Riverside Church

History

Context

Several small Baptist congregations, including the Mulberry Street Baptist Church that was established in 1823 by a group of 16 congregants, were founded in Manhattan after the American Revolutionary War. The Mulberry Street church occupied at least three locations on the Lower East Side and two locations on Broadway in Midtown Manhattan before moving to a more permanent site at Fifth Avenue and 46th Street in the 1860s. The businessman William Rockefeller was the first of several Rockefeller family members to attend the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church; he became a major financial backer of the church in the 1870s. William and his brother John D. Rockefeller later became trustees of the church and many of its services were held at the Rockefellers' home nearby.

Cornelius Woelfkin, who became the church's minister in 1912, started leading the church in a more modernist direction. By the early 20th century, Fifth Avenue was experiencing increased commercial development and the church building became dilapidated. The congregation sold its old headquarters in 1919 and bought land at Park Avenue and 63rd Street the following year. John Rockefeller's son John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded half of the projected $1 million cost. The new church, which was dubbed the "Little Cathedral", was designed by Henry C. Pelton in partnership with Francis R. Allen and Charles Collens. The final service in the Fifth Avenue location was held on April 3, 1922, and the renamed Park Avenue Baptist Church held its first class in the new location the next week.

In 1924, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated $500,000 to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights, which was further uptown from the Park Avenue location, in an unsuccessful attempt to influence the cathedral's ideology in a progressive direction. The following January, Harry E. Edmonds—leader of the International House in Morningside Heights for whose construction Rockefeller had provided funds—wrote to Rockefeller to propose creating a new church in the neighborhood. Edmonds suggested progressive pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick should head such a church. Rockefeller then told the Park Avenue Baptist Church's leaders about the plan and hired an agent to inspect the planned church site.

Woelfkin quit in mid-May 1925 and Rockefeller Jr. immediately started looking for a new minister, ultimately deciding on Fosdick, who had declined Rockefeller's offers several times, saying he did not "want to be known as the pastor of the richest man in the country". Fosdick stated he would accept the minister position on the conditions that the church would move to Morningside Heights, follow a policy of religious liberalism, remove the requirement for members to be baptized, and become nondenominational. At the end of May 1925, Fosdick agreed to become minister of the Park Avenue Baptist Church. Only fifteen percent of congregants voted against Fosdick's appointment.

Planning and construction

Morningside Heights, where the new church was to be located, was being quickly developed as a residential neighborhood surrounded by numerous higher-education institutions, including Union Theological Seminary and International House of New York. The development had been spurred by the presence of Riverside Park and Riverside Drive nearby, as well as the construction of the New York City Subway's Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line—the modern-day 1 train—under Broadway. Rockefeller briefly considered a location on Morningside Drive on the eastern edge of Morningside Heights, between 117th and 118th Streets. He ultimately chose a larger site at the southeastern corner of Riverside Drive and 122nd Street on the neighborhood's western border, which overlooked Riverside Park to the west and Claremont Park to the north. Rockefeller felt the Riverside Drive site was more easily visible because it abutted the Hudson River and would be seen by recreational users of Riverside Drive.

In May 1925, Rockefeller finalized his purchase of the new church's site at Riverside Drive. That July, he exchanged his previous purchase of a plot on Morningside Drive for another plot on Riverside Drive. Shortly afterward, he acquired yet more land, after which he had a frontage of 250 ft (76 meters) on Riverside Drive for the new church. At the time of the acquisition, three apartment buildings and two mansions occupied the church's future site. Rockefeller wished to keep the apartments in place for several years to fund the church's eventual construction.

Rockefeller was the chairman of the committee tasked with developing a new building for the church. Hoping to avoid publicity, rather than host an architectural competition, he privately asked several architectural firms to submit plans for the building. Rockefeller tried to downplay his role in the planning and construction process, asking for his name to be omitted from media reports and discussion of the church, though with little success. His role in the selection process raised concerns from church trustees, including Fosdick, who believed such close financial involvement could place the church in "a very vulnerable position". John Roach Straton, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church on 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, criticized Rockefeller's involvement and mockingly suggested it be called the Socony Church after the oil company the Rockefellers headed. George S. Chappell, writing in The New Yorker under the pseudonym "T-Square", said the project "was known to most secular minds as the Rockefeller Cathedral".

Use

The completion of the new church building at Morningside Heights resulted in a steady increase in the congregation's membership. By May 1946, the congregation had 3,500 members, an increase of 800 in twenty years. According to a brochure issued by the church, "soon every room ... was in use seven days a week", and enrollment at the church's Sunday school had correspondingly increased.

Riverside Church became a community icon and a religious center of Morningside Heights. By 1939, the church had more than 200 staff in both part-time and full-time positions, and over 10,000 people a week were attending its social and religious services, athletic events, and employment programs. In addition to its well-attended Sunday morning service, Riverside Church hosted Communion services every first Sunday afternoon, as well as Ministry of Music services on other Sunday afternoons. The Riverside Guild, the young-adult fellowship, held worship services during Sunday evenings. Weddings and funerals were also hosted at the church. In 1942, the United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Columbia started using Riverside Church for services, drawing 2,000 attendees on average, and continued to hold its services at the church until October 1945.

In June 1945, Fosdick announced he would step down as senior minister the following May. This spurred a search for a new pastor and in March 1946, Robert James McCracken was chosen for the position and officially became the senior pastor of Riverside Church that October. Fosdick and McCracken held each other in mutual respect so the transition between ministers went smoothly. Over the next two decades, McCracken continued Fosdick's policy of religious liberalism. In 1956, halfway through McCracken's tenure, the church conducted an internal report and found the organizational structure was disorganized and that most staff did not feel any single person was in charge. As a result, six councils were created and placed under the purview of the deacons and trustees. The councils partitioned power into "a series of mini-kingdoms", according to a later pastor, Ernest T. Campbell.

Construction on the Martin Luther King Jr. Wing, to the south of the existing church, started in 1955. The seven-story wing was designed by Collens, Willis & Beckonert, successors to Allen & Collens; its $15 million cost was funded by Rockefeller. The wing was dedicated in December 1959 and contained additional facilities for the church's programs. A 15-foot (4.6 m) dummy antenna had been placed on top of Riverside Church's 392-foot (119 m)-tall carillon earlier that year to determine whether it could be used by Columbia University's radio station, WKCR (89.9 MHz FM), despite strong opposition from parishioners and the local community. Nevertheless, the church decided to place an antenna atop the carillon for its own radio station, the top of the antenna being 440 feet (130 m) above ground level. Riverside Church started operating the radio station WRVR (106.7 MHz FM) in 1961 and continued to operate it until 1976. In 1960, Riverside Church's congregation voted to join the United Church of Christ, the successor denomination to the Congregational Christian Churches. Rockefeller purchased the Stone Gym, an existing Union Theological Seminary building southeast of the original church, and reopened it as a community facility in April 1962 after a five-year renovation. In April 1967, McCracken announced he would leave his position as senior minister, citing health issues.

Architecture

Riverside Church occupies a 454-by-100-foot (138 m × 30 m) lot between Riverside Drive to the west, 122nd Street to the north, Claremont Avenue to the east, and 120th Street to the south. Riverside Church's main architects; Henry C. Pelton, Francis R. Allen, and Charles Collens; created the general plan for the church. Pelton was most involved with tactical planning while Collens was most involved with the Gothic detail. Sculptural elements were designed by Robert Garrison and constructed by local studios, including the Piccirilli Brothers. The church's interior was designed by Burnham Hoyt. The Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Wing to the south of the original building was designed by Collens, Willis & Beckonert and the Stone Gym to the southeast was designed by Louis E. Jallade. As of 2017, Riverside Church is the tallest church in the United States and is among the world's tallest churches, with a tower rising 392 feet (119 m).

Pelton and Collens chose a Gothic architectural style for Riverside Church's exterior; by contrast, the internal structure incorporates modern curtain walls and a steel frame. Fosdick later said the exterior Gothic style is suited to "make people pray" and that the church had "not outgrown Gothic" in that regard. Riverside Church's design is partially derived from Chartres Cathedral in France but also incorporates designs of several Gothic churches in France and Spain. Pelton and Collens said Chartres would provide the "fundamental principles" for the design of Riverside Church but that Riverside would have a completely different outline. The features inspired by Chartres include the detailing of the three Riverside Drive entrances and the lack of decorative elements on the facade, except for the stained glass windows on the walls and the sculptural elements around each portal. The massive single bell tower was inspired by the two western towers at Chartres. The rest of the facade consists of Indiana Limestone.

Upon Riverside Church's completion, its design received both praise and criticism. In mid-1931, The American Architect published pieces in mid-1931 that featured a critical viewpoint from Columbia architecture professor Walter A. Taylor and a rebuttal from architect Charles Crane, who had worked on the project with Pelton. While Taylor believed the design should have been more modernist, Crane defended Pelton's Gothic design as being "fundamentally Christian". The writers of the 1939 WPA Guide to New York City said the tower's features make the "building itself seem smaller than it is, so that its scale is scarcely impressive, even when seen at close range". Other critics called the building's exterior overly opulent; according to one critic, when considered along with the progressive ideology, the Gothic design "can only be interpreted as an outward confession that religion is dead". The New York Sun referred to the building as one of the "most outstanding additions" to New York City's church architecture "in recent years". Eric Nash, in his book Manhattan Skyscrapers, called Riverside Church "Manhattan's last great eclectic skyscraper" while the AIA Guide to New York City dubbed the church "easily the most prominent architectural work along the Hudson [River] from midtown to the George Washington Bridge".

Main building

Riverside Church's main structure is centered around the nave, which is aligned on a north–south axis and is closer to Riverside Drive on the western portion of the block. The chapel and narthex are to the south, closer to 120th Street, while the chancel, which contains the altar, and the ambulatory are to the north, closer to 122nd Street.

The western facade of the church's nave is adjacent to Riverside Drive. At the time of Riverside Church's construction, the church did not own the lots along 120th Street to the south so the building's three entrances are on its western side facing Riverside Drive rather than on the southern side at the back of the nave, as is customary in most churches. The entrances are atop small flights of steps leading from the street. The building's main entrance faces west and is below the tower's base and is accessed through a set of double wooden doors with recessed wooden panels. The figures sculpted in the concentric archivolts of the doorway represent leading religious, scientific, and philosophical figures, and an elaborate tympanum is below the arches (see § Sculpted elements). To the south is the entrance to the narthex, which is accessed through a single door. Directly south of the narthex entrance, another double-door entrance leads to the chapel; this entrance contains two archivolts and a simpler tympanum. The northern portion of the western facade adjacent to the nave has five sets of windows (see § Nave).

The view of the southern facade is mostly blocked by the MLK Wing to the south. The top portions of four narrow, arched stained-glass windows can be seen above the hip roof of the structure that connects the two sections. Above these stained-glass windows are three recessed, arched windows that are topped by a pediment containing a circular window.

The eastern facade also has five groupings of windows facing the nave but much of this facade is obscured by McGiffert Hall, which faces directly onto Claremont Avenue and 122nd Street. On the eastern facade of the nave is a cloistered passageway leading to Claremont Avenue (see § Cloister passageway). Above the cloister section is a rose window.

The northern facade surrounds the chancel and ambulatory. An arched entrance called the Woman's Porch, which contains carvings of biblical women, is in the western portion of the north facade. Above the entrance arch is an ornate belt course and nearby are two lancet windows. Another entrance is in the eastern (right) portion of the north facade. Between the two entrances is the ambulatory, with two tiers of window groupings, each with a rose window above a pair of lancet windows. The lower section has three sets of windows while the upper clerestory section has five sets of windows. Vertical buttresses, which separate each window grouping, end in finials above the roofline.

Tower and carillon

The 392-foot (119 m) tower was named after Laura Spelman Rockefeller, the mother of John D. Rockefeller Jr. The tower contains 21 usable floors, which include 80 classrooms and office rooms. There are four elevators, of which two rise only to the 10th floor, whereas the other two rise to the 20th floor. The 20-floor elevators, which rise 355 feet (108 m), were described in 1999 as the world's tallest elevators inside a church. Two staircases ascend from ground level; one on the western side of the tower ends at the ninth floor, and the one on the eastern side continues to the carillon. Balconies are at the southern corners on the 8th floor and on all sides of the 10th floor except the north side.

The tower's main entrance is on the western elevation of the tower's base and is flanked by projecting vertical piers (see § Facade). Seven arched niches, each containing one statue of a king, are above the main entrance. A large rose window is above the statuary grouping. The apex of the tower is fitted with aircraft warning lights. Above the tenth floor are five tiers of window arrangements on each floor; the higher tiers become progressively narrower. From bottom to top, the successive tiers have two, three, four, and five windows on each side. There are narrow, canopied niches in each corner of the tower, with one statue inside each niche. At the top of the tower is a conical metal roof.

Most of the tower's stories have plaster floors, steel doors, steel window frames, and iron lighting fixtures hanging from each ceiling. There are elevator lobbies with vaulted ceilings on several stories of the tower. On the stories that contain common spaces, including the ninth and tenth floors, the floors are finished with stone, terrazzo, and wood, and are fitted with wooden doors. Several spaces in the tower have been used by outside entities, who carpeted floors and installed lighting fixtures in some office rooms.

Originally, the fourth through fourteenth floors were occupied by Riverside Church's school while the fifteenth floor and above contained staff and clergy offices, as well as spaces for group activities. The second floor connects to the nave's lower seating gallery, while the third floor leads to the upper seating gallery. The fourth through eighth floors are below the height of the nave's ceiling; these housed the nursery, junior high, and high school departments of the church's school. The ninth and tenth floors housed the double-story school kitchen, school offices, and storage rooms over the nave. The ninth floor also houses a library, and there is wooden furniture in the kitchen and library. The main structure's roof is above the tenth floor, and the tower rises independently above that point. The eleventh through fourteenth floors originally contained the church's elementary school while the fifteenth and sixteenth floors respectively housed the young people's meeting room and the social room. These floors were later converted into office space, and several floors were subdivided and leased out. The seventeenth through twentieth floors include meeting rooms and the seventeenth floor also contains offices. The twenty-first floor includes the carilloneur's studio and the twenty-second floor is devoted to mechanical space.

Cloister passageway

The cloister passageway leads from the southern portion of the nave to Claremont Avenue in the east. It has four pointed-arch bays, each with a Corinthian-style colonette topped by a grisaille window opening on the south wall. The north and south walls also contain stained-glass windows; the northern wall's windows are artificially illuminated. Inside the cloister passageway are five vaults, which are illuminated by six lanterns. The entrance to the passageway is a small, two-story structure with two arched doorways facing Claremont Avenue and a set of double doors facing a short wheelchair ramp to the south. The top of the cloister entrance's eastern facade contains three niches with figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the southeastern corner contains a figure of Maaseiah. A gift shop is adjacent to the cloister passageway, and sculptures of the church's architects and builder are above the doorway leading to the tower's base.

Martin Luther King Jr. Wing

The Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Wing is a seven-story annex south of the main structure and facing 120th Street along the southern boundary of the plot. The long arm of this L-shaped building lies north–south adjacent to Riverside Drive and the short arm lies west–east next to 120th Street. The MLK Wing connects to the original church building to the north and the Stone Gym to the east. The area between the MLK Wing and the cloister forms a small courtyard or garth, which is enclosed on the eastern side by a metal fence. Inside the wing are children's chapels, space for the school, a rooftop recreation area, space for a radio station, community areas including a gymnasium and assembly room, and a basement with a parking lot.

The structure, which was designed by Collens, Willis and Beckonert, and built by Vermilea-Brown, is a simplified version of Allen and Collens' original church design and was perceived as being "modern Gothic". The building was known as the South Wing until 1985, when it was renamed for civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

The facade is clad with Indiana limestone, the foundation is made of stone and concrete, and the structure is supported by a steel frame. The main entrance is through the chapel doors on Riverside Drive to the west; there are also entrances to the basement from 120th Street. The basement, first and second floors of the western facade contains eight architectural bays, each with one small lancet window, which are recessed between projecting buttresses and below a set of arches. The two outermost bays project slightly outward and do not contain recessed arches. The section of the MLK Wing above the second floor is set back from Riverside Drive, and the windows on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors are also recessed between buttressed arches. The seventh-floor windows are flush with the buttresses. The two outermost bays have two sets of windows rather than a single window on each floor, and project slightly outward.

