1936 South Michigan: Second Presbyterian Church

1936 South Michigan: Second Presbyterian Church. . The seeds of the Second Presbyterian Church originated on the banks of the Chicago River under the pastoral guidance of Rev. Jeremiah Porter, in 1833. In 1835, the church was formally incorporated as the First Presbyterian Church and Society of Chicago and the congregation flourished. Within five years of its humble beginnings, the church congregation moved twice into larger buildings to accommodate its growing membership. The congregation then split over the question of the pace of the abolition of slavery, and the Second Presbyterian Church was established on June 1, 1842. , , The newly-formed congregation's first building was on the south side of Randolph between Clark and Dearborn, now the location of the Daley Center. The congregation quickly outgrew the space, and a lot on the northeast corner of Wabash and Washington was purchased for a larger and more prestigious church. James Renwick, a well-known New York architect and a leader of the Gothic Revival movement in America at the time, was given the project. Some of Renwick's most famous structures are the Smithsonian Institution and the Corcoran (now Renwick) Gallery in Washington D.C., as well as St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. His design for the Second Presbyterian Church was completed in 1851. It was an imposing structure of speckled gray-white limestone, designed in the truest sense of the Gothic Revival movement. Unfortunately, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed this structure. , , In 1872, construction began on the present building at 1936 S. Michigan Avenue and again Renwick was selected for the task. The construction was completed in 1874. The heavy façade of limestone, huge buttresses, and Gothic arches harken back to fifteenth-century England. These main features remained intact despite a fire in 1900, which destroyed the roof and the sanctuary. Architect Howard Van Doren Shaw was selected to reconstruct the building with the assistance of artist Frederic Clay Bartlett. Their collaboration produced an interior that combined the finest elements of both the English and American Arts and Crafts movement. Rich oak paneling, intricately carved plaster decoration, and elegant electric light fixtures complement Bartlett's series of pre-Raphaelite murals. An important collection of stained glass windows includes nine by the Tiffany Studios and two designed by Edward Burne-Jones executed in the William Morris Studios. , , As the church for notable wealthy Chicagoans as Robert Todd Lincoln (the president's son), the George Armours, the George Pullmans, and the Timothy Blackstones, Second Presbyterian was a mainstay in the late 19th and early 20th Century Chicago society. The landmark structure remains an architectural attraction in the surrounding Near South Side Landscape and still houses an active and diverse Presbyterian congregation.