Thursday, May 12, 2011
A Church in Harlem
There is a very interesting church building in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of Harlem, near City College.
This is the Childs Memorial Temple chuch, and for some reason they incorporate the Star of David in their building facade (see the top of that building, above the cross). They even have them on their doors,
although the rightmost door (in shadow, it's hard to see it) has a stained glass cross in the same style as the stars. Note, that this "stained glass symbol in door" with "giant cross sign" style can be found elsewhere on churches in Harlem:
At first I thought that perhaps the Childs Memorial Temple building was originally a synagogue (not something unheard of), but I found a site which said that the church bought the building from "The Lido Theater" in 1952. Maybe before it was a theater it was a synagogue? I'm not sure how to look that sort of info up, but if a reader has any insight into this, I'd love to hear it!
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Here is what I found on the history. I can go back to 1921.
ReplyDeleteBluebird Theatre
1763 Amsterdam Avenue at 147th Street
New York, N.Y. 10031
The 600-seat Bluebird Theatre, located in the Sugar Hill community of Harlem, opened in 1921. The Bluebird continued under that name for several years, but the 1930 edition of the Film Daily yearbork lists this venue as the Ramona Theatre. On May 27, 1938, the name was changed to Teatro Granada, and a program of second-run Spanish language films was standard fare. Sometime later, the name was changed again, this time to the Lido Theatre, and in 1951 the Lido was sold for $175,000 to Dr. Alvin A. Childs.
Rechristened as the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ, Dr. Childs' Pentecostal church hosted the funeral service of Malcolm X on February 27, 1965. In 1974, the house of worship was renamed the Childs Memorial Temple.
There was an excellent comment by Seth which was lost by Blogger. I've copied the original comment here:
ReplyDelete---------------------
Here is what I found on the history. I can go back to 1921.
Bluebird Theatre
1763 Amsterdam Avenue at 147th Street
New York, N.Y. 10031
The 600-seat Bluebird Theatre, located in the Sugar Hill community of Harlem, opened in 1921. The Bluebird continued under that name for several years, but the 1930 edition of the Film Daily yearbork lists this venue as the Ramona Theatre. On May 27, 1938, the name was changed to Teatro Granada, and a program of second-run Spanish language films was standard fare. Sometime later, the name was changed again, this time to the Lido Theatre, and in 1951 the Lido was sold for $175,000 to Dr. Alvin A. Childs.
Rechristened as the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ, Dr. Childs' Pentecostal church hosted the funeral service of Malcolm X on February 27, 1965. In 1974, the house of worship was renamed the Childs Memorial Temple.