The wing's southern and eastern facades are designed in a similar fashion to the upper portion of the western facade; the seventh-floor windows are flush with the buttresses while the windows below are in recessed arched bays. The southern facade contains eight window bays, six of which are recessed. There are no windows into the first and second floors on the westernmost four bays of the southern facade but the eastern four bays do have windows into these floors. On the far eastern portion of the southern facade are two pointed-arched openings that lead to the church's underground parking garage (see § Basement). The eastern facade is separated into two sections; the section at the end of the wing's short arm contains four recessed window bays. The section next to the north–south axis of the "L" contains six window bays, four of which are recessed.

Stone Gym

The Stone Gymnasium is a 1+1⁄2-story English Gothic building at 120th Street and Claremont Avenue, east of the Martin Luther King Jr. Wing. The gym was built in 1912 to a design by Louis E. Jallade and was originally used by the Union Theological Seminary. Its architectural details include a facade of schist with limestone decoration and a metal hip roof. The structure measures five bays long on the eastern facade and one bay wide on the southern and northern facades. In 1957, Rockefeller donated the building to the church and five years later, it reopened as a gymnasium and community facility. The building's interior contains a basketball court with synthetic flooring, and there are offices and lockers in its northern end.

Basement

Riverside Church's basement includes several modern amenities such as a 250-seat movie theater and a gymnasium with a full-size basketball court. The section of the basement under the nave has a double-height ceiling; an assembly hall is on the southern side of this space while the gymnasium is on the northern side. The assembly hall has a stone floor and walls, and there are six arched stained-glass windows on the eastern wall and one rectangular stained glass window on the south wall, as well as cabinets that contain two Heinrich Hofmann paintings (see § Paintings). It also has a wooden ceiling that is supported by stone arches, with lanterns suspended from the ceiling and a stage in the northern portion. A kitchen is east of the stage, and a corridor runs adjacent to the western wall of the assembly room and gymnasium.

The basement originally included a four-lane bowling alley that was adjacent to the assembly floor. It was later removed and converted into storage space. There is a two-story, 150-space parking garage underneath the MLK Wing.

Organs

The two Riverside Church organs are located in the chancel and the seating gallery. The chancel organ was the 14th largest in the world in 2017. It was furnished in 1930 by Hook and Hastings, and was originally criticized as mediocre. Aeolian-Skinner built an organ console in the chancel in 1948 and replaced the chancel organ in 1953–1954, under the direction of Virgil Fox. Fox based his design on his changing tastes for organ specifications, and thus, it is reported that at times, he was changing his mind every other day, to the point, that by the time that the almost 200 rank organ was finished, Aeolian Skinner reported that they had lost 15,000 dollars on the project. When the organ was finished, the ceiling above the chancel and the front of the nave was also coated with sealant to improve the chancel's acoustic qualities. The chancel organ was opened with a concert in March 1955 with a concert by Virgil Fox and the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, attended by 3000 people.

In 1964, another Aeolian-Skinner organ was installed within the eastern wall of the nave's seating gallery; three years later, Anthony A. Bufano installed a five-manual console for the gallery organ. The gala concert celebrating the opening of this console included a work for two organs Signs in the Sun commissioned for the event from Daniel Pinkham. M. P. Moller built another stop for the gallery organ, the Trompeta Majestatis, in 1978. Two years later, the chancel organ received a new principal chorus with the addition of the Grand Chorus division. In the 1990s, the console was rewired, the chancel organ was cleaned, and the ceiling was covered with ten layers of sealant.

The Director of Music and organist is Nathaniel Gumbs as of 2025. Past organists at the Riverside Church include Virgil Fox (1946–1965), Frederick Swann (1957–1982), John Walker (1979–1992), Timothy Smith (1992–2008), Christopher Johnson (2009–2021), and Christopher Creaghan (2021-2023).

Art and sculpture

Paintings

Paintings by Heinrich Hofmann that were purchased by Rockefeller Jr. and donated to the church in November 1930 are displayed in the building. Christ in the Temple (1871) and Christ and the Young Rich Ruler (1889) are displayed in the assembly hall beneath the nave, and are usually locked within the cabinets there. Hofmann's Christ in Gethsemane (1890) is displayed the Gethsemane chapel.

