162-692: Mary Allin Travers (November 9, 1936 – September 16, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter who found fame as a member of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary , along with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey . Travers grew up amid the burgeoning folk scene in New York City 's Greenwich Village , and she released five solo albums. She sang in the contralto range. Mary Travers was born in 1936 in Louisville, Kentucky , to Robert Travers and Virginia Coigney , journalists and active organizers of The Newspaper Guild ,
324-553: A Gothic architectural style for Riverside Church's exterior; by contrast, the internal structure incorporates modern curtain walls and a steel frame. Fosdick later said the exterior Gothic style is suited to "make people pray" and that the church had "not outgrown Gothic" in that regard. Riverside Church's design is partially derived from Chartres Cathedral in France but also incorporates designs of several Gothic churches in France and Spain. Pelton and Collens said Chartres would provide
486-402: A chancel at the front of the nave; a 22-story, 392-foot (119 m) tower above the nave; a narthex and chapel ; and a cloistered passageway that connects to the eastern entrance on Claremont Avenue. Near the top of the tower is the church's main feature, a 74-bell carillon —the heaviest in the world—dedicated to Rockefeller Jr.'s mother Laura Spelman Rockefeller . A seven-story wing
648-482: A chuigushou . Ensembles consisting of mouth organs ( sheng ), shawms ( suona ), flutes ( dizi ) and percussion instruments (especially yunluo gongs ) are popular in northern villages; their music is descended from the imperial temple music of Beijing, Xi'an , Wutai shan and Tianjin . Xi'an drum music, consisting of wind and percussive instruments, is popular around Xi'an, and has received some commercial popularity outside of China. Another important instrument
810-430: A melody , often with repeating sections , and usually played a number of times. A collection of tunes with structural similarities is known as a tune-family . America's Musical Landscape says "the most common form for tunes in folk music is AABB, also known as binary form ." In some traditions, tunes may be strung together in medleys or " sets ." Throughout most of human history, listening to recorded music
972-605: A pipa , as well as other traditional instruments. The music is generally sorrowful and typically deals with love-stricken people. Further south, in Shantou , Hakka and Chaozhou , zheng ensembles are popular. Sizhu ensembles use flutes and bowed or plucked string instruments to make harmonious and melodious music that has become popular in the West among some listeners. These are popular in Nanjing and Hangzhou , as well as elsewhere along
1134-512: A "Traditional music" category that subsequently evolved into others. The term "folk", by the start of the 21st century, could cover singer-songwriters, such as Donovan from Scotland and American Bob Dylan , who emerged in the 1960s and much more. This completed a process to where "folk music" no longer meant only traditional folk music. Traditional folk music often includes sung words , although folk instrumental music occurs commonly in dance music traditions. Narrative verse looms large in
1296-564: A $ 32 million decrease in the endowment between 2000 and 2002. The accused basketball director resigned in 2002 while the accusation of financial mismanagement was prolonged through several years of court cases, although the New York Supreme Court had dismissed a lawsuit over the topic. Forbes announced his retirement in September 2006 and held his last sermon in June 2007. By that time,
1458-464: A $ 350,000 landscaping of the adjacent, decrepit Sakura Park. Rockefeller hired the Olmsted Brothers to renovate the park and the project was completed two years later. When Union Theological Seminary announced it would build a new apartment building at 99 Claremont Avenue. Rockefeller offered to exchange his neighboring apartment building at 122nd Street and Claremont Avenue for the lots south of
1620-474: A church. Rockefeller then told the Park Avenue Baptist Church's leaders about the plan and hired an agent to inspect the planned church site. Woelfkin quit in mid-May 1925 and Rockefeller Jr. immediately started looking for a new minister, ultimately deciding on Fosdick, who had declined Rockefeller's offers several times, saying he did not "want to be known as the pastor of the richest man in
1782-401: A class dynamic to popular understandings of American folk music. This was the final element of the foundation upon which the early folk music revivalists constructed their own view of Americanism. Sandburg's working-class Americans joined with the ethnically , racially , and regionally diverse citizens that other scholars, public intellectuals, and folklorists celebrated their own definitions of
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#17330938160911944-592: A collection of Seeger's pro-union folk songs, Talking Union . Travers regarded her singing as a hobby (she worked full-time as a dental technician) and was shy about it, but was encouraged by fellow musicians. She also was in the cast of the Broadway show The Next President . The group Peter, Paul and Mary was formed in 1961, and was an immediate success. They shared a manager, Albert Grossman , with Bob Dylan . Their success with Dylan's " Don't Think Twice, It's All Right " helped propel Dylan's Freewheelin' album into
2106-419: A cultural dichotomy , the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'". One widely used definition is simply "Folk music is what the people sing." For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók , there was a sense of the music of the country as distinct from that of
2268-544: A frontage of 250 ft (76 meters) on Riverside Drive for the new church. At the time of the acquisition, three apartment buildings and two mansions occupied the church's future site. Rockefeller wished to keep the apartments in place for several years to fund the church's eventual construction. Rockefeller was the chairman of the committee tasked with developing a new building for the church. Hoping to avoid publicity, rather than host an architectural competition, he privately asked several architectural firms to submit plans for
