Judson Memorial Church | Baptist church, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, 1893_construction, United Church of Christ (UCC), Renaissance Revival (architecture)

 Baptist church, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, 1893_construction, United Church of Christ (UCC), Renaissance Revival (architecture)

American Baptist Church/United Church of Christ in the Greenwich Village, completed in 1893. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, the church includes a 10-story campanile tower. The 7-story sections at 52-54 Washington Square South were built as the Judson Hotel, an apartment hotel developed by the adjacent Judson Church to produce income for the congregation. NYU acquired the building in 1925 and converted it into a dormitory in 1933. It was renovated as King Carlos I Center in 1997 by Polshek & Partners.

The Italian Renaissance design of the church, which is adjacent to and contiguous with the tower (campanile) of Judson Hall, has a 2-story entrance doorway set between the tower and the church proper. Five half round steps lead gracefully up to a small platform, where one enters the church through a pair of dark wood paneled doors, recessed within a richly decorated Italian Renaissance terra-cotta frame. The shallow arched porch (portico) is supported by two columns. The panels (coffers) in the vault of the arch contain floral rosettes centered in ornamental panels. The entry section is topped by a low-pitched tile roof.

The bands of superb terra-cotta ornament alternating with two courses of recessed yellow Roman brick continue in horizontal bands around the first floor of the north and east elevations. The north facade contains three round-headed stained glass windows placed between brick pilasters and symmetrically balanced by round-headed brick panels. Below the sills are marble panels enframed in handsome terra-cotta moldings. Crowning this facade is a beautifully proportioned low-pitched pediment enriched by a handsomely ornate cornice. The east elevation also contains slender brick pilasters placed between seven round-headed stained glass windows, enhanced by their graceful arches sweeping along this facade in uninterrupted rhythm.

Above the banded base of the campanile tower, which also has concrete steps leading up to its door, are three floors of paired square-headed windows. The rest of the stories above are each set off by a dentiled band course. The 5th & 6th floors have two round-arched windows, while the top floors each have three round-arched windows. Those on the top floor are separated by stone columns instead of brick pilasters. All of the upper-floor openings on the west facade, and some of those on the east side, are bricked-in. The tower is topped by a low-pitched tile roof.

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