Stained glass

Riverside Church's main building contains 51 stained glass windows, excluding small grisaille windows. These were created in a mosaic style, which was becoming more popular at the time of the church's construction. Of these, 34 windows are in the nave; most of them include religious iconography. Generally, the richly colored windows are on the building's western side, which is considered the "light" side, while those with muted colors are on the eastern "dark" side.

French glassmakers Jacques Simon from Reims Cathedral and Charles Lorin from Chartres Cathedral were hired to create the glass for the clerestory windows in the nave. Lorin designed the stained-glass windows on the western side of the clerestory while Simon designed those on the eastern side. Both sets of windows depict general religious and governmental themes, and also incorporate secular iconography and depictions of non-Christians. The clerestory windows closely resemble those at Chartres and include a rose with lancet windows. The other windows in the nave were created by Boston-based firm Reynolds, Francis and Rohnstock and depict 138 scenes with both religious and non-religious contexts. The three groups of stained glass windows in the apse and the nine stained glass windows in the South Hall were created by Harry Wright Goodhue.

Mosaics

Gregor T. Goethals created two mosaics for the fourth and seventh floors of the MLK Wing. The fourth-floor mosaic depicts events described in the Old Testament while the seventh-floor mosaic depicts the Creation story.

Sculpted elements

The building's most prominent sculptural details are on the Riverside Drive facade. The main entrance beneath the tower is topped with five concentric archivolts with sculptures of Jesus's followers and prophets inlaid within each section. The third arch of the main entrance has depictions of philosophers including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Immanuel Kant, and Pythagoras, while the second arch depicts scientists including Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, and Hippocrates. Other figures depict the months of the year. The columns framing the door jambs beneath the archivolts are decorated with capitals and gargoyles at the top and bottom, and a single figure in the middle. In the tympanum above the doors and below the archivolts is a figure of Christ seated, which is flanked by the symbols of the Evangelists.

When Riverside Church was completed, there was controversy over the inclusion of Einstein, a living Jewish man, because the other figures represented people who had since died. According to the publication Church Monthly, during construction, the committee tasked with the church's iconography had proposed depicting 20 scientists, not including Einstein, on the facade. The faculty, however, unanimously decided Einstein should be included because he was indisputably one of 14 "leading scientists of all time".

The chapel entrance on Riverside Drive south of the main entrance contains two archivolts that are supported by two sets of columns. The archivolts depict symbols of the zodiac and the second archivolt contains an elaborate decorative molding. A tympanum relief below the archivolts depicts the Virgin Mary flanked by two angels who are mirror images of each other.

Sculpted elements are also placed within niches that are spread across the church's facade. Above the main entrance on the western facade are sculptures of seven kings. Statues are also included in the tower's niches, as well as in niches on the facade of the cloister entrance to the east. The facade also has gargoyles, which are outside the carillon near the top of the tower. The northern section of the nave's roof contains Angel of the Resurrection, a bronze statue of a trumpeter atop a pedestal.

The carvings inside the church correspond to the respective uses of the areas in which they are sited. For instance, the 20 quatrefoil medallions inscribed on the chancel railing depict the typical "interests, emphases, activities, rites, and ceremonies" that are conducted within the chancel. Around the pulpit are sculptures of ten Old Testament prophets. Above the nave, the southern wall of the upper seating gallery contains multi-tiered niches, whose upper tiers contain sculpted figures of ministers. The two central niches contain a cast of Epstein's gilded-plaster sculpture Christ in Majesty.

Sculpture

When the Martin Luther King Jr. Wing was built, Jacob Epstein's sculpture Madonna and Child, which was commissioned in 1927, was placed in the courtyard between the MLK Wing and the cloistered entrance.

Beliefs

Marriage

The church has an inclusive vision and celebrates both opposite-sex marriages and same-sex marriages.

Social services

Riverside Church was conceived as a complex social-services center from the outset; the building has meeting rooms, classrooms, a daycare center, a kindergarten, library, auditorium, and a gymnasium. It was described by The New York Times in 2008 as "a stronghold of activism and political debate throughout its 75-year history ... influential on the nation's religious and political landscapes". Riverside Church provides various social services, including a food bank, barber training, clothing distribution, a shower project, and confidential HIV tests and HIV counseling. In 2007, The New York Times said Riverside Church has frequently "been likened to the Vatican for America's mainstream Protestants".

