NOMINATION OF HISTORIC BUILDING, STRUCTURE, SITE, OR OBJECT PHILADELPHIA REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES PHILADELPHIA HISTORICAL COMMISSION SUBMIT ALL ATTACHED MATERIALS ON PAPER AND IN ELECTRONIC FORM ON CD (MS WORD FORMAT)
1. ADDRESS OF HISTORIC RESOURCE (must comply with an Office of Property Assessment address) Street address:______3500 Baring Street______Postal code:___19104______Councilmanic District:_____3______
2. NAME OF HISTORIC RESOURCE Historic Name:______Northminster Presbyterian Church______Common Name:______Metropolitan Baptist Church______
3. TYPE OF HISTORIC RESOURCE X Building Structure Site Object
4. PROPERTY INFORMATION Condition: X excellent good fair poor ruins Occupancy: X occupied vacant under construction unknown Current use:__Church______
5. BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION Please attach a plot plan and written description of the boundary.
6. DESCRIPTION Please attach a description of the historic resource and supplement with current photographs.
7. SIGNIFICANCE Please attach the Statement of Significance. Period of Significance (from year to year): from _1875____ to present__ Date(s) of construction and/or alteration:_1873-75; 1904 (parsonage)______Architect, engineer, and/or designer:__Thomas Webb Richards, Wilson, Harris and Richards____ Builder, contractor, and/or artisan:___Tiffany Studios______Original owner:_Northminster Presbyterian Church_ Other significant persons:______CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION: The historic resource satisfies the following criteria for designation (check all that apply): X (a) Has significant character, interest or value as part of the development, heritage or cultural characteristics of the City, Commonwealth or Nation or is associated with the life of a person significant in the past; or, (b) Is associated with an event of importance to the history of the City, Commonwealth or Nation; or, X (c) Reflects the environment in an era characterized by a distinctive architectural style; or, X (d) Embodies distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style or engineering specimen; or, X (e) Is the work of a designer, architect, landscape architect or designer, or engineer whose work has significantly influenced the historical, architectural, economic, social, or cultural development of the City, Commonwealth or Nation; or, (f) Contains elements of design, detail, materials or craftsmanship which represent a significant innovation; or, (g) Is part of or related to a square, park or other distinctive area which should be preserved according to an historic, cultural or architectural motif; or, (h) Owing to its unique location or singular physical characteristic, represents an established and familiar visual feature of the neighborhood, community or City; or, (i) Has yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in pre-history or history; or X (j) Exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social or historical heritage of the community.
8. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Please attach a bibliography.
9. NOMINATOR
Name with Title__Amy Lambert ____ Email: [email protected] ______Organization_University City Historical Society______Date____December 11, 2016______Street Address_____P.O. Box 31927______Telephone______(215) 387-3019______City, State, and Postal Code______Philadelphia, PA 19104______Nominator is X is not the property owner.
PHC USE ONLY Date of Receipt:______Correct-Complete Incorrect-Incomplete Date:______Date of Notice Issuance:______Property Owner at Time of Notice Name:______Address:______City:______State:____ Postal Code:______Date(s) Reviewed by the Committee on Historic Designation:______Date(s) Reviewed by the Historical Commission:______Date of Final Action:______Designated Rejected 4/11/13 5. Boundary Description
The boundary of the Metropolitan Baptist Church at 3500 Baring Street encompasses a rectangular lot at the southwest corner of 35th Street. Beginning at the point formed by the intersection of the Westerly side of 35th Street (50 feet wide) and the Southerly side of Baring Street (60 feet wide); thence extending from said point of beginning Southwardly extending Westwardly on a line parallel with Baring Street partly through a brick wall 122 feet 11 1/8 inches to a point; thence extending Southwardly on a line at right angles to Pearl Street (30 feet wide) 25 feet to a point on the Northerly side of Pearl Street; thence extending Westwardly along the said side of Pearl Street 80 feet to a point; thence extending Northwardly on a line at right angles to Pearl Street and also at right angles to Baring Street 178 feet to a point on the Southerly side of Baring aforesaid, thence extending Eastwardly along the said side of Baring Street 214 feet 1 ½ inches to the first mentioned point of intersection and place of beginning. The property is known as Parcel No. 055N23-0038, Office of Property Assessment Account No. 774068000.
6. Building Description
The former Northminster Presbyterian Church is located along the south side of Baring Street, at the southwest corner of its intersection with 35th Street, within an immediate area of largely two- and three-story Italianate twins. The decorative Romanesque church with Gothic Revival influences was purpose-built as a Presbyterian church by Philadelphia architect Thomas Webb Richards in 1875. The contiguous manse to the west was built in 1904 by architects Wilson, Harris & Richards as a parsonage. The church was originally clad in green serpentine stone with terra cotta trim, and it is presumed that the deterioration of the stone caused its replacement in local schist by the continuation of Wilson’s firm.1 According to the specifications, the roof was originally in “diagonal pattern & bands of red and green slates” but now has asphalt shingles.2 The church’s front gabled, stone façade is set back from Baring Street, and buffered from the sidewalk by a low stone retaining wall and a grassy yard bisected by a wide walkway to the double entry. The church is a prominent local landmark and gives the immediate stylistic impression of the Gothic Revival, especially with its rose window centered in the front gable, yet the rounded window openings reveal a more Romanesque personality. Richards’ employment of a colorful and decorative design is especially revealed at the interior, but had been extended to the exterior originally by using green serpentine stone, brownstone, and terra cotta.3 In plan, the main elevation of the church extends into the site to form a two level, rectangular church in a simple yet symmetrical volume. The long, side elevation faces N. 35th Street with a small setback from the sidewalk, bordered by low fencing and sod. The building’s symmetry and rectangular footprint are challenged, however, with the placement of the tall, corner tower. It is flush with the north façade yet steps out from the side elevation, a relationship that indicates an early incarnation of the more theatrical turn Protestant churches took after the innovation of the Akron plan in 1870. Additionally, the square plan tower echoes those found in Norman churches. Although placed at the most prominent corner of the building, the tower is flush with the façade and therefore set back from Baring Street, but it was built up to the right-of-way along N. 35th Street and can be accessed by an
1 National Register of Historic Places, Powelton Historic District, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1984, Item 8, p. 2. Northminster is described as “a highly styled, originally green serpentine building similar to Richards’ University buildings. Presumably the deterioration of the stone caused its replacement in the early twentieth century by the continuation of the Wilson Brothers.” 2 Building Specifications by T. W. Richards, 1872. Source: Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. 3 Ibid. east-facing door reached by wide steps. The tower signals the presence of the church within the neighborhood but by being set back from the street corner it falls short of acting as the main entrypoint for the church. That work is left to the Baring Street façade, with its grand rose window hovering over a double arched entryway. To the west of the church façade is a parsonage that is contiguous with the church; it is also a front gabled building, somber in gray brick with flat window openings and painted wood elements. To the west of the parsonage is a parking lot owned and used by the church. Together, the church, parsonage, and parking lot constitute the entire site of the Metropolitan Baptist Church.
North Elevation (Baring Street) The façade of the Metropolitan Baptist Church is imposing but welcoming. It consists of a front gabled, main volume of coursed, schist masonry with a rose window atop a two-story projection where two deeply-recessed, round-arched entry doors are located. To the east of this elevation is a tall corner tower with the same masonry and to the west is a brick parsonage of a later vintage; all three volumes are flush with the wall of the north elevation of the church. These façades are set back from the right-of-way by a low, stone retaining wall with sloped caps, bordered by shrubbery and containing a sodded yard. The main entry to the church is centered in the gabled façade and projected from the main wall by only a couple of feet. It is accessed by a wide, concrete walkway leading up from the Baring Street right of way. The entry projection contains two deeply recessed, round- arched openings and is supported at each end by integrated buttresses capped by pyramidal masonry caps. The voussoirs of the entry arches have intrados that are rounded at their base, in the Romanesque or Norman fashion, and extrados that are slightly pointed, indicating a more Gothic expression. Three columns with elaborately carved capitals support each spring-point and have plinths that are set on short masonry cheek walls at the entry steps. The carved cross-hatching in the capitals is somewhat Norman, evocative of the decorative geometry found in English churches of the pre-Gothic period, including the carved patterning in the stone columns and arches of Durham Cathedral. The pair of double entry doors has recessed panels and original hardware each capped by a tympanum with quatrefoil tracery. Above the entrance are five, small lancet windows within draped arch openings between two belt courses; each double hung window within the openings is capped by a small quatrefoil transom. Centered above the entry projection is a large, rose window capped by an arch which ends in a belt course at the midpoint of this circular window. The slightly pointed arch extrados is outlined by raised coping ending at the belt course in carved fleurs-de-lis. The corners of the main volume of the façade are defined with buttresses, like at the entry projection, yet only at the west buttress does it extend past the roofline to end in a
The north entryway facing Baring Street. Photo: A. Lambert. pyramidal masonry cap; at the east side, the tower rises in its place. On either side of the entry projection at the first level are two small, round-arched window openings each with double lancet windows topped by round geometric tracery at the transom. Above the eastern window at the lower level is a larger, round-arched opening. It contains wood window frames for two lancet windows with double-hung sashes, capped by a barbed quatrefoil. This window opening’s counterpoint at the western side of the entry projection was later replaced by the “Alexander Memorial,” a stained glass memorial window signed by Louis C. Tiffany.4
4 A documentation of the stained glass windows at Metropolitan Baptist Church is at the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings website from a 1992 survey by Jean M. Farnsworth. The “Alexander Memorial” is attributed to Tiffany Studios. https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/glass_display_building.cfm?Building Id=41. The names of those memorialized by the stained glass in the church is identified in the church’s 100th Anniversary Souvenir Program in 1946, https://philadelphiastudies.org/2014/02/10/northminster-presbyterian-churchs- 100th-anniversary-program-1946/ According to Richards’ building specifications, the cornice at the gable end of the façade and the tower had an ornamental band in terra cotta.5 That stylized rinceau is visible in early photographs, but no longer exists and was presumably replaced along with the original serpentine by the architects of the 1904 manse, Wilson, Harris & Richards. The gable is capped at its peak with a small lantern finial. The contiguous parsonage from 1904 is a three-story, gray brick, cross gabled building. Its north façade is balanced between two bays. The eastern bay has a two-story, three-faceted wood bay window structure under the shingled roofline containing a shed-roof dormer with two double-hung windows; the decorative spandrel panels under the bay windows at both levels contain stylized trefoil archery. The western bay of the façade is a gable front dominated by a covered front porch. At the wood porch is an accessible ramp with composite railing leading to the centered door; three narrow 9/1 windows are to the west of the front door. At the second level are three centered, 6/1 wood windows capped with flat lintels. At the third level is a pair of centered, 9/1 windows with flat lintels. There is a finial cap at the gable peak.
The Tower The tower rises in four levels and all exposed corners are expressed as corbeled buttresses, each one rising past the full height of the tower and topped with round metal caps. Early photographs show four, spiked finials in the place of these caps. Every exposed elevation of the tower is identical to all others with the exception of the lowest level of the east elevation, facing Baring Street with an entry door. At the base of the tower on the north and south elevations are two small basement windows. The ground level of the tower contains two round-arched window openings with quatrefoil transoms over lancet windows with leaded lites. The second level of the tower begins at a sloped sill to a slightly recessed plane that contains a single round-arched window opening with double lancet window and eight-lobed oculus transom. The third level begins above a sloped belt course that wraps the tower, including the buttresses; within each elevation there are two arched window openings both separated by a stone column containing double- hung, vinyl replacement windows. Above the windows is a corbeled base of the fourth level supported underneath by masonry brackets. The fourth level of the tower is defined at each elevation by a pointed trefoil arch supported by slender columns within which a round-arched opening contains a large louver topped by a round transom window. The peak of the tower is articulated with a corbeled base and gable peaks within each are small quatrefoil windows. All tower elements, as with the two street elevations of the church, are clad in the same coursed, schist
5 Building Specifications by T. W. Richards, 1872. Source: Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. masonry as on all other street-facing elevations. The four corner protrusions have had their original finials removed and are capped.
East Elevation (N. 35th Street) This elevation is represented by the long, flat wall of the rectangular volume of the church, rhythmically interspersed with seven windows on each of two levels and eight integrated buttresses with sloped caps near the top of both window levels. The lower level window openings hold two double hung sash windows with low curved tops set within openings capped by slightly pointed elliptical arch lintels in ashlar cut stone. Sills extend the width of each opening. The upper level windows all sit on a belt course and are round-topped stained glass capped by round arched lintels in ashlar cut stone with enlarged keystones and stringers that extend to each adjacent buttress; these windows contain stained glass and have exterior storm panes. Above the wall is the side of the gabled roof which was originally slate and is now in asphalt shingles. At the north end is the elevation of the corner tower with its double entry door in wood under an arched opening; this entrance is similar to that at the Baring Street façade, except here it contains a single door. At the south end of this elevation at ground level is a wood, double door that is identical to the other church entry doors and is accessible from concrete steps. A small lantern hangs from a bracket mounted above the arched lintel. Where the steps to this door meet the sidewalk along N. 35th, there is a low stone wall in schist with crenulated newel posts in a rustic, vernacular style typically found in the early suburban enclaves of Philadelphia. Above this entry door is a window identical to those at the second level of the tower: double lancets capped by an eight-lobed oculus within a wood frame. In the third bay from the south end is a hollow metal door to the basement accessed by steps next to the stone wall. To the north of the steps is a chain link fence that extends to the tower and encloses a sodded yard in front of basement windows. There are two vents in the gabled peak, one closer to the south end, the other at the north end. A gutter runs the length of the roof and downspouts can be found at the south corner and the north corner at the tower.
East elevation of the church. The gabled roof was originally slate. Photo: A. Lambert.