2430-579: A great body of English rural traditional song, music and dance, under the aegis of what became and remains the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). Sharp campaigned with some success to have English traditional songs (in his own heavily edited and expurgated versions) to be taught to school children in hopes of reviving and prolonging the popularity of those songs. Throughout the 1960s and early to mid-1970s, American scholar Bertrand Harris Bronson published an exhaustive four-volume collection of
2592-592: A long history of social justice in adherence to Fosdick's original vision of an "interdenominational, interracial, and international" church. Its congregation includes members of more than forty ethnic groups. The church was designated as a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2000 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Several small Baptist congregations, including
2754-399: A lower class" in culturally and socially stratified societies. In these terms, folk music may be seen as part of a "schema comprising four musical types: 'primitive' or 'tribal'; 'elite' or 'art'; 'folk'; and 'popular'." Music in this genre is also often called traditional music. Although the term is usually only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre. For example,
2916-411: A more modernist direction. By the early 20th century, Fifth Avenue was experiencing increased commercial development and the church building became dilapidated. The congregation sold its old headquarters in 1919 and bought land at Park Avenue and 63rd Street the following year. John Rockefeller's son John D. Rockefeller Jr. funded half of the projected $ 1 million cost. The new church, which
3078-404: A particular interest in folklore. Carl Sandburg often traveled the U.S. as a writer and a poet. He also collected songs in his travels and, in 1927, published them in the book The American Songbag . Rachel Donaldson, a historian who worked for Vanderbilt, later stated this about The American Songbird in her analysis of the folk music revival. "In his collections of folk songs, Sandburg added
3240-401: A people's folklore , or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles . The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached
3402-473: A pointed-arch window. Above the stained-glass windows of each bay is a triforium gallery with three colonettes , followed by two adjacent lancet windows in the clerestory, and topped with a rose window. Pointed arches resting on piers that contain engaged columns support each of the clerestory bays and serve as the bases for the ribs under the vaulted ceiling. The engaged columns are surmounted by Corinthian capitals that are decorated with scenes from
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#17330938160913564-673: A possible better system, through the lens of the Great Depression. Woody Guthrie exemplifies songwriters and artists with such an outlook. Folk music festivals proliferated during the 1930s. President Franklin Roosevelt was a fan of folk music, hosted folk concerts at the White House , and often patronized folk festivals. One prominent festival was Sarah Gertrude Knott 's National Folk Festival , established in St. Louis, Missouri in 1934. Under
3726-597: A reference to beautiful women, while in the past they were notorious for their erotic content. The village "mountain songs" ( shan'ge ) of Jiangsu province were also well known for their amorous themes. Other regional song traditions include the "strummed lyrics" ( tanci ) of the Lower Yangtze Delta, the Cantonese Wooden Fish tradition ( muyu or muk-yu ) and the Drum Songs ( guci ) of north China. In
3888-537: A revolutionary tool to preserve vanishing musical forms. The earliest American folk music scholars were with the American Folklore Society (AFS), which emerged in the late 1800s. Their studies expanded to include Native American music , but still treated folk music as a historical item preserved in isolated societies as well. In North America, during the 1930s and 1940s, the Library of Congress worked through
4050-416: A rose window above a pair of lancet windows but the window groupings are on five sides of the polygon. The vertical piers of the chancel wall converge above the clerestory level, creating an apse above the chancel and ambulatory. The narthex, which was designed in the late Gothic style with a Romanesque layout, is directly south of the nave and can be accessed from the church's West Portal. The narthex
4212-478: A seven-story building over the gymnasium. This plan was controversial among congregants, some of whom petitioned the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (NYCLPC) to designate the church to prevent the alteration of the original appearance of the Claremont Avenue entrance. In December 1998, the congregation voted to officially nominate the church for landmark status. Only the original church building
4374-412: A shallow arcade . The nave's interior contains a finish of Indiana limestone, the ceilings of its vaults are lined with Guastavino terracotta tiles , and its floor is made of marble. Three main vertical sections, which are split by buttresses, comprise the nave's eastern and western walls, each of which has five architectural bays along the portion of the nave adjacent to the aisles; each bay contains
4536-537: A solo career and recorded five albums: Mary (1971), Morning Glory (1972), All My Choices (1973), Circles (1974) and It's in Everyone of Us (1978). The group reunited for one night in June, 1972 to take part in a special fundraising concert at Madison Square Garden for presidential candidate Sen. George McGovern . Peter, Paul and Mary re-formed in 1978, toured extensively, and issued many new albums until Travers' death. BBC television recorded their performance at
4698-470: A study on the building's current use and services, and the following October, Body Lawson, Ben Paul Associated Architects and Planners published the Riverside Church Master Plan. The plan included a major addition on Riverside Church's eastern side, consisting of the relocation of the Claremont Avenue entrance, paving of the forecourt, reconfiguration of the cloister lobby, and construction of
