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After having moved several times since 1886, the Unity Congregational Society of New York purchased the five plots at 244-252 Cathedral Parkway (West 110th Street) between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway in 1921. The firm of Hoppin & Koen was commissioned to design a church-and-community-house on the site. Associate architect A. D. R. Sullivant was given the project. His grand, initial design included a cupola reminiscent of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Sulllivant's 1921 rendering was more than twice the width of the subsequent building. The Christian Register, June 16, 1921 (copyright expired)
But before ground was broken on June 2, 1921, the plans were grossly reduced. Completed in 1922, Sullivant's dignified three-story, neo-Georgian-style edifice engulfed only two of the plots. Above a limestone base, the upper floors were clad in red brick. A centered, temple-like composition of double-height stone pilasters upholding a triangular pediment distinguished the upper sections. (Sullivant's subdued Colonial design would reappear in a much more exuberant form in Thompson, Holmes & Converse's 1929 Tammany Hall on Union Square.)
On June 16, 1921, The Christian Register explained that the building would be called the West Side Meeting House for two reasons:
First, the name is in accord with the Pilgrim Congregational tradition of Unitarianism; second, it is planned to keep the building open throughout the week for any activity that tends to improve the personality of man, woman, or child. Religion embraces not only the worship of God, but also the service of man.
To address the second reason, said the article, "religious, civic, educational, dramatic, literary, musical, recreational, and social gatherings will be held under church auspices and the building will therefore be a meeting-house--a house of meeting--for all who are seeking to build their own characters and to improve the neighborhood and the city."
The West Side Meeting House was completed in 1922. In the basement was an auditorium-theater. It was available for civic meetings and would become the home of the church's own theatrical troupe.
from Little Theatres, December 1923 (copyright expired)
Many mainstream Christians viewed Unitarianism sideways. Its liberal doctrine included the belief in one God while denying the Trinity. Its focus was on reason and tolerance over restricting creeds.
Having a theater within the building offended many Christians, who still considered plays sinful. Rev. Charles Francis Potter had to defend the theater in general. In his sermon on April 22, 1923, he insisted, "There is more obscenity in the Bible than in any current New York play."
Born in 1885, Potter had degrees from Bucknell University, Brown University and Newton Theological Institution. By the time the West Side Meeting House opened, science was making discoveries that fundamentalist preachers deemed heretical. The well-educated and Modernist pastor Charles Potter went on the offensive.
Rev. Charles Francis Potter, Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography
On March 8, 1924, The Universalist Leader said he had initiated a Modernist Bible class, "whose teaching will be broadcast through the United States by radio at 8 p.m. every Sunday." The article said it, "is intended to offset the attacks of the Fundamentalists, who have succeeded in excluding the teaching of science and evolution in regard to religion." Potter told the reporter, "A faith that is disturbed by learning the facts of science is no real faith; it is largely prejudice and superstition."
The following year, Rev. Potter traveled to Dayton, Tennessee to advise Clarence Darrow in the famous Scopes Trial. Potter was open about his disdain of the Fundamentalist Christians who had initiated the suit. He scoffed that the "Holy Rollers" might introduced "a bill prohibiting the teaching of geography in public schools because the Bible indicates that the earth is flat."
Potter was replaced by the erudite Rev. Arthur Wakefield Slaten. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1916 with a thesis titled, "The Qualitive Use of Nouns in the Pauline Epistles, and Their Translation in the Revised Version."
In reporting on his first sermon, on October 19, 1925 The New York Times said, "Dr. Slaten is an advocate of Humanism, noting, "He was dismissed as professor of Biblical literature and Biblical education by [Rochester Theological Seminary] for heresy, based upon his book, 'What Jesus Taught.'"
Barnard Bulletin, November 13, 1925 (copyright expired)
The year before Rev. Slaten's appointment, the Meeting House Theater troupe was organized. On October 16, 1926, The Billboard noted that it "has become favorably known for its good work during the last two seasons. It has won twice successively the cup offered at the little theater tournament of the Metropolitan Federation." The Meeting house Theater premiered Edna Ferber's $1,200 a Year on October 28 that year.
Like his predecessor, Slaten found himself defending the theater. The following month, on November 28, he declared in his sermon, "a play is morally bad only when it represents life falsely." Saying that plays were "valuable contributions to the study of human nature," he insisted, "In no one of these plays is vice made attractive, nor are the facts of life falsely presented."
Slaten continued to raise eyebrows among mainstream Christians. In his sermon on January 2, 1927, he described the book of Genesis, "One of the folk-lore classics of the world's literature."
Rev. Slaten resigned in January 1929 "because of illness," according to his resignation letter. Guest preachers took the pulpit of the West Side Unitarian Church for an extended period.
Two years later, the congregation merged with the Community Church and moved into its facility on Park Avenue and 34th Street. In the meantime, the auditorium, known as the Community Church Centre, continued to be the scene of lectures and meetings. On the evening of February 3, 1933, Dr. Gustav F. Beck addressed an audience of about 100 on the topic "A Philosopher's View of Immortality." In discussing whether there was an afterlife, Beck said it "was a mystery which could not be proved of disproved." The New York Times reported, "Several persons in the audience arose to give their views."
One man, who was around 55 years old, "jumped to his feet and, speaking with a foreign accent, started a fervent comparison of Oriental and Western philosophy," said the article. The impassioned man contended, "When you are dead, you are dead. If these were my last words, I would still maintain it." Ironically, a few seconds later he grasped his chest and fell dead, apparently from a heart attack.
Frank Wilson headed the cast Black, which opened here on May 15, 1934. His career had skyrocketed after starting out in vaudeville. He was in the 1925 Broadway revival of The Emperor Jones, and was part of the original 1927 cast of Porgy. Two years prior to his performance here, he made his film debut in The Girl from Chicago.
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services
The building was leased to Congregation Ramath Orah, a Modern Orthodox congregation. It was founded in 1942 by Dr. Robert Serebrenick, who had been Grand Rabbi of Luxembourg from 1929 to 1940. He had assisted approximately 250 Jews in escaping Luxembourg following the Nazi invasion in 1940.
A troubling incident here in 1944 was made even more so given Rabbi Serebrenick's background. On April 12, The New York Times reported, "A swastika was found crudely painted on a wall outside the Congregation Ramath Orah at 550 West 110th Street yesterday morning." The hateful graffiti was discovered by two police officers passing by in a patrol car. The cops not only reported on the vandalism, but "then helped remove the marking with turpentine and a steel brush," said the article. Rabbi Serebrenik was surprisingly charitable, saying he presumed "that children probably drew the symbol."
The following year, the congregation purchased the building. The dedication ceremony was held on February 11, 1945. Among the speakers was Edgar L. Nathan, the Manhattan Borough President.
Rabbi Robert Serebrenik died of a heart attack at the age of 62 on February 11, 1965. In reporting his death, The New York Times recalled, "After the Nazis occupied [Luxembourg], he stayed on until 1941, when he was seized by the Gestapo and beaten unconscious. After that attack he escaped by way of Lisbon and came to this country."
photograph by Beyond My Ken
Congregation Ramath Orah continues to occupy the building. Other than the stained-glass windows added in 1955, it survives essentially unchanged after nearly a century.
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