Our history
How did West End church begin?
West End Church's origins date back to a Sunday School begun in 1887. The Presbyterian Extension Committee
in New York City leased a lot on West 104th Street on which it put a temporary building made of prefabricated
metal parts. At the same time, a group of “earnest, hard working Christians.” were brought together to provide
furnishings and equipment for the building and to enlist the sixty-one members, ten teachers, and six officers with
which the Sunday School started in May 1887. Within six months, a decision was made to begin organizing as
a church.
What were the early days of West End Presbyterian Church like?
Early growth of the church was rapid. In 1904, an article in the New York Herald stated,
“The Church . . . was organized only sixteen years ago with 69 members, and now numbers 1,864 communicants.
In the sixteen years 2,996 persons have been received into membership. The Sunday School has shown corresponding
growth and now numbers 1,366 pupils and teachers. Their property, worth $300,000 entirely free of debt, supports
seven home and foreign missionaries, and carries on extensive sociological work . . . It is the largest of the Presbyterian
body in New York and the fifth largest in the country.”
How do our present church buildings relate to this history?
West End's numerical growth was matched by a series of building projects. On Christmas Day 1888, the new church's
trustees resolved to purchase property on the northeast corner of 105th Street and 10th Avenue, the present church
site, where a building to replace the original “Little Tin Chapel” was erected. This “Second Chapel” was a beautiful
marble structure but had serious problems. Nevertheless, it remained in place until the present Parish House was built
on its site in 1913. By 1891, the church officers decided to build the “Main Church,” today's church building that was
designed by Henry S. Kilburn, a noted church architect.
What stories are there about furnishings in our sanctuary?
The church's baptismal font is the church's oldest memorial gift. It dates from 1890 and was given in memory of young
Stanley Lawson, the first member of the Sunday School.
The West End sanctuary was last refurbished in 1966, when its heavy dark wood was given a new lighter color.
At that time, the sanctuary's lighting was improved by placing a crystal and bronze chandelier over the choir loft.
The chandelier is one of a pair from the Fifth Avenue mansion of Thomas Fortune Ryan, purchased in memory of Mrs.
Francis MacDonald Sinclair who had died not long before and who had left an endowment to the church.
Did West End's membership come from the neighborhood in the past?
The first pastor of West End, the Rev. John Balcom Shaw, was installed in May 1888. Four years later, recalling
when he first heard about West End, he said, “This was a neighborhood with which I was not acquainted, but which I
had come to regard as little less than a howling wilderness, inhabited mostly by shantyites and goats.”
In West End's first decade, most of its members and visitors lived in the vicinity of the church. They had been contacted
as elders and a pastor canvassed the neighborhood and invited those who lived nearby to worship at West End.
Later, as news of its good preaching spread and as public transport and motor cars became readily available, some
people from other parts of the metropolitan area became members. After World War I, many of the brownstone
houses in West End's neighborhood were replaced by high-rise apartment buildings. Many of the new residents
were adherents of other faith traditions. The membership of the church began to decline. Changes in the
neighborhood population have continued to affect the church's ministry and its approaches to it.
How does it happen that West End has a media booth in its balcony?
Seeking to expand its outreach, West End embarked on a radio ministry in 1923, first on station WJZ, then on
WABC and WOR. West End's then-pastor, the Rev. A. Edwin Keigwin, became known as the “radio pastor” to
countless people.
How did West End come to be a church with such a diverse membership?
West End has always lived in a neighborhood with people from many lands, speaking many languages. Many of
these have become church members. Interestingly, as far back as 1897 West End had Sunday School in Spanish,
since it encouraged a seminary student, a Mr. Ferrando, to practice for future missionary work. In 1901, the church's
Missionary Committee discussed the need to approach the Chinese residents in the neighborhood whose spiritual
needs were not being met. The present Spanish-speaking ministry of West End was started in 1966 by the Rev.
Francisco Berly Colon with six members. The church's present Eritrean members began to study and worship in
Eritrean in the church chapel in 1998.
What kind of activities have characterized West End over the years?
Over the years, West End has had numerous organizations and activities. There have been sports teams, sewing
and knitting groups, drama clubs, scout troops, summer day camping, after school programs, community meals.
Summer sleep-away camping for the young was introduced in the 1920s. An early Ladies Aid Society provided
dinner baskets for needy families in the neighborhood on holidays, distributing as many as 400 such dinners during
the 1920s, when the church also served 10¢ lunches to children of working mothers. In the earliest years, West
End helped people find employment and new homes. Many of these activities were dropped in time, as
governmental institutions and agencies took responsibility. The Great Depression of the 1930s brought
financial crisis to the church and it was unable to serve an ever increasing number of people needing
assistance. West End helped the needy to make connections with government agencies and private
philanthropies. Today the deacons of the church carry responsibility for responding to those in need.
What is the history of West End's pastors?
It is unusual for a church to have had as few pastors as West End has enjoyed. In eighty of its first hundred years,
it was served by only three pastors, the Rev. Mr. Shaw, the Rev. Mr. Keigwin, and the Rev. John David Warren,
who today is pastor emeritus of the congregation. In addition to the three longest serving pastors, other former pastors
were the Rev. Paul C. Warren, the Rev. Andrew Osborne, the Rev. Theodore Gill, and the Rev. J. Wesley Megaw.
West End's current pastor, the Rev. Alistair Drummond, was called by the congregation in 1993, while he was still
in a pastorate in his native Scotland. The congregation has apparently always placed particular emphasis on the
preaching of its pastors.
And what about West End's music leadership?
West End has also been a church filled with music. The first organist whose name was recorded was Clifford
Demerest, who started in 1910. The NYC Organ Project, which documents organs installed throughout the city,
lists West End's present organ as dating from 1913. Since then the musicians have included David Greer,
starting in 1962, who was organist and choir director in addition to founding and directing the Bloomingdale School
of Music nearby. Dr. Eugene Hancock, a noted organist and a composer, worked with the church's choirs from
1984, including a children's choir. Later Jorge Lockwood introduced a broad spectrum of music during his tenure.
The current director of West End's music ministry, John Bowen, works with a small chancel choir, a children's
and youth choir, and an energetic gospel choir. Church member Finesse Banks directs the gospel choir. A series
of community concerts provides free concerts as an outreach to the wider community under the organizing
leadership of church member George Voorhis.
If you would like to read more, here is a resource:
Celebrate the Journey: A Short History of the West End Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, edited by Anne Jones, was prepared for the 1988 centenary celebration of the church.
To read the text of the booklet in Word format, click here. (Your computer must have Word software to read this.)
To read New York Times articles from the year of the church's tenth anniversary in 1898,
click here for January 22, 1898 and click here for February 6, 1898. (Your computer must have Adobe Reader
to read these files in PDF format.)
Serious historians will find archives for 1887-1899 at the Presbyterian History Society in Philadelphia,
with copies on film here in New York. Click here to see information.