Judson Memorial Church
Encyclopedia
The Judson Memorial Church is located on Washington Square South between Thompson and Sullivan Streets, opposite Washington Square Park
, in the Greenwich Village
neighborhood of the Manhattan
borough
of New York City
. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA
and with the United Church of Christ
.
The church sanctuary, its campanile
tower and the attached Judson Hall were designated landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
in 1966, and were added to the National Register of Historic Places
in 1974.
who had been preaching at the Bearean Baptist Church on Downing Street, also in the village, but his efforts at expanding the congregation were so successful that a new sanctuary was required. In 1888, with the backing of John D. Rockefeller
and other prominent Baptists, construction of a new church south of the park was begun. Judson had chosen the location because he wanted to reach out to the neighboring communities. It was to be a memorial to Judson's father, Adoniram Judson
, one of the first Protestant missionaries to Burma.
By the mid-19th century, the village had the largest African-American community in the city, along with joined German, French and Irish immigrants, and to the immediate south a majority of Italian immigrants. Earlier more affluent communities had begun an exodus from the adjacent neighborhoods to the south and east. Judson observed that "the intelligent, well-to-do, and church going people withdraw from 'this part of the city'." The park and the new church stood at the intersection between the affluence of Fifth Avenue and the poverty of Lower Manhattan
.
The church building was designed by architect Stanford White
, with stained-glass
windows by John La Farge. It features Renaissance
influences wedded to a basic Italianate form
. Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens
designed a marble
frieze
in the baptistery
, which was carried out by Herbert Adams; it was completed in 1893.
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.
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 Dr. Eleanor A. Campbell, a pioneering female physician who ran the Judson Health Center
, a free medical and dental clinic. The center operated at 237 Thompson Street from 1922 to 1950, when the clinic moved to its present location on Spring Street in SoHo
, the neighborhood to the south. During the 1920s, the church, with aid from the national American Baptist denomination, also ran the Judson Neighborhood House, a settlement house, at 179 Sullivan Street.
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 World War II
, with the rush of new students the former parish house and health center was turned into a residence for international students and students of various races, led by Dean R. Wright, the Baptist chaplain
to New York University
, the church's neighbor. At the same time, a new pastor, Robert Spike, began theological explorations with veterans and the artists then working in the village, which brought a new group of congregants and led to a change in the church's worship style to a more modern sensibility.
In 1957, 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.
Current 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.
In the 1950s, the church was the first institution in the village to create a counseling program for drug addicts; in the 1960s, the it led in helping to found a nationwide network network of Protestant and Jewish clergy who aided women who needed abortion
s before abortion became legal. In the 1970s, the church operated a residence for runaway teens and established a Professional Women's Clinic for women engaged in prostitution
; in the 1980s, it helped provide medical resources for people with AIDS
.
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 Police Athletic League of New York City
– blossomed under Henderson's leadership with more than two hundred youth attending one or more weekly events. Many youth were hard-core delinquents and drug users. Henderson appeared in courts on behalf of those facing legal action and began summer youth programs in upstate New York and Vermont
. Henderson also inaugurated programs for local artists, remodeling the sanctuary for art shows and refurbishing abandoned offices as living quarters for resident artists. Henderson once invited Martha Graham
to use the sanctuary for dress rehearsals, which eventually led to formation of the Judson Dance Theatre.
. 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 art
ists, Tom Wesselmann
, Daniel Spoerri
, and Red Grooms
. Yoko Ono
also had her work exhibited at the gallery.
The Judson Dance Theater, which began in 1962, provided a venue for dancers and choreographers including Trisha Brown
, Lucinda Childs
, Steve Paxton
, 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 multimedia
events. Most notable among these multimedia events was the People's Flag Show in November 1970, a six-day exhibition of painting and sculpture on the theme of the American flag
. The exhibit and the accompanying symposium, featuring speeches by Abbie Hoffman
and Kate Millet, attracted widespread attention from the public, the press and the police. During the final days of the exhibit, three of the contributing artists were arrested, both pastors (Moody and Carmines) were issued summons (not followed up), and the District Attorney
closed the exhibit on charges of desecration of the American flag.
