St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church was a Reformed Protestant Dutch church in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...

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, which was

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's oldest congregation when it was demolished in 1949. The church was on the northwest corner of

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and 48th Street near

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. The church was built in 1872 to

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designs in

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by architect W. Wheeler Smith and "distinguished by an elegantly tapered spire that, according to John A. Bradley in ''

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'', 'many declare…the most beautiful in this country.'" The congregation dated to 1628. St Nicholas's was the New York City church attended by

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, and a memorial service was held for him on January 30, 1919. In the 1920s, during the

construction of Rockefeller Center The construction of the Rockefeller Center complex in New York City was conceived as an urban renewal project in the late 1920s, spearheaded by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to help revitalize Midtown Manhattan. Rockefeller Center is on one of Colum ...

, the governing body of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Churches of New York considered putting the church up for sale, which prompted an early preservation campaign in New York with the Rev. Dr, Joseph R. Sizoo, the church's minister, arguing that the church was "a shrine" and its sale would put the dollar sign before the cross. Despite initial success, the pastor, Rev. Dr. Malcolm James MacLeod, later reneged on the church's intention to sell to the Rockefeller complex for as much as $7 million. the tension between the minister with congregation and the pro-sale church governing body led most of the congregation and Sizoo to leave. The governing body pitched the sale again in 1946, and after "considerable public debate", a deal was made in 1949. The church was demolished to make way for the Sinclair Oil Company Building at 596 (now 600) Fifth Avenue. The bell of the church came from the Middle Collegiate Church, built in the 1830s on Lafayette Place (now

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) after it was abandoned. After the demolition of St Nicholas's, the bell was relocated to the New Middle Collegiate Church on Second Avenue, Manhattan.

List of pastors

*1900–1908: Donald Sage Mackay, D.D., L.L.D. *1910 – ''unknown'': Malcolm James MacLeod DD *1936–1947: Joseph R. SizooArmin Haeussler, ''The story of our hymns: the handbook to the Hymnal of the Evangelical and Reformed Church'' (1952), p. 954: "Dr. Joseph Sizoo, pastor of St. Nicholas Collegiate Dutch Reformed Church, New York, from 1936 to 1947"

References

External links

Photos and history of the church
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, New York City 1949 disestablishments in New York (state) Dutch-American culture in New York City Former churches in New York (state) Churches in Manhattan Churches completed in 1872 19th-century Reformed Church in America church buildings Gothic Revival church buildings in New York City Closed churches in New York City Demolished churches in New York City Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan Religious organizations established in 1628 17th-century Calvinist and Reformed churches Reformed Church in America churches Former Dutch Reformed churches in New York (state) Buildings and structures demolished in 1949 1628 establishments in the Dutch Empire Rockefeller Center