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First Presbyterian Church

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1856–1865. Northwest corner of Market and Clinton streets

The designer of the First Presbyterian Church looked to the northern Italian Romanesque for his precedent, and he loosely transposed this tradition into the mid-nineteenth century. The brick and stone-trimmed church features an English central entrance scheme, with a crenellated tower and paneled side walls. The windows and the smaller doors are all arched, and here and there the architect provided Romanesque corbel tables. The principal entrance at the base of the tower has a low, broad, pointed arch, and its stone lintel is articulated by another corbel table. The spired tower of the original church was destroyed in a storm in 1877, and it was rebuilt with its present crenellated parapet.

Writing Credits

Author: 
David Gebhard and Gerald Mansheim

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