Metro Baptist Church

USA / New Jersey / West New York / West 40th Street, 410

4-story church completed in 1913. The Metro Baptist Church moved to this building in 1984, which had previously been St. Clemens Polish-Catholic Church and a drug rehabilitation center. There is an interesting rooftop garden, with 52 space-efficient, plant-filled kiddie pools, as well as several bags hanging on the rails with more vegetation. The rooftop garden is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also practical, with vegetation like bush beans, rhubarb, tomatoes, and apples that are maintained by volunteers and distributed to those in need.

The front facade is clad in dark-tan brick, with lighter-colored brick at the ground floor. The main, central entrance is raised up and fronted by a landing with stairs and iron railings descending to either side; the front wall of the landing is stuccoed and painted tan. At each end, stoops with iron railings lead up to secondary entrances with red metal double-doors in pointed-arch limestone surrounds. The slightly-larger main entrance also has red double-door in a limestone surround, and above it is an impressive double-height window with stone tracery, a shallow-arched top, and arched buttresses across the bottom. Between the three entrances are two bays with narrow arched windows at the ground floor and square basement windows behind the sideways steps. These bay are framed by projecting brick pilasters that continue up the height of the facade, receding back somewhat above horizontal stone panels at the base of the 2nd floor.

The 2nd & 3rd floors have two bays of narrow windows on either side of the large central window opening. A stone band course sets off the top floor, which has a shallow-arched center window with a stone surround and tracery, and narrow double-windows in the end bays. The facade has a crenelated top, stepping up toward the center, and with a small gable at the east end bay.

The west elevation is clad in parged brick, with tan stucco at the front end. Behind the front end are seven bays of windows - single-windows at the 1st & 2nd floors (with pointed-arches at the 2nd floor), and double-windows at the 3rd & 4th floors.
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Coordinates:   40°45'26"N   73°59'39"W
This article was last modified 5 years ago