4860-412: A total of $ 10.5 million on land acquisition and church construction. The completion of the new church building at Morningside Heights resulted in a steady increase in the congregation's membership. By May 1946, the congregation had 3,500 members, an increase of 800 in twenty years. According to a brochure issued by the church, "soon every room ... was in use seven days a week", and enrollment at
5022-554: A trade union. In 1938, the family moved to Greenwich Village in New York City. Mary attended the progressive Little Red School House , where she met musical icons like Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson . Robeson sang her lullabies. Travers left school in the 11th grade to become a member of the Song Swappers folk group. The Song Swappers sang backup for Pete Seeger on four reissue albums in 1955, when Folkways Records reissued
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5184-567: A traditional song would undergo a process of improvement akin to biological natural selection : only those new variants that were the most appealing to ordinary singers would be picked up by others and transmitted onward in time. Thus, over time we would expect each traditional song to become more aesthetically appealing, due to incremental community improvement. Literary interest in the popular ballad form dates back at least to Thomas Percy and William Wordsworth . English Elizabethan and Stuart composers had often evolved their music from folk themes,
5346-434: A tragic or regretful nature, prominently figures in many folk traditions. Nursery rhymes , children's songs and nonsense verse used to amuse or quiet children also are frequent subjects of traditional songs. Music transmitted by word of mouth through a community, in time, develops many variants, since this transmission cannot produce word-for-word and note-for-note accuracy. In addition, folk singers may choose to modify
5508-401: A year later, civil rights leader James Forman interrupted a sermon at Riverside Church, citing it as one of several churches from which Black Americans could ask for reparations for slavery . This led to the church releasing its financial figures in 1970 for the first time; the figures valued the building at $ 86 million and the total financial endowment of $ 18 million, as well as
5670-464: A zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times, but the term folk music has typically not been applied to the new music created during those revivals. This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock , folk metal , and others. While contemporary folk music
5832-494: Is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival . Some types of folk music may be called world music . Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with
5994-502: Is a genre generally distinct from traditional folk music, in U.S. English it shares the same name, and it often shares the same performers and venues as traditional folk music. The terms folk music , folk song , and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions. They are extensions of the term folklore , which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe "the traditions, customs, and superstitions of
6156-696: Is an interdenominational church in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City , United States. The church is associated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the United Church of Christ . It 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
6318-408: Is an ancient folk song from India, a country of Asia, of Meiteis of Manipur , that is an example of Asian folk music, and how they put it into its own genre. Archaeological discoveries date Chinese folk music back 7000 years; it is largely based on the pentatonic scale . Han traditional weddings and funerals usually include a form of oboe called a suona , and apercussive ensembles called
6480-425: Is below the arches (see § Sculpted elements ). To the south is the entrance to the narthex, which is accessed through a single door. Directly south of the narthex entrance, another double-door entrance leads to the chapel; this entrance contains two archivolts and a simpler tympanum. The northern portion of the western facade adjacent to the nave has five sets of windows (see § Nave ). The view of
6642-418: Is customary in most churches. The entrances are atop small flights of steps leading from the street. The building's main entrance faces west and is below the tower's base and is accessed through a set of double wooden doors with recessed wooden panels. The figures sculpted in the concentric archivolts of the doorway represent leading religious, scientific, and philosophical figures, and an elaborate tympanum
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6804-413: Is flanked by projecting vertical piers (see § Facade ). Seven arched niches, each containing one statue of a king, are above the main entrance. A large rose window is above the statuary grouping. The apex of the tower is fitted with aircraft warning lights . Above the tenth floor are five tiers of window arrangements on each floor; the higher tiers become progressively narrower. From bottom to top,
6966-515: Is generally no "authoritative" version of song. Researchers in traditional songs have encountered countless versions of the Barbara Allen ballad throughout the English-speaking world, and these versions often differ greatly from each other. The original is not known; many versions can lay an equal claim to authenticity. Influential folklorist Cecil Sharp felt that these competing variants of
7128-536: Is in the western portion of the north facade. Above the entrance arch is an ornate belt course and nearby are two lancet windows . Another entrance is in the eastern (right) portion of the north facade. Between the two entrances is the ambulatory, with two tiers of window groupings, each with a rose window above a pair of lancet windows. The lower section has three sets of windows while the upper clerestory section has five sets of windows. Vertical buttresses , which separate each window grouping, end in finials above
