, described the project:The plan of the celebration space was known in its time as an Akron plan, characterized by a diagonal orientation of the seating. The column behind the lectern area was originally surrounded by organ pipes. The east arch of the celebration space was closed with a glazed and paneled wall, a portion of which could be raised to allow overflow seating in the parlor beyond. The recent renovation and addition to the church provides an enlarged, safer and more accessible religious education area. Interestingly, the frame house is also a Miller design done for a doctor and his family. Renovations to the celebration space include a large connecting door to the west, reshaping the stage to provide accessibility, refinishing the pews and flooring, a new sound system and accent lighting and painting. Two beautiful tripartite memorial windows grace the celebration space. On the Aurora Street side, the window “Come Unto Me” was given by Mrs. Frances V. Wyckoff in memory of the Reverend A. E. Goodnough, a former pastor of the church. The Buffalo Street side window illustrates Anna Botsford Comstock, a former head of the Department of Nature Study at Cornell University and a member of the church. Delft ceramic tiles surround the parlor fireplace, adjacent to the celebration space, and depict stories from the Bible. The garden entry vestibule off Aurora Street features a painting by J.O. Mahoney, Cornell professor and church member. The entry’s faux finished domed ceiling and columns were painted by Red Wolf Designs in 1994, to celebrate the memory of Professor Mahoney. LISTEN HERE
First Church-Christ Scientist
Architect: John M. WilgusDate: 1911 101 University Avenue, Ithaca, NYThe first building to occupy the site at the base of Cascadilla Falls was a grist mill built by Jacob Yaple sometime between 1789 and 1791. Timothy C. Williams built another in 1846, known as “Cascadilla Mill.” By the late nineteenth century, the building operated as a plaster mill. The First Church of Christ, Scientist (Ithaca) incorporated on September 3, 1901. The present property was purchased from the Cascadilla Company, which operated the Campbell Mill. That building was demolished and the cornerstone for the new church, designed by John M. Wilgus of Ithaca, was laid in September of 1910. The first service in the church was held on February 5, 1911. Described in the May 23, 1910 Ithaca Journal as being built in the “bungalow” style to keep in conformity with the other buildings in the vicinity, the one-story stucco-finished church is residential in scale, featuring an intersecting gable roof with decorative trim, projecting eaves supported by wooden brackets, and a stepped chimney on the west façade. The building plan is in the form of a Greek cross. The interior of the church is as pure in function as it is in form, with minimal ornamentation consistent with the exterior. The main entrance and lobby were remodeled in 1969, enclosing the north opening of the porch and installing a new set of double doors in the arched porch opening facing west. The lobby was enlarged, eliminating two small rooms (possibly waterclosets) on either side of the main entrance. Another change was the removal of a wall that separated the lobby from a room with a fireplace, which may have served as the congregation’s Reading Room. A pair of rounded, arched openings lead to the symmetrically-planned main auditorium. Each tripartite window is filled with stained glass in green, cream, gold and purple hues, arranged in geometric patterns. The wooden brackets supporting arches on the ceiling suggests a simplified nave and transept configuration, thereby giving a visual division to the open floor plan of the main auditorium.The curved pews replaced straight pews in a 1931 interior remodeling. A pit for the organ was created behind the new “readers’ platform,” which previously had been two separate podia. In 2012 the elevated platform was removed to create a floor space level to the auditorium to accommodate the large desk and the newly acquired Nigel Church tracker pipe organ.Painted above the north windows is a quote by Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science in 1866, which reads, Divine love always has met and always will meet every human need. Painted above the readers’ platform is the phrase God is love. On the south wall a quote from the Bible appears: Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.Gustav Stickley, in his book Craftsman Houses, published in 1909, describes a design philosophy that may have influenced the architectural style of the church. He wrote: A house reduced to its simplest form,” one that “never fails to harmonize with its surroundings, because its low broad proportions and absolute lack of ornamentation give it character so natural and unaffected that it seems to sing into and blend with the landscape...it is beautiful because it is planned and built to meet simple needs in the simplest and most direct way." LISTEN HERE
