The Middle Collegiate Church is a

United Church of Christ The United Church of Christ (UCC) is a socially liberal mainline Protestant Christian denomination based in the United States, with historical and confessional roots in the Congregational, Restorationist, Continental Reformed, and Lutheran t ...

church located at 112 Second Avenue between 6th and

7th Seventh is the ordinal form of the number seven. Seventh may refer to: * Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution * A fraction (mathematics), , equal to one of seven equal parts Film and television *"The Seventh", a second-season ep ...

Streets in the East Village neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

."The Collegiate Churches of New York City"
Reformed Church in America. The

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

church was built from 1891 to 1892 as the congregation's fourth location, and was designed by Samuel B. Reed. It featured stained-glass windows by

Louis Comfort Tiffany Louis Comfort Tiffany (February 18, 1848 – January 17, 1933) was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is associated with the art nouveauLander, David"The Buyable ...

. It is located within the

East Village/Lower East Side Historic District __NOTOC__ The East Village/Lower East Side Historic District in Lower Manhattan, New York City was created by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on October 9, 2012.Brazee, Christopher D., et al"East Village/Lower East Side Histor ...

. It is part of the

Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church The Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church is a Dutch Reformed congregation in Manhattan, New York City, which has had a variety of church buildings and now exists in the form of four component bodies: the Marble, Middle, West End and F ...

. On December 5, 2020, the church was gutted by a fire that left only its stone exterior and its bell intact.Cramer, Maria and Sandoval, Edgar (December 5, 2020
"East Village Fire Damages 128-Year-Old Church"
''

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Church building

The church was built in 1891 on a site directly north of the Isaac T. Hopper House, and was designed by the architect S. B. Reed, "'thoroughly equipped' as one guide said, 'with reading-rooms, gymnasium, and all appliances for aggressive modern church work'." The

stained-glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

windows were of

Tiffany glass Tiffany glass refers to the many and varied types of glass developed and produced from 1878 to 1929–1930 at the Tiffany Studios in New York City, by Louis Comfort Tiffany and a team of other designers, including Clara Driscoll, Agnes F. Northr ...

. The church bell, moved to the current building in 1949, was cast in Amsterdam in 1729. It was known as "New York's Liberty Bell" because it was rung to celebrate the signing of the

Declaration of Independence A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

in 1776. It also marked the inaugurations and deaths of American presidents, remembrances of the

September 11th attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, and other occasions, such as the death of

King George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of In ...

in 1952.Slotkin, Jason (December 5, 2020
"Massive Fire Tears Through Historic Church Home To 'New York's Liberty Bell'"

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The congregation is known for its activism.

Previous locations

The congregation was founded in 1628 in what was then the Dutch settlement of

New Amsterdam New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''Factory (trading post), fac ...

, and the first Middle Church was built in 1731 on Nassau Street. It is one of the oldest continuous

Protestant Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...

congregations in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. During the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

, when the British occupied New York, the Nassau Street building was used as a prison, a hospital, and a riding school. After the war it was converted back to a church, but became the city's main post office in 1844, a role it played for over 30 years. Meanwhile, the congregation built another sanctuary on Lafayette Place from 1836 to 1839. Called the Second Middle Collegiate Church, or the Lafayette Place Middle Dutch Church, it was an

Isaiah Rogers Isaiah Rogers (August 17, 1800 – April 13, 1869) was an American architect from Massachusetts who eventually moved his practice south, where he was based in Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio. He completed numerous designs for hotels ...

-designed

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

building with a spire, an unusual combination which provoked the remark that the spire was there to Christianize the pagan building below it. The congregation abandoned the building in 1887, and it was razed, but not before the bell was moved to the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas. It returned to the Middle Collegiate Church – by now at Second Avenue – when St. Nicholas was demolished in December 1949. Other existing churches tracing their congregational founding to the same first

of 1628 include

West End Collegiate Church The West End Collegiate Church is a church on West End Avenue at 77th Street (Manhattan), 77th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It is part of The Collegiate Reformed Church in America, Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in the City of New ...

(built 1892), located on the corner of

West End Avenue West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

and 77th Street;

Marble Collegiate Church The Marble Collegiate Church, founded in 1628, is one of the oldest continuous Protestant congregations in North America. The congregation, which is part of two denominations in the Reformed tradition—the United Church of Christ and the Refor ...

, at

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...

and 29th Street; and the Fort Washington Collegiate Church, at Magaw Place and

181st Street The borough of Manhattan in New York City contains 214 numbered east–west streets ranging from 1st to 228th, the majority of them designated in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. These streets do not run exactly east–west, because the grid pla ...

. All are part of the Reformed Church in America.

Fire

On December 5, 2020, a six-alarm fire spread from an adjacent vacant building, engulfed the church structure, and left intact only the exterior stone walls. The fire, accidentally caused by electrical wiring, took nearly eight hours to extinguish. The church roof collapsed, the Tiffany windows were blown out, and the sanctuary was destroyed. Only the "Liberty Bell" and the exterior survived, including the tower in which the bell hung. A senior minister of the church described the aftermath as "a gutted building full of smoke".

New York City Fire Department The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) is the full-service fire department of New York City, serving all Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs. The FDNY is responsible for providing Fi ...

Assistant Chief John Hodgens described the church and the adjacent building as "total losses", and their structural stability was being evaluated by engineers in the wake of the blaze. The fate of the church building was initially unclear, but the ministry will continue, and fundraising to rebuild commenced. Mayor

Bill de Blasio Bill de Blasio (; born Warren Wilhelm Jr., May 8, 1961; later Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm) is an American politician who was the List of mayors of New York City, 109th mayor of New York City, mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of t ...

pledged the city's assistance with rebuilding. Services had been conducted online since March 2020 because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, and continued after the blaze. The church was insured for fire, and received about $500,000 in donations by Christmas 2020, but the funds were still "nowhere close to what's needed for rebuilding". Demolition of the remainder of the facade began in November 2023. The congregation planned to erect a new building on the site, with elements salvaged from the old church building.

References

External links

*
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:New Middle Dutch Church (New York City) Building and structure collapses caused by fire Building and structure collapses in 2020 Building and structure collapses in New York Building and structure fires in New York City Church fires in the United States Churches completed in 1891 Churches in Manhattan East Village, Manhattan Former Dutch Reformed churches in New York (state) Gothic Revival church buildings in New York City Presidential churches in the United States Religious organizations established in 1628 Reformed Church in America churches Second Avenue (Manhattan) 17th-century Calvinist and Reformed churches 1628 establishments in the Dutch Empire 19th-century Protestant churches 2020 fires in the United States