7290-405: Is near the back of the chancel in the center, behind which is a baptismal pool. The back of the chancel contains a convex polygonal wall that includes seven bays, each with three vertical tiers that are a few feet above the corresponding tiers in the nave. The lowest tier contains pointed arches with an elaborate stone chancel screen ; the middle tier contains cusped arches with colonettes; and
7452-472: Is split into four vaults that have Guastavino tiled ceilings that are supported by simple limestone columns. A stone spiral staircase on the west side of the narthex, directly south of the West Portal, leads to the basement. There are two grisaille windows and one rose window on each of the western and eastern sides of the narthex. The eastern wall has four 16th-century lancet windows that were previously in
7614-480: Is surrounded by academic institutions. The church occupies the block bounded by Riverside Drive , Claremont Avenue , 120th Street, and 122nd Street near Columbia University 's Morningside Heights campus and across from Grant's Tomb . The original building opened in 1930; it was designed by Henry C. Pelton and Allen & Collens in the Neo-Gothic style. It contains a nave consisting of five architectural bays ;
7776-402: Is the sheng , a type of Chinese pipe , an ancient instrument that is ancestor of all Western free reed instruments, such as the accordion . Parades led by Western-type brass bands are common, often competing in volume with a shawm/chuigushou band. In southern Fujian and Taiwan , Nanyin or Nanguan is a genre of traditional ballads. They are sung by a woman accompanied by a xiao and
7938-652: Is the provenance of the American Folklife Center" at the library of Congress. Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from Sub-Saharan African music traditions . The music and dance forms of the African diaspora , including African American music and many Caribbean genres like soca , calypso and Zouk ; and Latin American music genres like
8100-445: The Book of Jeremiah . The ceilings of the vaults underneath the triforium galleries are faced with Guastavino tile and contain lighting. Above the clerestory, the nave's ceiling is eight stories high. It consists of several vaults, each of which is divided into four segments by diagonally interlocking transverse ribs that do not provide structural support. Eight iron lanterns hang from
8262-461: The Grammy Award previously used the terms "traditional music" and "traditional folk" for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. Folk music may include most indigenous music . From a historical perspective, traditional folk music had these characteristics: As a side-effect, the following characteristics are sometimes present: In folk music, a tune is a short instrumental piece ,
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#17330938160918424-466: The Great Depression . Regionalism and cultural pluralism grew as influences and themes. During this time folk music began to become enmeshed with political and social activism themes and movements. Two related developments were the U.S. Communist Party's interest in folk music as a way to reach and influence Americans, and politically active prominent folk musicians and scholars seeing communism as
8586-524: The New York City Department of Buildings in November that year. The following month, the congregation voted to approve the building plans at a cost of $ 4 million. Pelton and Collens then went to France to look for churches upon which to model Riverside Church's design. They eventually selected the 13th-century Chartres Cathedral as their model. Marc Eidlitz & Son, Inc. was hired as
8748-483: The New York City Subway 's Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line —the modern-day 1 train—under Broadway. Rockefeller briefly considered a location on Morningside Drive on the eastern edge of Morningside Heights, between 117th and 118th Streets. He ultimately chose a larger site at the southeastern corner of Riverside Drive and 122nd Street on the neighborhood's western border, which overlooked Riverside Park to
8910-745: The PRC . Folk songs have been recorded since ancient times in China. The term Yuefu was used for a broad range of songs such as ballads, laments, folk songs, love songs, and songs performed at court. China is a vast country, with a multiplicity of linguistic and geographic regions. Folk songs are categorized by geographic region, language type, ethnicity, social function (e.g. work song, ritual song, courting song) and musical type. Modern anthologies collected by Chinese folklorists distinguish between traditional songs, revolutionary songs, and newly invented songs. The songs of northwest China are known as "flower songs" ( hua'er ),
9072-693: The Socony Church after the oil company the Rockefellers headed. George S. Chappell, writing in The New Yorker under the pseudonym "T-Square", said the project "was known to most secular minds as the Rockefeller Cathedral". Neither Rockefeller nor Fosdick had strict requirements for the church's architectural style. Rockefeller asked for the new building to include space for the Park Avenue Baptist Church's carillon , which he had donated. Most of
9234-536: The Southport Theatre in 1983. The group was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. Travers was married four times. Her first brief union, to John Filler, produced her older daughter, Erika, in 1960. In 1963, she married Barry Feinstein , a prominent freelance photographer of musicians and celebrities. Her younger daughter, Alicia, was born in 1966, and the couple divorced the following year. In
9396-475: The Traditional 18 Dances display the dancing of birds and animals. For example: Musical types include: The classical Sinhalese orchestra consists of five categories of instruments, but among the percussion instruments, the drum is essential for dance. The vibrant beat of the rhythm of the drums form the basic of the dance. The dancers' feet bounce off the floor and they leap and swirl in patterns that reflect
9558-439: The samba , Cuban rumba , salsa ; and other clave (rhythm) -based genres, were founded to varying degrees on the music of enslaved Africans , which has in turn influenced African popular music . Many Asian civilizations distinguish between art /court/classical styles and "folk" music. For example, the late Alam Lohar is an example of a South Asian singer who was classified as a folk singer. Khunung Eshei/Khuland Eshei