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 political-theater performances, such as those by the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater
. These performances included Insurrection Opera and Oratario, 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 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.
influences wedded to a basic Italianate form, and has notable examples of scagliola
, a very convincing handcrafted imitation of marble
made of highly polished pigmented plaster
. Overall, the exterior and shape of the building is said to resemble the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
in Rome
, Italy
, while the entrance is said to be inspired by the Renaissance church San Alessandro, built in Lucca
, Italy, in 1480. The fourteen stained glass windows in the church's main sanctuary are the largest collection of major LaFarge windows in any one place in the U.S.
The campanile tower, located at 51–54 Washington Square South to the west of the church itself, was built in 1895–96, after the santuary had been completed, and was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. The adjacent Hall, however, predates the church, having been built in 1877, and was designed by John G. Prague.
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. 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 repointed, repainted, reroofed; the stained glass windows were cleaned and reinstalled by Cummings Studio; 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, raised from contributions of arts patrons and the congregation.
Archives
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is one of the best-known of New York City's 1,900 public parks. At 9.75 acres , it is a landmark in the Manhattan neighborhood of Greenwich Village, as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity...
, in the Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
neighborhood of the Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
borough
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA
American Baptist Churches USA
The American Baptist Churches USA is a Baptist Christian denomination within the United States. The denomination maintains headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The organization is usually considered mainline, although varying theological and mission emphases may be found among its...
and with the United Church of Christ
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...
.
The church sanctuary, its campanile
Campanile
Campanile is an Italian word meaning "bell tower" . The term applies to bell towers which are either part of a larger building or free-standing, although in American English, the latter meaning has become prevalent.The most famous campanile is probably the Leaning Tower of Pisa...
tower and the attached Judson Hall were designated landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission is the New York City agency charged with administering the city's Landmarks Preservation Law. The Commission was created in April 1965 by Mayor Robert F. Wagner following the destruction of Pennsylvania Station the previous year to make way for...
in 1966, and were added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1974.
History
The church was founded by Edward JudsonEdward Judson
Edward Judson was an American Baptist clergyman, born at Maulmain, British Burma, a son of the missionary Adoniram Judson and his second wife, Sarah Hall Boardman...
who had been preaching at the Bearean Baptist Church on Downing Street, also in the village, but his efforts at expanding the congregation were so successful that a new sanctuary was required. In 1888, with the backing of John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller
John Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
and other prominent Baptists, construction of a new church south of the park was begun. Judson had chosen the location because he wanted to reach out to the neighboring communities. It was to be a memorial to Judson's father, Adoniram Judson
Adoniram Judson
Adoniram Judson, Jr. was an American Baptist missionary, who served in Burma for almost forty years. At the age of 25, Adoniram Judson became the first Protestant missionary sent from North America to preach in Burma...
, one of the first Protestant missionaries to Burma.
By the mid-19th century, the village had the largest African-American community in the city, along with joined German, French and Irish immigrants, and to the immediate south a majority of Italian immigrants. Earlier more affluent communities had begun an exodus from the adjacent neighborhoods to the south and east. Judson observed that "the intelligent, well-to-do, and church going people withdraw from 'this part of the city'." The park and the new church stood at the intersection between the affluence of Fifth Avenue and the poverty of Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
.
The church building was designed by architect Stanford White
Stanford White
Stanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found...
, with stained-glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
windows by John La Farge. It features Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
influences wedded to a basic Italianate form
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
. Sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the Irish-born American sculptor of the Beaux-Arts generation who most embodied the ideals of the "American Renaissance"...
designed a marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
in the baptistery
Baptistery
In Christian architecture the baptistry or baptistery is the separate centrally-planned structure surrounding the baptismal font. The baptistry may be incorporated within the body of a church or cathedral and be provided with an altar as a chapel...
, which was carried out by Herbert Adams; it was completed in 1893.
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.
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 Dr. Eleanor A. Campbell, a pioneering female physician who ran the Judson Health Center
Judson Health Center
Judson Health Center, founded in 1921, was an early New York City Community Health Center inspired by the Rev. Alonzo Ray Petty of the baptist Judson Memorial Church located at 55 Washington Square South. Petty appealed to fellow baptist and physician Eleanor A...
, a free medical and dental clinic. The center operated at 237 Thompson Street from 1922 to 1950, when the clinic moved to its present location on Spring Street in SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
, the neighborhood to the south. During the 1920s, the church, with aid from the national American Baptist denomination, also ran the Judson Neighborhood House, a settlement house, at 179 Sullivan Street.
