Arch Street Presbyterian Church
- Architect
- Stephen Decatur Button
- Year
- 1855
- Style
- Neoclassical
- City
- Philadelphia, PA
Arch Street Presbyterian Church has stood at 1724 Arch Street since 1855, a one-story Greek Revival building now flanked by the two Comcast towers that rise around it in Logan Square. Designed by Stephen Decatur Button of the firm Hoxie & Button, it was the 'establishment' downtown Presbyterian church for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, and in the 1920s and '30s its pastor, Rev. Clarence E. Macartney, made it a conservative bastion in the theological fights roiling mainline Protestant denominations.
the building
Portico and dome. Four Corinthian columns carry the entrance portico, and the interior is covered by a coffered dome — Greek and Roman details enclosing a sanctuary that also holds a massive organ.
the style
The church is Classical Revival with Greek and Roman elements, a low, templed profile that now reads as a deliberate contrast to the glass skyscrapers built up around it a century and a half later, chief among them the neighboring Comcast Center.
More on Neoclassicalsignificance
Arch Street Presbyterian Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
nearby
- Comcast Technology Center
- One Logan Square
- Suburban Station
- BNY Mellon Center
- Liberty Place
- Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul