Judson Memorial Church
Judson Memorial Church, Campanile and Judson Hall | |
Architect | Sanctuary: Stanford White Campanile: McKim, Mead & White Hall: John G. Prague[2] |
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Architectural style | Italian Renaissance |
Website | judson |
NRHP reference No. | 74001274[1] |
NYSRHP No. | 06101.000056 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 16, 1974 |
Designated NYSRHP | June 23, 1980 |
Designated NYCL | May 17, 1966 |
The Judson Memorial Church is located on
The church sanctuary, its
History
Founding
By the mid-19th century, the village had the largest
The church was founded by
As well as worship and religious education, the church offered health-care and outreach ministries to non-members as well as members. However, the church was not able to attract sufficient support from its wealthy neighbors on the north side of square, and by 1912, the church found itself in financial difficulties. The Baptist City Society (metropolitan association of Baptist churches) was persuaded to take over the property and financial responsibility, which it ended up holding until the congregation was again able to resume ownership and control in 1973.
Early 20th century
In 1921, under the leadership of its pastor, A. Ray Petty, the church offered first its basement and then rented its parish house on Thompson Street to
During the Great Depression in the early 20th century, Laurence Hosie served as pastor. Although the congregation dwindled, the church remained active in various social causes, including allowing homeless men to sleep on the pews at times. In 1937, the Baptist City Society appointed Renato Giacomelli Alden as pastor.
After
Late 20th century
In 1956, Howard Moody became the senior minister, continuing the church's outspoken advocacy on issues of civil rights and free expression, as well as breaking with the confessedly evangelical understandings of the past by speaking out for issues once universally considered to be immoral by Christians (such as abortion and the decriminalization of prostitution), a policy that continues under the present leadership of the congregation. Al Carmines, the associate pastor 1962 to 1979, focused his ministry on the arts (see below). The congregation expanded during this period, allowing the church to take back control of its property from the citywide Baptist organization that had been acting as trustee until 1973. Following Moody's retirement in 1990, Peter Laarman became senior pastor. Coming from a background in union organizing, Laarman led the church into ministries dealing with economic issues, while continuing work with the arts and other social issues, and starting a multi-year program of restoration and renovation of the church's aging buildings.
Since becoming senior minister in 2005, senior pastor Donna Schaper has created a pioneering program to train future clergy in how to do "public ministry" from a congregational base, by providing part-time apprenticeships to seminarians and recent graduates. Also under her leadership, the church has taken a leadership role in the New Sanctuary Movement for immigrant rights.[7]
Mission
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The church's mission has long been self-described as being devoted to social outreach, and establishing programs designed to help those perceived to be in need, despite the controversial or sometimes, unpopular, nature of that help.
In the 1950s, the church was the first institution in the village to create a counseling program for
In the first decade of the 21st century, the church's clergy operated a relief fund for the families of restaurant workers who were killed during the September 11, 2001, attacks of New York City's World Trade Center. Now, the church is active in the New Sanctuary Movement for immigrant rights.
Early community outreach
Verne E. Henderson joined the Judson staff in 1952 as its first Director of Community Service. A program for youth of the village – started originally by the
Sponsorship of the arts
Beginning in the 1950s, the church supported a radical arts ministry, first led by associate pastor Bernard Scott and subsequently by associate pastor Al Carmines. The church made space available to artists for art exhibitions, rehearsals, and performances. The church also assured that this space was to be a place where these artists could have the freedom to experiment in their work without fear of censorship. In 1957, the church offered gallery space to Claes Oldenburg, Jim Dine and Robert Rauschenberg, who were then unknown artists. In 1959, the Judson Gallery showed work by pop artists, Tom Wesselmann, Daniel Spoerri, and Red Grooms. Yoko Ono also had her work exhibited at the gallery. The gallery space housed Fluxus happenings, including Some Manipulations (1969), a series of performances at the Judson Church by Fluxus artists Jean Toche, Steve Young, Nam June Paik, and Al Hansen, and work by Nye Ffarrabas.
The Judson Dance Theater, which began in 1962, provided a venue for dancers and choreographers including Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, Steve Paxton, Deborah Hay, David Gordon and Yvonne Rainer to create and show their work. Among others, these dancers and choreographers shaped dance history by creating postmodern dance, the first avant-garde movement in dance theater since the modern dance of the 1930s and 1940s. For the past several decades, Movement Research has presented concerts of experimental dance at the church on Monday evenings during the academic year.
In the 1970s, the church hosted various art shows and
The Judson Poets' Theatre started in November 1961 – with a play by poet Joel Oppenheimer – as one of three off-off-Broadway venues (the others were Caffe Cino and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club). Experimental plays and musicals by later-famous authors and directors, including Sam Shepherd, Lanford Wilson and Tom O'Horgan, were presented in the church's main Meeting Room. Starting in the late 1960s, Carmines began writing and producing his own musicals, and later, "oratorios" that used large volunteer choruses. Especially notable were several shows using texts by Gertrude Stein, music by Carmines, with direction by the Judson Poets Theatre director Lawrence Kornfeld.
In the 1980s, the church sponsored various Politically intended dramatic performances, such as those by the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater. These performances included Insurrection Opera and Oratorio, performed in February and March 1984. In this performance, the Bread and Puppet Theater, under the direction of its founder, Peter Schumann, used opera and the company's now signature oversized puppets to convey an anti-nuclear message. The church has recently become the home of the West Village Chorale, directed by Dr. Colin Britt. The Chorale's former home was St. Luke's in the Fields on Hudson Street.
The church celebrated its centennial in 1990 with performances and symposia involving many of the artists who had been involved with the arts ministry in the 1960s and 1970s. It continues both its support of the arts and its social outreach to the community.
