Calvary Baptist Church is located at 123 West 57th Street

57th Street (Manhattan)

57th Street is one of New York City's major east-west thoroughfares, which runs east-west in the Midtown section of the borough of Manhattan, from the New York City Department of Sanitation's dock on the Hudson River at the West Side Highway to a small park overlooking the East River built on a...

 between the Avenue of the Americas

Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)

Sixth Avenue – officially Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown"...

 (Sixth Avenue) and Seventh Avenue

Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)

Seventh Avenue, known as Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard north of Central Park, is a thoroughfare on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is southbound below Central Park and a two-way street north of the park....

, near Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in Midtown Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. It is an independent, non-affiliated church. The senior pastor is Rev. David Paul Epstein, the brother of television personality Kathie Lee Gifford

Kathie Lee Gifford

Kathie Lee Gifford is an American television host, singer, songwriter and actress, best known for her 15-year run on the talk show Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, which she co-hosted with Regis Philbin...

. Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 and Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 have worshipped at Calvary, and Billy Sunday

Billy Sunday

William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, became the most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.Born into poverty in Iowa, Sunday spent some...

 and Billy Graham

Billy Graham

William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...

 have preached there.

The church was founded in 1847, and its first sanctuary was at 50 West 23rd Street

23rd Street (Manhattan)

23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of few two-way streets in the gridiron of the borough. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided at Fifth Avenue, in this case at Madison Square Park, into its east and west sections. Since...

, completed in 1854. It then moved to a red sandstone Gothic church designed by John Rochester Thomas

John Rochester Thomas

John Rochester Thomas was an American architect credited in his time with being the nation's most prolific designer of public and semi-public buildings....

 at its current location, which was built in 1883-1884. It also had a chapel at 223 West 67th Street, which was later used by St. Matthew's Roman Catholic Church.

The current building is an early example of an urban high-rise, or "skyscraper" church, a 16-story building which also includes the Hotel Salisbury, an apartment hotel. Planning for the new edifice began in 1929, with the design credited to the firm of Jardine, Hall & Murdock, and the building was dedicated in 1931. The church's two Steinway

Steinway & Sons

Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...

 grand pianos were donated to the church by pianist Van Cliburn

Van Cliburn

Harvey Lavan "Van" Cliburn Jr. is an American pianist who achieved worldwide recognition in 1958 at age 23, when he won the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, at the height of the Cold War....

, who attended periodically while living in the hotel.

Calvary was one of the earliest churches to operate its own radio station, in 1923, and has a long tradition of widely followed religious broadcasts

Religious broadcasting

Religious broadcasting refers to broadcasting by religious organizations, usually with a religious message. Many religious organizations have long recorded content such as sermons and lectures, and have moved into distributing content on their Internet websites.While this article emphasises...

.

Senior Pastors

• 1847-1849 David Bellamy
• 1850-1852 John Dowling
• 1852-1863 A. D. Gillette
• 1864-1869 R. J. W. Buckland
• 1870-1911 Robert Stuart MacArthur
• 1915-1917 Joseph W. Kemp
  Joseph Kemp
  Joseph William Kemp was a Baptist minister and preacher, a revivalist, and a leader of the Christian fundamentalist movement in New Zealand...
  
  
• 1918-1929 John Roach Straton
  John Roach Straton
  Dr. John Roach Straton was a noted pastor. Straton was born into a Baptist pastor's home, the son of Rev...
  
  . During his tenure, Calvary was nationally known as a center for fundamentalism and efforts to reform society in his vision of Bible based morality.
• 1930-1934 Will H. Houghton
• 1936-1949 William Ward Ayer A poll found preacher and religious broadcaster Ayer to be Manhattan's "third most influential citizen" behind Eleanor Roosevelt
  Eleanor Roosevelt
  Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
  
   and religious broadcaster Bishop Fulton Sheen.
• 1950-1957 John Summerfield Wimbish
• 1959-1973 Stephen F. Olford
  Stephen F. Olford
  Stephen F. Olford was a 20th century Christian leader.Dr. Billy Graham called him "the man who most influenced my ministry."He was a personal confidant of Graham. Olford was also a role model and friend to prominent pastors such as Charles Stanley and Adrian Rogers. He was a pioneer in Christian...
  
  
• 1976-1986 Donald R. Hubbard
• 1989-1994 James O. Rose, Jr.
• 1997–present David Paul Epstein

External links

• Calvary Baptist Church website