Social justice ministries

Riverside Church's prisoner-related ministries, Riverside's Prison Ministry and Family Advocacy Program, conduct worship services in the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, help prisoners and their families, links prisoners to their communities, workshops, support groups, and events, and lobby for prison reform and humane legislation.

Riverside's Coming Home ministry, which was founded in 1985, helps ex-prisoners after they have been released. The prison ministries began in 1971, when the Council on Christian Social Relations created a prison reform and rehabilitation task force. It also deals with homelessness in New York City. Riverside's advocacy of the homeless originated from a similar ministry, the Clothing Room and Food Pantry, which was a subdivision of the Social Services Department. The church began sheltering homeless people overnight from 1984 until 1994, when it was closed due to the decreasing homeless population and a staff shortage.

Riverside participated in the Sanctuary movement during the 1980s, and was among numerous congregations nationwide that sheltered and assisted undocumented immigrants. As part of the New Sanctuary Coalition, volunteers at Riverside Church assist detained asylum seekers and those on parole from immigration detention. In 2011, as part of the Occupy Faith movement, Riverside Church donated tents to Occupy Wall Street protesters and sheltered them during cold and inclement weather, and after the evacuation of Zuccotti Park.

Riverside Church's LGBT ministry is named Maranatha. It was founded in 1978 in response to growing demand from gay and lesbian congregants. Maranatha hosts several activities, workshops, and events, and marches annually in the NYC Pride March. In the 1980s, when the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City was at its peak, there was a backlash against Maranatha because the LGBT community was negatively associated with the epidemic. These events led to the founding of the separate HIV/AIDS ministry, which hosts a support forum, provides testing, counseling, and referral programs, and collaborates with several other programs.. Riverside Church's African Fellowship and Ministry sponsors educational forums about issues facing Africa, advocates on behalf of African diasporas with an active Facebook page. The Sharing and Densford Funds advocate on behalf of Native Americans in the United States. Other ministries at Riverside include support groups for South Africans, and for Hispanic and Latino Americans.

Former programming

When it was completed in 1959, Riverside Church's MLK Wing included space for a radio station that was planned by the church. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the church an FM broadcasting license in 1960, and the following year, the church started operating the radio station WRVR (later WKHK, now WLTW), which broadcast on 106.7 MHz. WRVR originally broadcast from the church's carillon but was relocated to the Empire State Building in 1971 to increase the range of its broadcast signal. WRVR, which was originally a noncommercial station, broadcast sermons and programming from cultural and higher-education institutions in New York City. WRVR incurred an annual net loss for Riverside Church and in 1971, it was turned into a "limited commercial operation", which also failed to pay for itself. The church decided to sell its radio station in 1975, and the sale was finalized the following year.

Starting in November 1976, Riverside Church hosted the Riverside Dance Festival, which was a continuation of previous dance ministries hosted by the church and normally offered 34 weeks of programming from over 60 dance companies. The program ended in June 1987 because of a $900,000 funding shortfall.

A link to 106.7 FM's days as Riverside Church-owned WRVR remains on WLTW in the present day. A recorded sermon from Riverside Church airs on the station from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings, as part of WLTW's non-music public affairs programming.

Called senior ministers

While Riverside Church is interdenominational, it is associated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. In chronological order, the called senior ministers at Riverside Church have been:

Notable speakers

On April 4, 1967, a year before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech called Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, in which he voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War, at Riverside Church. The Rev. Jesse Jackson gave the eulogy at Jackie Robinson's funeral service in 1972. In 1991, Nelson Mandela, anti-apartheid activist and later South African president, spoke at Riverside following his release from prison. Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan spoke there after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and former U.S. president Bill Clinton spoke at the church in 2004.

Speakers at Riverside Church have also included theologians Paul Tillich, who taught nearby, and Reinhold Niebuhr; civil-rights activists Cesar Chavez and Desmond Tutu; Cuban president Fidel Castro; the 14th Dalai Lama; and Abdullah II of Jordan. On March 23, 2026, Democracy Now! held their 30th anniversary event at Riverside Church where Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, and others performed.