Building
The church building is located at 54–57 Washington Square South. In addition to La Farge's stained-glass windows and Saint-Gaudens's marble frieze, it features
The campanile tower, located at 51–54 Washington Square South to the west of the church itself, was built in 1895–96, after the sanctuary had been completed, and was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White.[2] The adjacent Hall, however, predates the church, having been built in 1877, and was designed by John G. Prague.[2]
In 1999, facing financial difficulties, the church's board of trustees sold the Judson House, the parish building behind the church, to New York University School of Law, which used the site for its new Furman Hall. At eleven stories tall, the new building now towers over the church and Washington Square Park beyond, causing considerable controversy in the community at the time of its construction.[8][9] The church's offices and a small assembly hall now occupy a condominium suite in one corner of the new building, adjacent to the main church, at 239 Thompson Street.
From 1990 to 2006, the church building was repainted, reroofed; the stained glass windows were cleaned and reinstalled by Cummings Studio;[5] an elevator was installed to make the building accessible and air conditioning was added. These projects exhausted all the proceeds from the sale of the back lots, plus approximately $1 million additional (equivalent to 1.5 million in 2023),[10] raised from contributions of arts patrons and the congregation.
Ministers and staff
- Rev. Edward Judson (minister, 1890–1914)
- Rev. A. Ray Petty (minister, 1915–1926)
- Rev. Laurence T. Hosie (minister, 1926–1937)
- Rev. Renato Giacomelli Alden (minister to Italian-speaking congregation, 1937–1946; sole minister after Hosie's departure)
- Rev. Elbert R. Tingley (City Society's appointed executive director for Judson, 1946–1948)
- Rev. Dean Wright (Director, Judson House Student Program, 1948–1952)
- Rev. Robert Spike(minister, 1949–1955)
- Verne E Henderson, Director of Community Service during Spike's ministry (1952–1955)
- Bernard (Bud) Scott (seminary intern under Spike; associate minister under Moody, 1957–1960), serving as missionary to the surrounding artistic community
- Rev. Howard Moody (minister, 1956–1992)
- Rev. Al Carmines (associate minister, 1961–1981)
- Arthur A. Levin (Director of The Center for Medical Consumers, since 1976; also, administration for many church-related projects since 1966, including the Judson Teenage Arts Workshop, Judson mobile health project, and Judson Runaway House)
- Arlene Carmen ("administrix" 1967–1994; "administrix" over those years encompassed first being Moody's secretary, then Church Administrator, and finally, in the mid-1980s, Program Associate was added to the Administrator title)
- Roland Wiggins (sexton, mid-1970s-2016)
- Rev. Dr. Lee Hancock (associate minister, 1981–1985)
- Rev. Dr. Bill Malcomson (interim minister, 1992–1994)
- Andrew Frantz (Sunday School Director, since 1993)
- Rev. Peter Laarman (minister, 1994–2004)
- Ryan Gillam (Special Program Associate for theatre, 1994–1996)
- Aziza (Special Program Associate, 1993–2002) (producer for Licks 'n Licks, Single Mothers' Workshop, Dance of African Descent Downtown)
- Rev. Louise Green (associate minister, 1996–1998)
- Rev. Karen Senecal (associate minister; sole minister after Laarman, 2000–2005)
- Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper (senior minister, 2006-2021)
- Rev. Michael Ellick (assistant minister, 2008–2014)
- Rev. Dr. Valerie Holly (assistant minister, 2015-2020; associate minister, 2020-2023)
- Rev. Julie Johnson Staples (transition minister, 2021-2023)
- Rev. Micah Bucey (minister since 2011; senior minister since 2023)
See also
- List of New York City Landmarks
References
Notes
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5., p. 122.
- ^ [1] Judson Church at the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
- OCLC 235774739.
- ^ ISBN 0-231-12543-7. p. 119.
- ^ "Judson Memorial Church :: The Stained Glass Windows at Judson Memorial Church". classic.judson.org. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
- ^ "Senior Minister Donna Schaper". Archived from the original on October 4, 2016. Retrieved December 15, 2018.
- ^ Bromm, Hal (October 18, 2007). "Individual Interview: The Reminiscences of Hal Bromm: An Interview by on October 18, 2007" (PDF) (Interview). Interviewed by Branch-McTiernan, Meryl. New York Preservation Archive Project. p. 34. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 16, 2017. Retrieved December 15, 2018.
- ^ Brozan, Nadine (October 7, 2001). "Postings: On West Third Street Between Sullivan and Thompson Streets; New Academic Building for N.Y.U. Law School". The New York Times. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
Further reading
- Carmen, Arlene and Moody, Howard. Abortion Counseling and Social Change: From Illegal Act to Medical Practice (Judson Press, 1973)
- Carmen, Arlene and Moody, Howard. Working Women: The Subterranean World of Street Prostitution (Harper & Row, 1985)
- Dickason, E. & J. eds. Remembering Judson House (1999)
External links
- Official website
- Video (May 10, 2007). Interview of Reverend Donna Schaper. The O'Reilly Factor.
- Video (May 13, 2007). New Sanctuary Movement (Reverend Donna Schaper and Jean and his family) on Geraldo at Large.
- Donna O. Schaper Papers at Gettysburg College
- Guide to the Dickason papers at NYU's Fales Library; these are the papers related to the book Remembering Judson House by E. & J. Dickason[permanent dead link]
- Associate Minister Micah Bucey on the MikeyPod Podcast
Archives
- Judson Memorial Church Archive at the Fales Library of New York University
- Judson Memorial Church Oral History Archive at the Fales Library