9720-401: The "fundamental principles" for the design of Riverside Church but that Riverside would have a completely different outline. The features inspired by Chartres include the detailing of the three Riverside Drive entrances and the lack of decorative elements on the facade, except for the stained glass windows on the walls and the sculptural elements around each portal. The massive single bell tower
9882-451: The 1970s, she was married to Gerald Taylor, publisher of National Lampoon . After the end of her marriage to Taylor, Travers had a relationship with lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste for several years while raising her daughters in New York. In 1991 she married restaurateur Ethan Robbins and lived with him in the small town of Redding, Connecticut for the remainder of her life. In 2004, Travers
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#173309381609110044-432: The American folk, definitions that the folk revivalists used in constructing their own understanding of American folk music, and an overarching American identity". Prior to the 1930s, the study of folk music was primarily the province of scholars and collectors. The 1930s saw the beginnings of larger scale themes, commonalities, and linkages in folk music developing in the populace and practitioners as well, often related to
10206-560: The Association for Cultural Equity, is "distinct from the thousands of earlier recordings on acetate and aluminum discs he made from 1933 to 1942 under the auspices of the Library of Congress. This earlier collection—which includes the famous Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters sessions, as well as Lomax's prodigious collections made in Haiti and Eastern Kentucky (1937) —
10368-487: The Divine, which remained incomplete after almost four decades. Allen & Collens's plan was described by architect Robert A. M. Stern as the culmination of a "craving for a tall cathedral among people of everyday tall ideas", which had started when St. John's was proposed in 1889. Despite the completion of Riverside Church, Rockefeller felt the surroundings still needed to be improved. In 1932, he announced he would pay for
10530-736: The Mulberry Street Baptist Church that was established in 1823 by a group of 16 congregants, were founded in Manhattan after the American Revolutionary War . The Mulberry Street church occupied at least three locations in the Lower East Side and two locations on Broadway in Midtown Manhattan before moving to a more permanent site at Fifth Avenue and 46th Street in the 1860s. The businessman William Rockefeller
10692-575: The Park Avenue Baptist Church; they are the only windows in Riverside Church that were not built specifically for the church. Stairs leading both upward and downward are on the eastern side of the narthex, and a mortuary chapel is on the northeastern corner. The mortuary chapel is known as the Gethsemane Chapel but prior to 1959, it was called the Christ Chapel. The chapel to the south of
10854-491: The U.S. Top 30 four months after its release. Peter, Paul and Mary broke up in 1970, shortly after having their biggest UK hit, singer-songwriter John Denver 's ballad " Leaving on a Jet Plane " (originally titled "Babe I Hate To Go") ( UK No. 2, February 1970). The song, which reached the top of both the U.S. Billboard and Cash Box charts in December 1969, was the group's only number one hit. Travers subsequently pursued
11016-534: The Union Theological Seminary, and under the donation agreement, the church had the right of first offer to buy the building should it ever be offered for sale. In July 2019, the church's governing council announced Butler's contract would not be renewed, and the Church Council and Butler released a joint letter stating Butler's resignation was mutual. A former Church Council member later said Butler
11178-522: The Union Theological Seminary. In May 1926, Rockefeller gave Union an apartment building on 99 Claremont Avenue, to the northeast of the church. In exchange, Riverside Church received a small plot to its south, allowing for the construction of the chapel and a proposed cloister passage to Claremont Avenue. Rockefeller chose to delay the construction process until the leases of the site's existing tenants expired in October 1926. The official plans were filed with
11340-404: The altar, and the ambulatory are to the north, closer to 122nd Street. The western facade of the church's nave is adjacent to Riverside Drive. At the time of Riverside Church's construction, the church did not own the lots along 120th Street to the south so the building's three entrances are on its western side facing Riverside Drive rather than on the southern side at the back of the nave, as
11502-504: The apartment towers from the church plan and Allen, Collens, and Pelton were selected to design the new church in February 1926. As part of the plans, there would be a 375-foot (114 m)—later 392-foot (119 m)—bell tower, a 2,400-seat auditorium, and athletic rooms. The building would occupy a 100 feet (30 m) by 225 feet (69 m) lot. There was no room for a chapel in the original plans so Rockefeller proposed trading land with
11664-634: The building. Rockefeller tried to downplay his role in the planning and construction process, asking for his name to be omitted from media reports and discussion of the church, though with little success. His role in the selection process raised concerns from church trustees, including Fosdick, who believed such close financial involvement could place the church in "a very vulnerable position". John Roach Straton , pastor of Calvary Baptist Church on 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, criticized Rockefeller's involvement and mockingly suggested it be called
11826-459: The chapel. The chapel is subdivided into four bays and has a barrel-vaulted ceiling with Guastavino tiles, and the walls and floor have a limestone finish. The southern wall, which is adjacent to the MLK Wing, has four arched, back-lit stained-glass windows; one in each bay. Double doors to the west lead to Riverside Drive and a passage to the south leads to the MLK Wing. There are engaged columns on