During the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
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 World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, with the rush of new students the former parish house and health center was turned into a residence for international students and students of various races, led by Dean R. Wright, the Baptist chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
to New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, the church's neighbor. At the same time, a new pastor, Robert Spike, began theological explorations with veterans and the artists then working in the village, which brought a new group of congregants and led to a change in the church's worship style to a more modern sensibility.
In 1957, 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
Al Carmines
Reverend Alvin Allison "Al" Carmines, Jr. was a key figure in the expansion of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in the 1960s.Carmines was born in Hampton, Virginia...
, 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.
Current 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.
Mission
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 drug addicts; in the 1960s, the it led in helping to found a nationwide network network of Protestant and Jewish clergy who aided women who needed abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
s before abortion became legal. In the 1970s, the church operated a residence for runaway teens and established a Professional Women's Clinic for women engaged in prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
; in the 1980s, it helped provide medical resources for people with AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
.
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
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
. 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 Police Athletic League of New York City
Police Athletic League of New York City
The Police Athletic League, Inc. is an independent, non-profit youth development agency in New York City. PAL is funded by a combination of private donations and public funding sources and is a designated charity of the New York Police Department. Robert M. Morgenthau, retired District Attorney...
– blossomed under Henderson's leadership with more than two hundred youth attending one or more weekly events. Many youth were hard-core delinquents and drug users. Henderson appeared in courts on behalf of those facing legal action and began summer youth programs in upstate New York and Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
. Henderson also inaugurated programs for local artists, remodeling the sanctuary for art shows and refurbishing abandoned offices as living quarters for resident artists. Henderson once invited Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
to use the sanctuary for dress rehearsals, which eventually led to formation of the Judson Dance Theatre.
Sponsorship of the arts
Beginning in the 1950s, the church supports a radical arts ministry, first led by associate pastor Bernard Scott and subsequently by associate pastor Al CarminesAl Carmines
Reverend Alvin Allison "Al" Carmines, Jr. was a key figure in the expansion of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in the 1960s.Carmines was born in Hampton, Virginia...
. 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
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
. In 1957, the church offered gallery space to Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
, Jim Dine
Jim Dine
Jim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati, and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with...
and Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, who were then unknown artists. In 1959, the Judson Gallery showed work by pop art
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
ists, Tom Wesselmann
Tom Wesselmann
Tom Wesselmann was an American artist associated with the Pop art movement who worked in painting, collage and sculpture.-Early years:...
, Daniel Spoerri
Daniel Spoerri
Daniel Spoerri is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania, who has been called "the central figure of European post-war art" and "one of the most renown[ed] [artists] of the 20th century." Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," a type of assemblage or object art, in which he captures...
, and Red Grooms
Red Grooms
Red Grooms is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life...
. Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
also had her work exhibited at the gallery.
The Judson Dance Theater, which began in 1962, provided a venue for dancers and choreographers including Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown is a postmodernist American choreographer and dancer.Brown was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and received a B.A. degree in dance from Mills College in 1958. Brown later received a D.F.A. from Bates College in 2000. For several summers she studied with Louis Horst at the American Dance...
, Lucinda Childs
Lucinda Childs
Lucinda Childs is an American postmodern dancer/choreographer. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into an intricate choreographic masterpiece...
, Steve Paxton
Steve Paxton
Steve Paxton is an experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with José Limón. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, he performed works by Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown...
, David Gordon and Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...
to create and show their work. Among others, these dancers and choreographers shaped dance history by creating postmodern dance
Postmodern dance
Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form. A reaction to the compositional and presentation constraints of modern dance, postmodern dance hailed the use of everyday movement as valid performance art and advocated novel methods of dance composition....
, the first avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
movement in dance theater since the modern dance
Modern dance
Modern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...
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 multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
events. Most notable among these multimedia events was the People's Flag Show in November 1970, a six-day exhibition of painting and sculpture on the theme of the American flag
Flag of the United States
The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...
. The exhibit and the accompanying symposium, featuring speeches by Abbie Hoffman
Abbie Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was a political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ....
and Kate Millet, attracted widespread attention from the public, the press and the police. During the final days of the exhibit, three of the contributing artists were arrested, both pastors (Moody and Carmines) were issued summons (not followed up), and the District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
closed the exhibit on charges of desecration of the American flag.
The Judson Poets' Theatre started in November 1961 – with a play by poet Joel Oppenheimer
Joel Oppenheimer
Joel Lester Oppenheimer was an American poet associated with both the Black Mountain poets and the New York School. He was the first director of the St. Marks Poetry Project...
– as one of three off-off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway
Off-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...
venues (the others were Caffe Cino and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club is an off-off Broadway theatre founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, and named in reference to her. Located on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the theatre grew out of Stewart's tiny basement boutique for her fashion designs; the boutique's space acted as a theatre for...
). 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
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
, music by Carmines, with direction by the Judson Poets Theatre director Lawrence Kornfeld.
In the 1980s, the church sponsored various political-theater performances, such as those by the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater
Bread and Puppet Theater
The Bread and Puppet Theater is a politically radical puppet theater, active since the 1960s, currently based in Glover, Vermont...
. These performances included Insurrection Opera and Oratario, performed in February and March 1984. In this performance, the Bread and Puppet Theater, under the direction of its founder, Peter Schumann
Peter Schumann
Peter Schumann is the founder and director of the Bread & Puppet Theater. Born in Silesia, he was a sculptor and dancer in Germany before moving to the United States in 1961. In 1963 he founded Bread & Puppet in New York City, and in 1970 moved to the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, eventually...
, used opera and the company's now signature oversized puppets to convey an anti-nuclear message.
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-Guadens's marble frieze, it features Italian RenaissanceItalian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...
influences wedded to a basic Italianate form, and has notable examples of scagliola
Scagliola
Scagliola , is a technique for producing stucco columns, sculptures, and other architectural elements that resemble inlays in marble and semi-precious stones...
, a very convincing handcrafted imitation of marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
made of highly polished pigmented plaster
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
. Overall, the exterior and shape of the building is said to resemble the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
The Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major , known also by other names, is the largest Roman Catholic Marian church in Rome, Italy.There are other churches in Rome dedicated to Mary, such as Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, but the greater size of the...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, while the entrance is said to be inspired by the Renaissance church San Alessandro, built in Lucca
Lucca
Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...
, Italy, in 1480. The fourteen stained glass windows in the church's main sanctuary are the largest collection of major LaFarge windows in any one place in the U.S.
The campanile tower, located at 51–54 Washington Square South to the west of the church itself, was built in 1895–96, after the santuary had been completed, and was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. The adjacent Hall, however, predates the church, having been built in 1877, and was designed by John G. Prague.
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
New York University School of Law
The New York University School of Law is the law school of New York University. Established in 1835, the school offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in law, and is located in Greenwich Village, in the New York City borough of Manhattan....
, 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. 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 repointed, repainted, reroofed; the stained glass windows were cleaned and reinstalled by Cummings Studio; 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, raised from contributions of arts patrons and the congregation.
Ministers and staff
- Rev. Edward JudsonEdward JudsonEdward Judson was an American Baptist clergyman, born at Maulmain, British Burma, a son of the missionary Adoniram Judson and his second wife, Sarah Hall Boardman...
(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 CarminesAl CarminesReverend Alvin Allison "Al" Carmines, Jr. was a key figure in the expansion of Off-Off-Broadway theatre in the 1960s.Carmines was born in Hampton, Virginia...
(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 (sextonSexton (office)A sexton is a church, congregation or synagogue officer charged with the maintenance of its buildings and/or the surrounding graveyard. In smaller places of worship, this office is often combined with that of verger...
, since mid-1970s) - 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 Laarmen, 2000–2005)
- Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper (minister, since January 2006)
- Rev. Michael Ellick (associate minister, since 2008)
External links
- judson.org, church's official website
- Video (May 10, 2007). Interview of Reverend Donna Schaper. The O'Reilly FactorThe O'Reilly FactorThe O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...
. - Video (May 13, 2007). New Sanctuary Movement (Reverend Donna Schaper and Jean and his family) on Geraldo at LargeGeraldo at LargeGeraldo at Large is a United States television newsmagazine, hosted by Fox News correspondent-at-large and former talk show host Geraldo Rivera.-History:...
. - 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
Archives
- Judson Memorial Church Archive at the Fales LibraryFales LibraryNew York University's Fales Library and Special Collections is located on the third floor of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at 70 Washington Square South between LaGuardia Place and the Schwartz Plaza, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It houses nearly 200,000...
of New York UniversityNew York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan... - Judson Memorial Church Oral History Archive at the Fales Library