Dr. Parkhurst's Church, Madison Avenue

Dr. Parkhurst's (Madison Square Presbyterian) Church on Madison Avenue, northeast corner of East 24th Street. The old Gothic temple is under demolition across the street, to the right. Photograph by Detroit Publishing Co., 1906. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Madison Square Presbyterian Church was organized on March 3, 1853, in the Chapel of the Union Theological Seminary, University-place. The first temple of this church was completed about December 1854, in Gothic style on the southeast corner of East 24th Street. In April 1902, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company bought the property to build its skyscraper and a new neoclassic temple was erected across East 24th Street. The old church was turned over to Metropolitan Life about July 1906 and demolished by October.

The new Madison Square Presbyterian Church, on Madison Avenue at the northeast corner of East 24th Street, was dedicated on October 14, 1906. Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst was the pastor. The architect Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White took charge of the plans. The temple, designed in neoclassical style, had a dome surmounted by a golden lantern and an impressive portico with six Corinthian columns, each 30 feet high of pale green granite (architectural detail below). It was built of buff brick and glazed terra cotta upon a base of white marble.

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