11988-526: The church "easily the most prominent architectural work along the Hudson [River] from midtown to the George Washington Bridge". Riverside Church's main structure is centered around the nave , which is aligned on a north–south axis and is closer to Riverside Drive on the western portion of the block. The chapel and narthex are to the south, closer to 120th Street, while the chancel , which contains
12150-433: The church and its annexes were listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In June 2014, Amy K. Butler was selected as the church's seventh senior minister, becoming the first woman to hold that job. In September 2018, it was announced Riverside Church would buy the neighboring McGiffert Hall at Claremont Avenue and 122nd Street for $ 45 million. The dormitory was on land John Rockefeller Jr. had donated to
12312-494: The church conducted an internal report and found the organizational structure was disorganized and that most staff did not feel any single person was in charge. As a result, six councils were created and placed under the purview of the deacons and trustees. The councils partitioned power into "a series of mini-kingdoms", according to a later pastor, Ernest T. Campbell . Construction on the Martin Luther King Jr. Wing, to
12474-498: The church had 2,700 congregants, a large proportion of whom were black and Hispanic. The church had a $ 14 million annual operating budget and a paid staff of 130. Another nationwide, year-long search for a new senior minister commenced and in August 2008, it was announced Brad Braxton had been selected as the sixth senior minister of Riverside Church. Braxton's tenure was marked by theological disputes; congregants disagreed whether
12636-400: The church should take a fundamentalist or progressive position, as well as a lawsuit over his salary, which a church spokesperson stated was $ 457,000. In June 2009, Braxton submitted a letter of resignation due to these disputes. For the next five years, Riverside Church had no senior minister and in 2014, its congregation had decreased to 1,670, a loss of over a thousand since 2007. In 2012,
12798-476: The church was formally dedicated with an interdenominational service two months later. The total cost of construction was estimated at $ 4 million. In the early years of the new building, journalists often referred to the church in association with either Rockefeller—who sought to reduce emphasis on his role at the church—or Fosdick. Riverside Church's completion sharply contrasted with the Cathedral of St. John
12960-577: The church's Sunday school had correspondingly increased. Riverside Church became a community icon and a religious center of Morningside Heights. By 1939, the church had more than 200 staff in both part-time and full-time positions, and over 10,000 people a week were attending its social and religious services, athletic events, and employment programs. In addition to its well-attended Sunday morning service, Riverside Church hosted Communion services every first Sunday afternoon, as well as Ministry of Music services on other Sunday afternoons. The Riverside Guild,
13122-476: The church's first black senior minister. At the time, between one-fourth and one-third of the congregation was Black or Hispanic. Tensions between Forbes and executive minister David Dyson soon developed over matters including the duration of Forbes's sermons and his musical choices. Tensions grew and a mediator was engaged after Forbes tried to fire Dyson. The dispute was resolved when Dyson resigned in October 1992. In 1996, Riverside Church started conducting
13284-430: The church, which were owned by the seminary. The land was swapped in 1931 after Rockefeller offered to finance part of the dormitory's construction. In 1935, the land under the church was deeded to Rockefeller and he purchased a lot at Riverside Drive and 122nd Street from St. Luke's Hospital , after which he owned all of the land along the eastern side of Riverside Drive between 120th and 122nd Streets. Rockefeller spent
13446-458: The classical suite was based upon stylised folk-dances, and Joseph Haydn 's use of folk melodies is noted. But the emergence of the term "folk" coincided with an "outburst of national feeling all over Europe" that was particularly strong at the edges of Europe, where national identity was most asserted. Nationalist composers emerged in Central Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Spain and Britain:
13608-566: The completion of the interior by six months. In February 1929, the congregation began seeking donations to continue construction; Rockefeller donated $ 1.5 million, which when combined with the proceeds from the sale of the Park Avenue building, provided $ 3 million in funds. Construction of a mortuary at the Riverside Drive church was approved in March 1929. While construction was ongoing,
13770-408: The complex rhythms of the drum beat. This drum beat may seem simple on the first hearing but it takes a long time to master the intricate rhythms and variations, which the drummer sometimes can bring to a crescendo of intensity. There are six common types of drums falling within 3 styles (one-faced, two-faced, and flat-faced): Other instruments include: Riverside Church Riverside Church
13932-421: The congregation doubled in size by 1930. The new members were diverse; of the 158 people who joined in the year after Fosdick became minister, about half were not Baptists. Though some existing congregants had doubts about whether the Park Avenue Baptist Church should move from its recently completed edifice, the church's board, which was in favor of the relocation, stated congregants would not have to pay any of
14094-452: The congregation temporarily relocated to Temple Beth-El on Fifth Avenue and 76th Street for nine months starting in July 1929. The first portion of the new church building to be completed, the assembly hall under the auditorium, opened in October 1929. That December, Fosdick formally filed plans to rename the church from "Park Avenue Baptist Church" to "Riverside Church". The bell was hoisted to