East elevation of the church showing the corner tower. Photo: A. Lambert.
Entry at rear of church facing N. 35th Street. Photo: A. Lambert
Entry at east elevation of corner tower facing N. 35th Street. Photo: A. Lambert
South Elevation (Pearl Street) The rear wall of the sanctuary volume is largely obscured by the three story rowhouse at 306 N. 35th Street. The gabled wall is covered in stucco, with a brick chimney rising up from ground level to a point past the roofline west of the gable peak. The stucco is an off-white color. Within the gable is a round opening in which a metal louvered vent has been placed. To the west is the rear of the parsonage with a hyphen connecting it to the 1875 church. The parsonage is clad in gray brick with three levels of double hung, 12/1 windows with wood sills and segmented brick lintels. The gable end’s coping cap is red terra cotta with a terra cotta finial at the peak.
West Elevation The volume to the north is the side elevation of the 1904 parsonage. Facing Baring Street to the viewer’s far left is the side of the one-story covered porch with white columns, flattened gothic arches, and contemporary stick railing over a base of brick piers and newer wood lattice screens. The gray brick wall of the parsonage fills half the depth of the site and is flat with no outward protrusions. This elevation shows the side of the gabled roof, clad in asphalt shingles, broken in the middle by two gable ends. The first bay from the north has one window at the lower level, and two above; all windows have flat, cast stone lintels and double-hung windows. The second and third bays in this elevation rise above the cornice line to gabled ends. In the first bay to the north is a large window opening with three levels of double hung windows, three across. Below this at the lower level is a small opening with two windows. This bay expresses the interior stairwell. The third bay also rises to a gabled end with a Chicago window at the lower level, two double hung windows at the second level and one centered 12/1 window in the gable at the third level. The fourth bay is the furthest south and contains a dormer with two 9/1 windows. A chimney rises from the gable peak above the dormer window. At the first and second levels are identical fenestration: a small, arched window opening and double hung windows with leaded diamond glass to the left of a larger, double hung window; both features have flat lintels. Beyond the elevation of the parsonage is the side elevation of the sanctuary volume. This is identical to that of the east elevation in fenestration and buttress placement, yet the entire surface of the wall, including the buttresses, is covered in stucco. The roof is covered in asphalt shingles with a gutter along the base of the roofline and downspouts.
Post-1904 photograph illustrating the church’s original serpentine stone with decorative cornice rinceau and new parsonage. Source: Mackie Scrapbook, Volume 1 (1921-28), Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.
Carved capital at the north entrance to the church. Photo: A. Lambert. Interior The interior of the church is remarkably intact. The double entry doors are centered in the long wall of the vestibule, with stairs to the second level at either end, and to the left, access to the east tower door. The floors are terrazzo and the stairs, railings, and newel posts are heavily varnished wood. Beyond the rear wall of the vestibule, the lower level is divided into three spaces by slim, ribbed, cast iron columns with acanthus leaf capitals that carry the load of the second level. The easternmost space has been surrounded by partition walls holding smaller rooms for study and storage. The center and westernmost spaces contain ground floor rooms historically created for Sunday School teachings and social gatherings. Upstairs, there is a stair landing on the second level with doors to the main sanctuary space. The second level of the building is dominated by the sanctuary space. The ceiling is paneled in stained white pine with painted blue and red pinstripes at its beveled edges, and with quatrefoil perforations, likely for ventilation. The walls are plaster and currently painted white, although early photographs show the rear wall with a tile pattern surrounding the colorful barbed quatrefoil designs still present on either side of the stone proscenium arch. The arch itself contains organ pipes and on either side of it are two round-arched doors whose openings have heavily articulated, stone trim; similar doors and trim are at the south or rear wall of the sanctuary. The seven windows on each of the long, side walls contain colorful glass memorial windows deeply set within untrimmed plaster openings; each window is interspersed with the decorative gold bracket of a collar beam. A rose window adorns the north wall, facing the street façade, within a round arched plaster opening. The sanctuary space has two side aisles dividing the rows of slightly curved, varnished walnut pews, each with large, decorative quatrefoil cut-outs. The walls are currently painted white and are punctuated by brilliant, stained glass windows. Beyond the rear wall to the west is a room that could be a sacristy or vestry; to the east, is the landing of a stairwell connecting to the rear east exit door.
North elevation of 1904 parsonage by architects Wilson, Richards & Harris. Photo: A. Lambert
Front porch of parsonage and church office with contemporary accessibility ramp.
1962 photograph of the parsonage with church beyond. Source: Phillyhistory.org
West elevation of the parsonage from the church-owned parking lot. Photo: A. Lambert.
Rear elevation of the parsonage at left, and west and south elevation of the church behind the rowhouse at 306 N. 35th Street. Photo: A. Lambert.
West elevation of the church with tower visible past the roofline and the rear elevation of 306 N. 35th Street. Photo: A. Lambert.
Corner perspective from White and Corner perspective from August 2016. Scott’s 1895 Presbyterian Churches of Photo: A. Lambert. Philadelphia.
Original decorative door knob and Entry in tower facing N. 35th Street. escutcheons. Photo: A. Lambert. Photo: A. Lambert.
Facing south toward the altar in the second level sanctuary space. Photo: A. Lambert
Same view in 1927. Source: Presbyterian Historical Society.
The Alexander Memorial window in the Stairwell in entry vestibule. Photo: A. stairwell landing. Photo: A. Lambert. Lambert.
Decorative collar beam bracket. Secondary doors in sanctuary. Photo: A. Lambert. Photo: A. Lambert.
Sanctuary facing west. Photo: A. Lambert
Sanctuary ceiling and beams. Photo: A. Lambert.
Undated plan of sanctuary with pew rent amounts. Source: Presbyterian Historical Society.
Inglenook and fireplace in parsonage stairwell. Photo: A. Lambert
Interior of parsonage showing staircase and door to pastor’s office. Photo: A. Lambert. 7. Statement of Significance
The former Northminster Presbyterian Church, currently known as the Metropolitan Baptist Church, is a significant historic site that merits designation by the Philadelphia Historical Commission and inclusion on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. Located at 3500 Baring Street in the Powelton section of West Philadelphia, Metropolitan Baptist Church satisfies Criteria for Designation d, e, and j as enumerated in Section 14-1004 of the Philadelphia Code.
