Calvary Baptist Church

On 57th St. between 6th & 7th Aves., dedicated in 1931, it's a skyscraper church with a crusader castle bell tower.  According to the References section at Wikipedia, it was the base of a radio broadcast empire, where "pentecostal delerium" reigned at times inside the church while its pastor Joseph W. Kemp called modern dancing -- where a man places his right hand on a woman's waist, and holds her right hand with his left -- a "shameless exhibition [that] violates the soundest hygienic laws."




Meanwhile, a 90 floor condo-hotel with two penthouses priced at $98.5 million each is going up down the block.  Isn't it wonderful we live in a world where even that amount will be chump change to someone?  You can see just the yellow construction crane above, and the hulk itself rising below left.

It's bad enough that it will obscure some of that odd building between it and the church, featured here, but I'm really going to be upset if its construction wrecks the Alwyn Court, at its feet on 58th St., and featured here.

Judson Memorial Church

Three angles on the front of Jusdon Memorial Church on Washington Square.

St. Thomas Church Statues

Unlike a lot of buildings (and churches) around New York, every slot on the face of St. Thomas Church (5th Ave. & 53rd St.) that looks like it should contain a statue actually does contain a statue.

Above, the top of the 5th Ave. entrance.  When I looked at the closeup below left I thought "They look way too grim to spend eternity with."  You would have to visit hell every so often just to thaw out from their icy glare.


Above right, the massive tower's clean lines look almost calligraphic, and the emptiness of the "statue slots," like the little huts on the corner, looks intentional.  Maybe it's meant to suggest missing persons, or vacancies in heaven?

And the statues below, just above the entrance, look warmer and less stern -- in spite of the spear and sword -- than the bookish ones above them, on top here.  Maybe the builders didn't want to scare parishioners on the way in?