|
Description:
Located on Druid Hill Avenue in the Upton neighborhood of Baltimore, Union Baptist Church exemplifies an adaptation of High Victorian Gothic religious architecture for a mid-block urban setting. The architect, William J. Beardsley of New York, designed the 1905 building to fit within a neighborhood where most buildings were masonry, multi-story, and located on narrow elongated lots with little setback from the sidewalks. The two-story grey granite church has a soaring street façade trimmed with decorative features in limestone imported from Indiana. Among the features of its Gothic Revival design are its perpendicularity that is emphasized by means of a steeply pitched gable roof with a series of smaller gables that are framed by frontal buttresses all of which extend beyond the roof line. Another important design feature is its windows that still hold their original high quality stained glass and that are lancet-shape on the second story and straight-headed on the lower level. Its steep roof, lancet windows in a three-bay composition with frontal buttresses segmented by limestone coping, and its emphasis on one or more gables facing the street recall features of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in Kingston, New York, an earlier design by Beardsley. Union Baptist Church, however, was designed later in the architect’s career and responded to some new design challenges. Lacking an open location, the architect opted to design a more complex street façade that pushed upward. For the purpose of perfecting the complex design of the street façade, even the frontal buttresses were made to soar well beyond the height of the steep roof, thereby adding to its Gothic Revival perpendicularity. Union Baptist Church was somewhat unusual for an ecclesiastical structure because of its lack of any tower, belfry, steeple, cross, turrets, or transept as major design elements. Accessible from the public walkway above only two steps in stone, the simplicity of its silhouette was reflected in its lack of any type of exterior portico or porch. Instead, the design of Union Baptist relied on an interior one-story narthex or vestibule to provide a transition between the out-of-doors and the other major areas of its interior. Union Baptist Church was designed symmetrically, mostly rectangular in plan, and constructed with solid walls of granite approximately 14” to 18” thick. Because of a slightly wider rear header section (which extended what would otherwise have been this rectangle by approximately 8’ on each side and to a depth of approximately 15’ to the rear property line along Stoddard Alley), this basically rectangular church was technically slightly T-shaped. The wider rear section of the church was note intended to make an important design statement, as evidenced by its inconspicuousness from the street, height subordinate to the main block, lack of ornamentation, and absence of windows other than those facing the alley, which are plain. Equally spaced on each side of the main body of the church are seven engaged stone masonry buttresses. The rear-most buttress on each side incorporates a chimney. Each lateral buttress functions structurally to help support the roof. The buttresses define a series of bays, each provided with centrally located windows at two levels, except that a door substitutes for the lower window in the second bay from the front on each side. On the sides, all first-floor window openings are straight headed. The windows in each of these openings contain two long stained-glass panels. Second-story windows on the sides of the nave are set in lancet openings and consist of side-by-side pointed glass panels topped with a quatrefoil pattern. The main rectangular body of the church is topped with a steep slate-clad roof, with small high-pitched triangular slate-covered dormers on each side providing additional light. These dormers are positioned directly above the side windows. The complex, vertical-emphasis design of the church’s three-bay street façade includes three centrally located adjoining portals beneath highly decorative lancet arches in two levels. Features of the façade’s design may make reference to the religious concept of trinity, such as its trio of portals, the three-bay composition of the façade, and the sculptured trefoil ornamentation in the limestone decorative coping between some segments of the frontal abutments. Each of the side bays of the façade has two levels of fenestration, with straight-headed windows on the first floor and lancet windows on the second. The space above the main portals in the front façade is dominated by a large stained-glass lancet window with a complex composition. This huge window seems slightly to extend into the central gable in a manner typical of Gothic Revival buildings. While the side bays are also topped with gables, the central gable is by far the widest and the highest in elevation. All three are trimmed with limestone raking cornices which contrast with the granite of the walls. Six frontal buttresses extend well beyond the roof line as granite spires topped with limestone pediments. The frontal buttresses are doubled on each side of the central bay, emphasizing its importance. These buttresses are segmented at various heights by limestone coping. The three portals grouped within the central bay are Gothic-arched in limestone. Above each is a granite-block gable, reflective of the gables that top the façade, but capped with a limestone trefoil. A limestone belt course runs across the front of the church at the level of the bottom of the first-floor windows. The interior of the church is arranged symmetrically. From the sidewalk, one enters a central narthex or reception area through any of three main portals. On each side of the narthex a half-turn stairway leads to the second-story sanctuary. Pews face an elevated chancel, raised above the level of the nave by two steps and framed by a Gothic arch. The semi-hexagonal sides and back of the chancel, although fully enclosed within the basically rectangular structure of the church, compose a faux apse at the rear of which a stained-glass lancet window is framed by organ pipes above a choir loft. The chancel is flanked on either side by a tall Gothic arch holding a lancet-arched doorway leading to areas used for a vestry, offices, and other utilitarian and support functions. The symmetrical composition may reflect the symbolism of the Trinity, as suggested on the exterior. The roof framing features decorative exposed trusswork supported by the stone walls and buttresses. The interior of the roof is finished in beaded wood planking.
|
Significance:
The Union Baptist Church is architecturally significant as an example of the Late Victorian, High Victorian Gothic style applied to an urban ecclesiastical building. It represents the work of New York architect William J. Beardsley. Best known for his residential, ecclesiastical, and institutional work in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island, Beardsley executed several commissions in Baltimore after establishing an office in the city in the wake of the Great Fire of 1904. The church derives additional historical significance for its association with the history of Baltimore’s African American community. Tracing its establishment to 1852, the Union Baptist congregation is among the earliest Baptist congregations in Baltimore, and has maintained an active and influential role in the city’s development throughout its history, particularly in the areas of community service and civil rights. The church derives additional significance for its association with the Reverend Dr. Harvey Johnson (1843-1923), its pastor from 1872 to 1923. An early leader in the Civil Rights movement, Dr. Johnson was a founder of the Mutual United Brotherhood of Liberty of the United States of America, fought to defeat Jim Crow laws as they applied to transportation in Maryland, and advocated self-determination for African American organizations. His writing, preaching, and public speaking addressed a wide range of subjects. Under his direction, the Union Baptist congregation assumed an increasingly active role in the quest for social justice and civil rights in Baltimore, a tradition it has maintained to the present.
|