The former Northminster Presbyterian Church: (a) Has significant character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the City, Commonwealth, or nation or is associated with the life of a person significant in the past; (c) Reflects the environment in an era characterized by a distinctive architectural style; (d) Embodies distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style or engineering specimen; (e) Is the work of a designer, architect, landscape architect or designer, or engineer whose work has significantly influenced the historical, architectural, economic, social, or cultural development of the City, Commonwealth or Nation; and, (j) Exemplifies the cultural, political, economic, social, or historical heritage of the community
The former Northminster Presbyterian Church is a historically significant work by Thomas Webb Richards which clearly illustrates the forms and techniques that he employed in some of West Philadelphia’s most noteworthy buildings. Richards was the architect of the first four buildings on the new campus of the University of Pennsylvania after it had moved west of the Schuylkill River, including College Hall. At Northminster, however, built in 1875, Richards adapted his successful, polychromatic architectural ideas to the symbolic and practical requirements of a Presbyterian congregation, balancing Calvinist requirements with the expression of congregational aspiration. The church building also exhibits the early stages of the transformative gap in Protestant architecture between that of a rectangular, center aisle volume and a more theatrical, exterior expression of the Auditorium Plan, the chief innovation in American religious architecture in the second half of the nineteenth century. The church and its congregation are heavily intertwined with the development of the Mantua and Powelton Village neighborhoods of west Philadelphia. The circumstances of the church mirrored those of this area, growing steadily with good fiscal and congregational fortitude until the post-war period. In 1955, the church complex was sold by the Presbytery of Philadelphia to the Metropolitan Baptist Church, an African American congregation who still own the building today.
1843 Charles Ellet map of West Philadelphia.
“North-East corner of 35th Street and Lancaster Avenue in 1853.” David J. Kennedy watercolors digital collection [V61], #2500. Source: Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Development of West Philadelphia
Just prior to the 1682 establishment of Penn’s city, the expanse of land that would become West Philadelphia, was settled by William Warner, who named the area “Blockley,” after his English birthplace. The Blockley Township would identify the northern reaches of West Philadelphia for the next 150 years.6 In 1775, Thomas Willing, Continental Congressman and son of a Philadelphia merchant and former mayor, purchased a land grant for a portion of land that includes the current site of the Metropolitan Baptist Church running east from Lancaster Road to the Schuylkill River between what is today Spring Garden and Pearl Streets. Willing’s sister Elizabeth married Samuel Powel (1738-1793), himself a mayor of Philadelphia. After he died in the yellow fever epidemic, his widow began building the Powelton mansion that lent its name to its northern street and its neighborhood. The house was inherited in 1808 by Elizabeth’s adopted nephew John Powel Hare. In 1846, at the time of the organization of what would become Northminster Presbyterian Church, West Philadelphia was beginning its transition from a pastoral component of William Penn’s “greene countrie towne” to an early streetcar suburb. Industry, railroads, and a mix of housing types were constructed where large estates had once dotted the landscape. Philadelphia’s street grid was continued into the west side of the Schuylkill River. The borough of West Philadelphia was a conglomerate of several communities, including those of Powelton Village and Mantua, which shared a territory that began at the Market Street bridge, moving west along Market to Lancaster Pike, then northwesterly along Lancaster Pike to Westminster Avenue, north to the Schuylkill and back along the river to the place of beginning. In 1850, Powelton and Mantua had only a handful of roads opened for travel or occupancy. Mansions, taverns, round-houses and drove yards populated these borderlands. The mid-nineteenth century was a time of transition for West Philadelphia. It saw residential developments emerge alongside the borderland locales for the center city’s social issues such as the Pennsylvania Asylum for the Insane (1841) and the Blockley Almshouse (1835). A description of west Philadelphia from the Blockley Township through its nineteenth century development can be found in M. Laffitte Vieira’s West Philadelphia Illustrated: Early History of West Philadelphia and Its Environs; Its People and Its Historical
6 “West Philadelphia: The Basic History, Chapter 1,” West Philadelphia Community History Center, accessed July 16, 2016. http://www.archives.upenn.edu/histy/features/wphila/history/history1.html Points.7 The portrait painted of the area in 1850 is richly detailed and excerpted here: There were no paved streets in the entire ward…There was a small lane or road almost impassable during the winter or in rainy weather on account of the depth of mud… It was, when conditions permitted, the most used thoroughfare between the village and Market Street, or as it was frequently called, West Chester Road. About this time, Robert Hare Powell had purchased from the Baring estate a large tract of ground, covering the space between what is now Thirty-second Street and the river front. He erected a fine mansion, with a very imposing front adored with massive columns of grey stone. The lawn in front extended from the house down to the water, and many large forest trees dotted the grounds in all directions.8
The development of west Philadelphia in the middle of the nineteenth century corresponded with the rise of the streetcar and reflected a desirable economic and social diversity. Powelton in particular quickly became an area ripe for developers to the emerging industrial meritocracy. In the National Register nomination for the Powelton Historic District, the neighborhood is described as one of the most impressive in the city at the turn of the twentieth century. Early suburban homes were designed by the city’s most noteworthy architects including John Riddell, Wilson Eyre, and Samuel Sloan.9
The Development of the Northminster Presbyterian Church
In the 1921 Souvenir Program of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of Northminster Presbyterian Church, William W. Fiske wrote about the beginnings of the church. “Little did the two Godly women, Mrs. Reid and Mrs. Ward, realize when they started a Sunday School at the northeast corner of Thirty-third and Haverford Streets, over eighty years ago, that it would grow into that massive
7 M. Laffitte Vieira, West Philadelphia Illustrated: Early History of West Philadelphia and Its Environs; Its People and Its Historical Points (Philadelphia: Anvil Printing Company, 1903), 170. (The chapter “West Philadelphia Old and New” was likely taken from Edward W. Smitheman’s “The Village of Mantua in 1850,” written in 1902 at the request of Rev. George Bickley of the Christ Methodist Episcopal Church for publication in the fiftieth anniversary souvenir program of that congregation. Ref. Methodist Archives at Historic St. Georges, Philadelphia.) 8 Building Specifications by T. W. Richards, 1872. Source: Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, p. 6-11. 9 National Register of Historic Places, Powelton Historic District, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1984, Item 8, p. 1. bulwark of Presbyterianism in West Philadelphia, with a thousand members, which rears its gothic tower today at the corner of Thirty-fifth and Baring Streets.”10 Founded initially as an outgrowth of a union Sunday school, the church initially met at the northeast corner of Thirty-third and Haverford Streets in 1837. Rev. Walter S. Drysdale of the Princeton Seminary, preached his first sermon in this building on February 15, 1846. By September 1846, a lot at the corner of Bridge and Thirty-fifth Streets was purchased for $440, the proceeds of a fair, and a cornerstone laid by September 8, 1846.11 On September 29th of that year, twelve people organized themselves as the First Presbyterian Church of Mantua. William W. Fiske continues in the Seventy-fifth Anniversary Souvenir Program that “this section of Philadelphia, called ‘Mantua,’ was very sparsely settled at that time, only two or three houses stood on the south side of Spring Garden Street, which rose steeply above the river bank to the brow of the hill to Market Street. There were so few houses on the line of Thirty-fifth Street that it was deemed unsafe to pass along it at night, especially was this true of a dark and lonely wood at the corner of Thirty-fifth and Powelton Avenue. The introduction of water, gas, paving and lighting were improvements made after 1850. The new enterprise went strugglingly forward and in 1847 the congregation were able to occupy the basement of the new church, which was robbed the night before the first service was held of everything valuable, including the pulpit Bible. At last the walls were completed and the building put under roof.”12
10 “History of Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1846-1921,” Souvenir Program of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary, Northminster Presbyterian Church 11 William W. Fiske, “History of Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1846-1921,” Souvenir Program of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary – Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1921. 12 Ibid.
