Central Baptist Church

 church  Add category

4-story English Gothic-style Baptist church completed in 1917. Designed by Walter Cook, it is clad in rusticated, dark-grey Germantown stone and lighter Indiana limestone, and is highlighted by its square bell tower at the northwest corner.

The main entrance fronting the avenue has three pointed-arches atop a low set of steps, each with a set of paneled wooden doors. These however, are more ceremonial now, as the side entrance on 92nd Street is the currently used one. The three arches are of light-colored limestone, and the pilasters framing them have Gothic finials at the tops, with more Gothic forms between them, above the arches. Surmounting these is a giant, pointed-arch window with subtle tracery. There are quoins at the edges of the window and a large gable above it, with a small, central niche and a crowning Celtic cross. To the south is a buttress and a 2-story section with single-windows at both floors, the 2nd-floor one taller and arched. Another buttress marks the south end of the church, with a 1-story wall with a pointed-arched gate extending to meet the adjoining building.

The bell tower has buttresses at each corner. The west face has a square-headed window at the ground floor, paired arched windows at the 2nd, and a single arched window at the 3rd. The north face has a matching 3rd-floor window, while below there is a square-headed window set at the top of the ground floor. The upper part of the tower has quatrefoil panels at the base of the belfry, which has two tall, narrow arched openings on each side, with cross-bracing dividing them each into four sections. Crocketed finials crown the four corners of the tower, with smaller ones in between.

To the east of the corner tower, the north facade has a slightly recessed section with three large pointed-arch windows with stained-glass, edged in quoins and separated by buttresses. There is a setback above them, to the upper sidewalls of the main chamber, which has small, pointed-arch windows, and a crowning, sloped roof of shingles with copper cresting. The east end projects back out, with three more quoined, shorter, pointed-arches. The first one contains the side entrance, with wooden double-doors set in a shallow pointed-arch, topped by tracery. The other two have windows with tracery at the tops. The 2nd floor has three paired windows edge with quoins and topped by drip moldings. Above these is a large central opening with a pointed-arch and stone tracery, flanked by two much smaller, narrow windows. A gable crowns this section, with a chimney at the east end of the roof.

www.centralbaptistnyc.org/#/0