14256-638: The contractor for the construction of the new Riverside Drive church. On November 21, 1927, the church's ceremonial cornerstone was laid, marking the start of construction. The cornerstone included items such as Woelfkin's Bible and New York Times articles about the new church. The Park Avenue church building and three adjacent rowhouses was sold for $ 1.5 million in April 1928. The same month, Park Avenue Baptist Church's official monthly newsletter announced its existing 53-bell carillon would be expanded to 72 bells upon its relocation to Riverside Drive, making it
14418-413: The costs for the new church. Morningside Heights, where the new church was to be located, was being quickly developed as a residential neighborhood surrounded by numerous higher-education institutions, including Union Theological Seminary and International House of New York. The development had been spurred by the presence of Riverside Park and Riverside Drive nearby, as well as the construction of
14580-469: The country". Fosdick stated he would accept the minister position on the conditions that the church would move to Morningside Heights, follow a policy of religious liberalism , remove the requirement for members to be baptized , and become nondenominational . At the end of May 1925, Fosdick agreed to become minister of the Park Avenue Baptist Church. Only fifteen percent of congregants voted against Fosdick's appointment. Under Fosdick's leadership,
14742-477: The creation of a $ 450,000 Fund for Social Justice to disburse reparations over three years. Following a 1972 metropolitan mission study, several ministries aimed toward ameliorating social conditions in the New York City area were formed at Riverside Church. Campbell's tenure was marked by several controversial sermons and increasing conflicts among the church's boards, councils, and staff. In June 1976, Campbell suddenly resigned, having felt his style of leadership
14904-439: The double-story school kitchen, school offices, and storage rooms over the nave. The ninth floor also houses a library, and there is wooden furniture in the kitchen and library. The main structure's roof is above the tenth floor, and the tower rises independently above that point. The eleventh through fourteenth floors originally contained the church's elementary school while the fifteenth and sixteenth floors respectively housed
15066-495: The eight above the main section of the nave. Behind the southern wall are six double-tiered niches with stone sculptures of ministers and Jacob Epstein 's sculpture Christ in Majesty . The Trompeta Majestatis organ stop projects from the wall beneath the niches. The chancel is directly north of the nave, slightly raised above it and separated from the nave by a limestone railing with 20 quatrefoil medallions. The western portion of
15228-541: The elements of nature, and have been enjoyed and developed in the Buddhist environment. The music is of several types and uses only a few types of instruments. The folk songs and poems were used in social gatherings to work together. The Indian influenced classical music has grown to be unique. The traditional drama, music and songs of Sinhala Light Music are typically Sri Lankan. The temple paintings and carvings feature birds, elephants, wild animals, flowers, and trees, and
15390-493: The end of 1979, and total annual attendance for morning services rose from 49,902 in 1976 to 71,536 in 1978. Coffin's tenure was also marked by theologically liberal sermons, many of which were controversial, though he was more traditional in his worship. This era also saw Channing E. Phillips , the first African-American major-party U.S. presidential nominee , being hired as minister of planning and coordination. Coffin announced his intention to resign in July 1987 to become
15552-475: The end of the 1930s these and others had turned American folk music into a social movement. Sometimes folk musicians became scholars and advocates themselves. For example, Jean Ritchie (1922–2015) was the youngest child of a large family from Viper, Kentucky that had preserved many of the old Appalachian traditional songs. Ritchie, living in a time when the Appalachians had opened up to outside influence,
15714-429: The fifteenth floor and above contained staff and clergy offices, as well as spaces for group activities. The second floor connects to the nave's lower seating gallery, while the third floor leads to the upper seating gallery. The fourth through eighth floors are below the height of the nave's ceiling; these housed the nursery, junior high, and high school departments of the church's school. The ninth and tenth floors housed
15876-449: The following May. This spurred a search for a new pastor and in March 1946, Robert James McCracken was chosen for the position and officially became the senior pastor of Riverside Church that October. Fosdick and McCracken held each other in mutual respect so the transition between ministers went smoothly. Over the next two decades, McCracken continued Fosdick's policy of religious liberalism. In 1956, halfway through McCracken's tenure,
16038-410: The front of the nave. Two seating galleries overhang the southern portion of the nave. The lower gallery is made of carved wood, has rows of oaken pews on a downward slope, and contains a wooden ceiling with nine lamps. The upper gallery is also made of carved wood and contains oaken pews on a slope but there is no canopy above it. The upper gallery is illuminated with four lanterns that are similar to
16200-399: The laborers who sing them to coordinate their efforts in accordance with the rhythms of the songs. They are frequently, but not invariably, composed. In the American armed forces , a lively oral tradition preserves jody calls ("Duckworth chants") which are sung while soldiers are on the march. Professional sailors made similar use of a large body of sea shanties . Love poetry , often of
16362-532: The largest set of bells in the world. In late 1928, three fires occurred after wooden scaffolding around the new church was ignited. On December 22, 1928, one of these fires caused $ 1 million in damage and almost completely destroyed the interior, though the exterior remained mostly intact. Much of the damage was covered by an insurance policy placed on the building. Shortly after the December 1928 fire, Rockefeller announced he would continue with construction after insurance claims were settled. The fire delayed