Site of the future Northminster Presbyterian Church from 1865 looking southeast. Source: Mackie Scrapbook, Volume 1 (1921-28), Presbyterian Historical Society.
The first couple of decades of the church’s life saw modest but reliable growth in the membership as well as steady leadership by long serving pastors. The fourth pastor, Rev. H. Augustus Smith, DD, was installed in 1864, and served for eighteen years, the longest pastorate in the church’s history. Smith was an authority on music and congregational singing had become a feature of the church since his time in the pulpit. With an eye to future development, a lot at the southwest corner of Thirty-fifth and Baring Streets was secured early in 1870 for $18,500.13 Thomas Webb Richards’ architectural services were likely contracted by Northminster not long after the construction of College Hall, the first building on the new West Philadelphia campus of the University of Pennsylvania, was completed in 1872. The main university building was designed in a hybrid Gothic Revival/Second Empire style just a few blocks south of the new church site down 35th Street. College Hall “is a building that occupies a pivotal position in connecting design before and after the Civil War” that “moves quite strongly towards the love of complexity and richness that was celebrated in much of the [1870s]” and
13 William W. Fiske, “History of Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1846-1921,” Souvenir Program of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary – Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1921. compelling in its decisive polychromatic effect.”14 Promoted in 1874 to be the University’s first Professor of Drawing and Architecture, Richards was an inspired choice for the emerging Presbyterian congregation in Powelton. Parishioner William Fiske’s accounting of the new church building may leave out the reasoning behind the choice of architect or the design process, however a record had been made that the wisdom of investing in a new church was justified: “for cleanliness, ventilation and modest beauty our church cannot be surpassed.”15 Thomas Richards was not only the architect of College Hall, but of three other buildings (now demolished) for the Penn campus, the Medical School, the Hare Medical Laboratory, and the University Hospital. All four of Richards’ buildings for Penn had rooflines punctuated by myriad ventilator stacks and their large windows, chimneys and vents “indicated a rising awareness of the importance of hygienic design.”16 It may not be a stretch to surmise that Richards’ early work experience in an industrial lighting manufactory contributed to his understanding of the importance of ventilation and daylighting in his architectural designs. The cornerstone for the new church was laid September 16, 1873, and just over two years later on September 29, 1875, the congregation changed its name to the Northminster Presbyterian Church noting that “the name is wisely chosen. The site is one of the very finest in the city. It is on an elevation overlooking the Schuylkill. The church has a look of solidity and strength as if it was meant to stand for many years; a place for God’s worship and the Home of His people.”17
14 National Register of Historic Places, College Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1978. 15 William W. Fiske, “History of Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1846-1921,” Souvenir Program of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary – Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1921. 16 George E. Thomas, David B. Brownlee, Building America’s First University: An Historical and Architectural Guide to the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 57. 17 William W. Fiske, “History of Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1846-1921,” Souvenir Program of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary – Northminster Presbyterian Church, 1921.
Map depicting the “1st Presbyterian Church Property,” at 35th and Baring Streets. Source: 1872 Hopkins Atlas of West Philadelphia.
The church was dedicated on Sunday, November 14, 1876, with Dr. Smith preaching the sermon, “Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.” It was described in The Presbyterian just after its dedication as a “very elegant edifice designed in the Romanesque style of architecture, a style that does not demand the elaboration of Gothic, and is therefore less expensive, and is at the same time higher and more graceful than the Norman.”18 A later publication described the building “of green stone, two stories in height, the lower story being used for lecture-room and Sabbath-school. The architectural design is Gothic; its seating capacity 800. Within a year electric lighting has been introduced.”19 The congregation of Northminster Presbyterian Church was a mix of people from the aspirational middle class and the industrial meritocracy, including developer John Shedwick and leather goods manufacturer Edward Alexander. These are people whose various occupations brought them to the Mantua and Powelton areas of West Philadelphia as they began to develop as a suburban neighborhoods.20 While many of the Protestant churches in west Philadelphia drew
18 “The Northminster Church, Philadelphia,” The Presbyterian, Nov. 27, 1875, p. 10. 19 William P. White and William H. Scott, The Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1895), p. 85. 20 Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1900, 1910, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Names that appeared in the Trustee Minutes for these time periods were primarily residents of the Mantua or Powelton neighborhoods of West Philadelphia. their congregations from a small, neighborhood radius, including Christ Methodist Episcopal Church on N. 38th Street, Northminster Presbyterian saw a much more regionally diverse membership. In fact, the geographic diversity of the church was remarked upon in the column Girard’s Talk of the Day in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Noting that the church had 1100 members in 1927 and foreshadowing Northminster’s future movement, Girard mentioned “it is a fact that a great proportion of all big city churches lose members to suburban churches. The auto has done that. But Northminster is much greater now than ever before, which, of course, is the highest tribute even West Philadelphia could award any pastor.”21
The 1878 J.D. Scott Atlas of West Philadelphia depicts the misnamed Northminster Presbyterian Church surrounded by residences on large lots and accessible by streetcar lines.
21 “Girard’s Talk of the Day,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Friday morning, February 5, 1926, Rev. Joseph B.C. Mackie’s Scrapbooks, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.
Daily Vacation Bible School of Northminster Church, June 27-July 27, 1928. Source: Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.
