Riverside Church is an interdenominational church in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, associated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ. The church was conceived by philanthropist businessman and Baptist John D. Rockefeller Jr. in conjunction with Baptist minister Harry Emerson Fosdick as a large, interdenominational church in Morningside Heights, which is surrounded by academic institutions.
Riverside Church in 2013
Claremont Avenue view
Riverside Church, between Grant's Tomb (left) and The Interchurch Center
John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded much of the church's construction.
Morningside Heights is a neighborhood on the West Side of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Morningside Drive to the east, 125th Street to the north, 110th Street to the south, and Riverside Drive to the west. Morningside Heights borders Central Harlem and Morningside Park to the east, Manhattanville to the north, the Manhattan Valley section of the Upper West Side to the south, and Riverside Park to the west. Broadway is the neighborhood's main thoroughfare, running north–south.
Residential buildings on West 116th Street opposite Columbia University
Bloomingdale Insane Asylum circa 1831
Until 1903, the Ninth Avenue elevated bypassed Morningside Heights (depicted in background)
Morningside Park, which was the neighborhood's namesake