Since the church made good on the sponsorship of Presbyterian missionary actions, several of Northminster’s members lived throughout the country and the world. In 1932, the church sponsored national missions throughout the American Southwest and Alaska, and foreign missions included Syria, India, China, and the Philippines.22 Regular educational offerings included Sunday School and summer sessions for youth including Vacation Bible School, in keeping with a Presbyterian focus on education for all ages. In 1934, Rev. Dr. Joseph Bolton Cooper Mackie celebrated fourteen years at the helm of Northminster.23 Dr. Mackie’s scrapbooks at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia contain his records on the numbers of funerals, weddings, and baptisms he performed, and other statistical references to his tenure as the church’s pastor. Those fourteen years included “8,792 personal interviews in the Manse, or church office, 529 funeral services; 219 weddings; 16,016 pastoral calls, 6,172 church business meetings; 4,928 sermons” with a tally
22 Notes from Women’s Missionary Society of Northminster Church, 1932. Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. 23 Dr. Joseph Bolton Cooper Mackie (1882-1942) was briefly married to Sarah Marguerite McCann, the daughter of Germantown publisher Horace F. McCann, until her death in 1916. They had two children, Joseph R. and Horace A. Mackie. of $714,957.00 raised by the church for their work.24 Dr. Mackie served as pastor until his death in 1942 and was replaced by E. B. Shaw. Dr. Mackie’s tenure as pastor of Northminster spotlights the ecclesiastical balancing act he tried to maintain in a changing culture. He oversaw the establishment of a Girl Scout troop and an All-Day Monthly Meeting for women. Yet in 1927, the actor DeWolf Hopper was invited to speak at Northminster about the importance of censorship in theatre, congratulating Philadelphia on the ban it imposes on “immoral plays,” and there were speeches in favor of temperance measures held at the church by national Representatives in favor of Philadelphia as a dry city.25 Mackie also oversaw a few campaigns of limited renovations at the church including a complete cleaning of the masonry in 1926. The congregation of Northminster began to dwindle in the years prior to World War II and never again met prior levels. In 1953, Trustee Minutes reference two instances of vandalism to the church’s stained glass windows from thrown stones at the Baring Street elevation and the subsequent repairs of those windows as well as the purchase of protective window screens.26 By the end of the following year, the minutes record the decision to sell AT&T stock to “make up deficits in the Endowment Fun.” At the same time, it was reported that the current pastor Dr. E. B. Shaw had received inquiries from real estate brokers regarding sale of the property and that “one of the interested parties was representatives of a colored Baptist church,” whereby the Board passed a motion to contact several reputable real estate brokers to represent the Board on the sale of the church.27 William McCarter, an elder in another Presbyterian congregation, presented the Board with an assessment of church property at $93,000; the manse at $8,500; the side lot at $3,000; and that the entirety should sell for between $100,000 and $200,000.28 The initial sales price of $120,000 was reduced to $106,000 by the time the Board
24 “Dr. Mackie 14 Years at Northminster Church” Lancaster Avenue News, December 27, 1934. 25 “Shanghai Gesture Is Barred in Phila.,” Public Ledger, Monday, December 19, 1927, plus newspaper advertisements from Dec. 17, 1927, all from Rev. Joseph B.C. Mackie’s Scrapbooks, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. 26 “Thursday Evening, February 26, 1953,” and “Thursday Evening, May 28, 1953,” Trustees Minutes, 1950-1956, Vault Folio Box 9211.P49104 N63 v.6, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. 27 “Thursday Evening, May 28, 1953,” Trustees Minutes, 1950-1956, Vault Folio Box 9211.P49104 N63 v.6, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. 28 “Wednesday Evening, October 27, 1954,” and “Sunday Afternoon, November 21, 1954,” Trustees Minutes, 1950-1956, Vault Folio Box 9211.P49104 N63 v.6, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.
1934 J.M. Brewer map of Powelton Village and Mantua shows the church’s immediate neighborhood with the relatively high rating of B (“Upper middle class”) surrounded by blocks with lower grades and clusters of African Americans (pink). made a motion to approve the offer of sale to the Metropolitan Baptist Church of 3728 Haverford Avenue in August, 1955.29
Metropolitan Baptist Church
The Metropolitan Baptist Church was formed in 1931 when a group of people who gathered in pastor-less Christian worship sought to gain the pastoral services of Rev. J. Williams who had impressed them during Philadelphia revivals. By July 1931, the Williams Chapel Baptist Church had acquired a building at Hamilton and N. 38th Streets. The financial strength of the church grew and after 1936, the congregation purchased a former laundry building at 3728-30 Haverford Avenue. Pastor Williams resigned in 1948, and by 1949, the new pastor Rev. Holsey led the church to change its name to Metropolitan Baptist Church. Rev. Miller Lee Gayton became the third pastor in 1953 and led the congregation in the purchase of the former Northminster Presbyterian Church with a $10,000 deposit. The first services of the Metropolitan Baptist Church in their new building were held on March 25, 1956. Rev. Gayton led the church until 1990, a time during which the church grew and formed outreach programs including the Metropolitan Baptist Church Male Ensemble. In 1991, Rev. Lonnie Harris accepted the call to be pastor, and under his leadership, the church was able to take on capital improvements
29 “Sunday Afternoon, August 7, 1955,” Trustees Minutes, 1950-1956, Vault Folio Box 9211.P49104 N63 v.6, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. such as new air-conditioning, an elevator, and a sound system. In 2003, the Church elected Elder Gregory Johnson to officiating minister and a year later was installed as the sixth pastor of Metropolitan Community Church. In 2006, new lighting was added to the sanctuary. Under Rev. Johnson’s leadership, the church has grown and been in a position to initiate social justice and community outreach programs.30
Architect Thomas Webb Richards
The Northminster Presbyterian Church is the work of Thomas Webb Richards (1836-1911), designed and constructed at the peak of his career. The choice of Richards in 1875 by the congregation of Northminster to be the architect of their new church home illustrates the ambition and confidence of the congregation to their west Philadelphia mission. Richards’ iconic high-Gothic College Hall at the nearby University of Pennsylvania campus was completed in 1873. This building’s unhistorical hybrid of architectural styles was exactly that in which the period took delight.31 A similar design program, albeit to a muted degree, was employed by Richards at Northminster. Thomas Webb Richards was born in 1836, the orphaned child of a Philadelphia tailor. He and his brother, the marine artist William Trost Richards, had taken advantage of the city’s offerings for upward mobility, studying architecture and art in the evenings, Thomas working during the day at Cornelius and Baker, the great lighting manufacturer.32 After formal education at the Franklin Institute, Richards received his architectural training in the office of Samuel Sloan, one of the most lauded and influential Philadelphia architects. Sloan’s designs for suburban housing peppered the new suburb of West Philadelphia and likely influenced Richards’ design for the church. Plans and sections for churches in Sloan’s The Model Architect have their spatial echoes in Richards’ Northminster Church, with worship spaces above educational and gathering spaces in what might be coarsely but accurately called rectangular preaching barns. These spaces were modeled more along the plan form of early American churches, and efficiently programmed to use vertical levels and sliding partitions to separate functions. In several publications, Sloan outlined his ideas for Gothic churches and Norman
30 “Our Church’s History,” Metropolitan Baptist Church, http://www.mbcphila.com/mbc-history.html 31 George B. Tatum, Penn’s Great Town (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), p. 107. 32 George E. Thomas, David B. Brownlee, Building America’s First University: An Historical and Architectural Guide to the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 50. villas, among other designs, whose direct stylistic interpretations can be seen at Northminster. Richards designed Northminster at a moment in time when Protestant architecture was deviating from traditional center aisle arrangements found in colonial churches to more theatrical expressions. The asymmetry of the tower stepping away from the main church volume toward the secondary right-of- way is a welcoming gesture to neighborhood visitors and is the primary design element of this new period that Richards incorporated at the exterior. Interior features include walnut pews with quatrefoil trim and grand staircases with ornamental cutout panel railing can be found in several churches in the late Victorian period, illustrating how the church straddles the pre-Civil War period of Sloan’s greatest influence, especially in west Philadelphia, and that of the high Victorian era. After leaving Sloan’s firm in 1860, Richards moved to Baltimore to begin a partnership with William T. Murdock. At some point during the Civil War, Richards spent time working for Calvert Vaux, the former partner of Andrew Jackson Downing.33 Among other works, Vaux pioneered the polychromatic Victorian Gothic in New York.34 Back in Philadelphia after the Civil War, Richards, along with Frank Furness, George Hewitt, and Addison Hutton, further developed this polychromatic style of architecture that was so favored at this time.35 Richards had already been exploring color and form through his personal artistic endeavors. As early as 1854, Richards had begun exhibiting his watercolors at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; these were only nominally architectural but played on Moorish and Oriental themes.36 By 1860, he was elected an associate member of the academy. Richards’ early exploration of polychromy and stylistic design hybrids would be further pursued at Northminster, a commission that came on the heels of similar design success at College Hall. By 1869, after several years moving between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York looking for work, Richards was recommended for the first teaching position in Mechanical Drawing at the University of Pennsylvania.37 The following
33 George E. Thomas, “Architectural Heritage,” AIA Yearbook, Philadelphia, 1971, p. 17. 34 George E. Thomas, David B. Brownlee, Building America’s First University: An Historical and Architectural Guide to the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 50. 35 George E. Thomas, “Architectural Heritage,” AIA Yearbook, Philadelphia, 1971, p. 17. 36 Roger W. Moss, “Biography of Thomas Webb Richards,” American Architects and Buildings, https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/91861 37 Sandra L. Tatman and Roger W. Moss, Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects (Philadelphia: The Athenaeum, 1985), p. 659. year, he successfully entered a competition for the position of Architect of what would be College Hall, his most important work.38 A year later in 1874, Richards was appointed Professor of Drawing and Architecture, and he remained on the faculty until 1890.39 It has been posited that University Provost Charles Stillé thought that because Richards was on the faculty, that he would be a less expensive hire. The idea of financial restraint came through in the design of Northminster Presbyterian and was addressed after the dedication of the church. “This very elegant edifice has been designed in the Romanesque style of architecture, a style that does not demand the elaboration of Gothic, and is therefore less expensive, and is at the same time higher and more graceful than the Norman,” read an article in The Presbyterian after the church dedication in 1875.40
Significance of Plan
Richards designed Northminster at a moment in time when Protestant architecture was deviating from traditional center aisle arrangements found in colonial churches to more theatrical, auditorium-plan expressions. The asymmetry of the tower stepping away from the main church volume toward the secondary right-of-way is a welcoming gesture to neighborhood visitors and is the primary design element of this new period that Richards incorporated at the exterior. Interior features include walnut pews with quatrefoil trim and grand staircases with ornamental cutout panel railing can be found in several churches in the late Victorian period, illustrating how the church straddles the pre-Civil War period of Sloan’s greatest influence, especially in west Philadelphia, and that of the high Victorian era. At Northminster Presbyterian Church, Architect Thomas Webb Richards employed the ecclesiastical spatial innovations of the day. As with other Protestant buildings, there was no central aisle to the auditorium, which would have implied a processional path to an altar, as in a Catholic or Episcopalian church. Instead, there were two aisles on either side of a central pew, which placed the majority of the congregation directly in front of the central pulpit. This was a plan for a denomination that had a similar conception of worship and preaching as
38 Sandra L. Tatman and Roger W. Moss, Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects (Philadelphia: The Athenaeum, 1985), p. 659. 39 “Biographical Note,” Richards Family Collection, 1871-1944, University of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia. http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/richards_family.html#ref3 40 “The Northminster Church, Philadelphia,” The Presbyterian, Nov 27, 1875, p. 10.
Church section from Samuel Sloan’s 1859 City and Suburban Architecture, Plate 97.
Church plans from Samuel Sloan’s 1852 The Model Architect. Methodists at a time when architecturally, Protestant churches were beginning to break out of the spiritual confines of the rectangular ‘preaching barn.’ The ground level operable partitions of Northminster Presbyterian Church mimic one of the most important innovations in American church planning, the Akron Plan. In 1872, the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Akron, Ohio, took its graded classrooms and arranged them around the sanctuary instead of the basement, so that when the partitions were drawn back, the children would be brought together with the entire congregation for group worship or song.41 At the conclusion of a song, or a sermon, the partitions could be closed again and the children returned to their graded lessons – and all without anyone needing to move one step. One of the foundational beliefs of Presbyterianism holds that worship be supplemented by education for all ages. Hence, an array of classrooms, segregated by age, a room for the “infant class”, a Bible study room, and a lecture room were typical in church buildings, often placed in a basement beneath the sanctuary, working within formulas established during the 1850s. Samuel Sloan published two books prior to the Civil War that include church designs similar to those at Northminster, programmatically and spatially. In The Model Architect from 1852, there is a plan for a church sanctuary with two aisles, and in City and Suburban Architecture from 1859, there is a vertical section indicating a tall sanctuary space over a support space with loads carried by slim columns. It is easy to see how both the ecclesiastical requirements of the church and Sloan’s spatial influences were at work when Richards designed Northminster. In fact, the entire ground floor at the current Metropolitan Baptist Church holds Sunday school classrooms, a kitchen, and a large gathering space for lectures and suppers. Above these spaces, and taking up the entirety of the same footprint, is the sanctuary with two side aisles, which underscores the lack of emphasis on the altar, and returns the focus onto the people in the pews, unlike in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of worship. Nor is there a transept, another “high church” spatial device. Although employing Gothic and Romanesque architectural characteristics, the Protestant architecture of the period was asserted at Northminster through central seating and side aisles, with all pews slighting curved toward the altar as if to pull people further into the worship experience.
41 Robert Jaeger, “The Auditorium and Akron Plans,” Cornell University, Master’s Thesis, May 1984, pp. 141-147. See also Jeanne Halgren Kilde, When Church Becomes Theatre: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-century America (New York & London: Oxford University Press, 2002). Significance of Design
An additional characteristic of the era was color, the use of which in Northminster Presbyterian Church seems to be of special historical significance. In a time that loved intense color, Richards mimicked the successful polychromy of his College Hall design for Northminster by using similar building stone (green serpentine, Trenton brown stone, “Ohio stone,” and terra cotta, according to his specifications) at the exterior with elaborate color choices at the interior, especially in the sanctuary. Despite the Calvinistic starkness of Presbyterian doctrine, the congregation of Northminster Presbyterian Church seemed to be swept up favorably in the architectural trends of late Victorian Philadelphia. In an environment punctuated by the eclecticism and polychromy of practitioners such as Frank Furness, the church sought to hitch their wagon to the rising star of the University of Pennsylvania, Thomas Webb Richards. Richards was able to successfully coordinate the efficiency of the church program with operatic tones for the aspirational congregation. The polychromatic background of Richards is on full display in the main worship space. The wood ceiling has beveled pine panels with red and blue pinstriped edging, and the exposed collar beams have a painted decorative motif in full view of those seated in the pews, and ending in golden decorative brackets. The pews themselves are varnished walnut, with decorative quatrefoil cutouts and dividers, similar to those found at Richards’ St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Hamilton Village, a decidedly more Anglo-Catholic, cross-plan Gothic Revival church. At the exterior, another polychromatic aspect to Northminster, now since lost, was the original green serpentine stone, and, like at St. Mary’s, the use of decorative and colorful slate roofing tiles at the high pitched, gabled roof. Stylistic purity not being a hallmark of the late nineteenth century in Philadelphia, Richards’ Northminster contains hybrid elements from the Gothic and Romanesque traditions (including the English Romanesque, or Norman), as well as decorative and spatial features that were locally popular. The effect is a restrained but beautiful balancing act between Calvinist ideas of religious decorum and the growing local trends toward decorative surfaces and Romanesque/Gothic Revival architectural expressions. A full decorative program of stained glass in the form of memorial windows was later introduced, most of which survives today.42 The result is a rich color scheme in which stained wood (pine rafters and walnut pews) resonates against decorated plaster walls and rich tints of stained glass. It also shows an imaginative
42 A full inventory of the sanctuary’s twelve memorial windows can be found in the souvenir program for the One Hundredth Anniversary of Northminster Presbyterian Church, November 10-17, 1946. They honor pastors and prominent congregants.
Thomas Webb Richards in 1888. Photograph by Gilbert Studios. Source: University of Pennsylvania Archives.
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Hamilton Village, on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Photo: A. Lambert. balancing act as Richards worked to find a middle ground between the strident colors that Philadelphia’s High Church Episcopalian parishes embraced and the monochrome palette of its Quaker meetinghouses, as Frank Furness and George Hewitt sought to do in their somber but programmatically and spatially similar Christ Methodist Episcopal Church nearby on N. 38th Street. Richard’s Northminster Church was completed five years after the Akron Church was built, and Northminster’s classrooms are still located in the basement under the main sanctuary. Whether or not the Akron Church had a direct influence on it is not clear, although it is possible, given that the use of overhead sliding doors and partitions for assembly rooms is a distinctive innovation of Philadelphia architecture. Around 1850, architect Samuel Sloan, for whom Richards worked before 1860, took this device of Quaker meetinghouses and applied it to the public schools of Philadelphia as a way of uniting individual classrooms into a large assembly room. In The Model Architect (1852), Sloan presents a “village church” with decidedly Romanesque features. Later, in 1859, during which time Richards was in his employ, Sloan’s City and Suburban Architecture presents a church whose spatial program matches that of Northminster. The ground in Philadelphia was ripe for the innovations of the Akron plan to blossom in late nineteenth century church design and it is likely that Richards’ designs for Northminster created a bridge to that plan from the simplicity of Sloan’s village church.
College Hall, 1872. Source: University of Pennsylvania Archives.
1875-76 Catalog of the University of Pennsylvania. Source: University of Pennsylvania Archives.
East wall of second level sanctuary showing decorative glass windows and collar brace trusses. Photo: A. Lambert.
The Presbyterian Church in the US and Philadelphia
Presbyterianism is a reform movement of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, started by Martin Luther in 1517 and developed by French theologian John Calvin. A theology student with Calvin named John Knox is credited for bringing Presbyterianism to Scotland where the denomination quickly took root. In 1560, the Scottish Parliament adopted the Scots Confession, and by doing so, agreed to reform. The chief, distinctive features of orthodox Presbyterianism are the elder-led church government, Calvinistic theology, and the absence of prescribed forms of worship. The name Presbyterian comes from the Greek word for “elder,” and elders in the church “seek to discern the will of God for a congregation and vote their conscience before God.”43 The First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia was organized in 1698, occupying a site on Market Street. Presbyterians were among the earliest Reform immigrants to the US. In 1706, Francis Makemie and six other ministers established the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the first in the New World.44 The Synod of Philadelphia was organized in 1716 and, as such, is home to some of the oldest Presbyterian churches in the nation. In 1743, a second Presbyterian Church was erected at Third and Arch Streets. Both the First and Second Presbyterian Churches had members who were active in the struggle for independence. These included three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Dr. Benjamin Rush; Thomas McKean; and James Wilson. (The congregations of the First and Second Presbyterian Churches in Philadelphia merged in 1949 retaining the name First Presbyterian Church but housed in the Henry Augustus Sims-designed Second Presbyterian Church building at Walnut and 21st Streets.) After the American Revolution in 1776, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America was formed and in 1789, the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church was held at the Second Presbyterian Church. A schism occurred just prior to the Civil War that was not mended until 1983, when the Presbyterian Church (USA) was established by the merger of United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and the Presbyterian Church of the United States. Today, Presbyterians are the largest denomination in the US with 2.8 million members as of 2014. Worldwide, there are approximately 75 million Presbyterians.
43 “Our Form of Church Government,” History and Beliefs of the Presbyterian Church, http://www.scfaith.org/history/ 44 “History of the Church,” Presbyterian Historical Society, The National Archives of the PC (USA), http://www.history.pcusa.org/history-online/presbyterian- history/history-church Conclusion
The former Northminster Presbyterian Church, today the Metropolitan Baptist Church, is a major work by Thomas Webb Richards with an additional parsonage by Wilson, Harris, and Richards. It is by far his largest and best preserved church, his comparable works being civic or public buildings. In its style, construction, and furnishings, it shows the characteristics of the influential style of the times, giving it significance in American architectural history. As a building whose corner tower is an early expression of the theatrical turn Protestant church design took after 1870, it is a milestone in church design and of significance in the religious history of the United States. The Presbyterian church was established in the US before the Revolution, with an early history in Philadelphia. The changing demographics of west Philadelphia in the 1950s manifested in the retreat of the Northminster congregation to the suburbs and an emerging African American, Baptist church needing a larger home for their growing congregation. The building remains a landmark in the Powelton Village neighborhood and deserves protection as an important historic resource in Philadelphia.
A sketch of Northminster Presbyterian Church from the 1922 Yearbook of the Pennsylvania Society of New York. This rendering shows the prominent corner tower and the parsonage. Also depicted is the terra cotta rinceau along the gable end of the church façade. 8. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Hammonds, Kenneth A. Historical Dictionary of Presbyterian Churches and Presbyteries of Greater Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Historical Society, 1973.
Hopkins, G. M. 1872 Atlas of the 24th and 27th Wards, West Philadelphia. Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins & Co., 1872.
Kilde, Jeanne Halgren. When Church Became Theatre. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Northminster Presbyterian Church Archives. Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.
Philadelphia architectural records from www.philadelphiabuildings.org
Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.
Philadelphia Inquirer.
Sloan, Samuel. The Model Architect. Philadelphia: E.S. Jones & Co., 1852.
Sloan, Samuel. City and Suburban Architecture. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1859.
Tatman, Sandra and Roger W. Moss. Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects, 1700-1930. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1985.
George B. Tatum, Penn’s Great Town. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961.
George E. Thomas, David B. Brownlee, Building America’s First University: An Historical and Architectural Guide to the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
Vieira, M. Laffitte. West Philadelphia Illustrated: Early History of West Philadelphia and Its Environs, Its People and Its Historical Points. Philadelphia: Avil Printing Co., 1903.
White, William P. and William H. Scott. The Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Allen, Lane & Scott, 1895.