16524-556: The last 20 years of his life working on an Interactive Multimedia educational computer project he called the Global Jukebox , which included 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes , and 5,000 photographs. As of March 2012, this has been accomplished. Approximately 17,400 of Lomax's recordings from 1946 and later have been made available free online. This material from Alan Lomax's independent archive, begun in 1946, which has been digitized and offered by
16686-406: The local community. Nevertheless, the church decided to place an antenna atop the carillon for its own radio station, the top of the antenna being 440 feet (130 m) above ground level. Riverside Church started operating the radio station WRVR (106.7 MHz FM) in 1961 and continued to operate it until 1976. In 1960, Riverside Church's congregation voted to join the United Church of Christ ,
16848-408: The loss of traditional music is slowed in nations or regions where traditional folk music is a badge of cultural or national identity. Much of what is known about folk music prior to the development of audio recording technology in the 19th century comes from fieldwork and writings of scholars, collectors and proponents. Starting in the 19th century, academics and amateur scholars, taking note of
17010-454: The modern movie Songcatcher . One strong theme amongst folk scholars in the early decades of the 20th century was regionalism , the analysis of the diversity of folk music (and related cultures) based on regions of the US rather than based on a given song's historical roots. Later, a dynamic of class and circumstances was added to this. The most prominent regionalists were literary figures with
17172-567: The music of Dvořák , Smetana , Grieg , Rimsky-Korsakov , Brahms , Liszt , de Falla , Wagner , Sibelius , Vaughan Williams , Bartók , and many others drew upon folk melodies. While the loss of traditional folk music in the face of the rise of popular music is a worldwide phenomenon, it is not one occurring at a uniform rate throughout the world. The process is most advanced "where industrialization and commercialisation of culture are most advanced" but also occurs more gradually even in settings of lower technological advancement. However,
17334-572: The musical traditions being lost, initiated various efforts to preserve the music of the people. One such effort was the collection by Francis James Child in the late 19th century of the texts of over three hundred ballads in the English and Scots traditions (called the Child Ballads ), some of which predated the 16th century. Contemporaneously with Child, the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould and later Cecil Sharp worked to preserve
17496-441: The narthex is north of the altar. The 392-foot (119 m) tower was named after Laura Spelman Rockefeller , the mother of John D. Rockefeller Jr. The tower contains 21 usable floors, which include 80 classrooms and office rooms. There are four elevators, of which two rise only to the 10th floor, whereas the other two rise to the 20th floor. The 20-floor elevators, which rise 355 feet (108 m), were described in 1999 as
17658-454: The narthex, which since 1959 has been known as the Christ Chapel, was inspired by the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus in France. Its design was inspired by the pointed Romanesque nave at Carcassonne Cathedral . The design, which was described by architectural historian Andrew Dolkart as "earlier than Gothic", is intended to give the impression the rest of the sanctuary was built after
17820-500: The nave but much of this facade is obscured by McGiffert Hall, which faces directly onto Claremont Avenue and 122nd Street. On the eastern facade of the nave is a cloistered passageway leading to Claremont Avenue (see § Cloister passageway ). Above the cloister section is a rose window . The northern facade surrounds the chancel and ambulatory. An arched entrance called the Woman's Porch, which contains carvings of biblical women,
17982-438: The north and south walls between each of the four bays, and eight lanterns hang from the columns. The eastern end of the chapel contains an altar , four steps above the chapel's main level. There is a lectern to the right of the altar and a pulpit to the left. Several sculpted representations are above the altar. Behind the altar are a baptismal pool and a reredos , which are accessed through an arched opening. An alcove to
18144-408: The offices of traditional music collectors Robert Winslow Gordon , Alan Lomax and others to capture as much North American field material as possible. John Lomax (the father of Alan Lomax) was the first prominent scholar to study distinctly American folk music such as that of cowboys and southern blacks. His first major published work was in 1911, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads . and
18306-700: The other. In the proliferation of popular music genres, some traditional folk music became also referred to as " World music " or "Roots music". The English term " folklore ", to describe traditional folk music and dance, entered the vocabulary of many continental European nations, each of which had its folk-song collectors and revivalists. The distinction between "authentic" folk and national and popular song in general has always been loose, particularly in America and Germany – for example, popular songwriters such as Stephen Foster could be termed "folk" in America. The International Folk Music Council definition allows that
18468-794: The outcomes of battles or lament tragedies or natural disasters . Sometimes, as in the triumphant Song of Deborah found in the Biblical Book of Judges , these songs celebrate victory. Laments for lost battles and wars, and the lives lost in them, are equally prominent in many traditions; these laments keep alive the cause for which the battle was fought. The narratives of traditional songs often also remember folk heroes such as John Henry or Robin Hood . Some traditional song narratives recall supernatural events or mysterious deaths. Hymns and other forms of religious music are often of traditional and unknown origin. Western musical notation
18630-449: The pace of many activities such as planting , weeding , reaping , threshing , weaving , and milling . In leisure time , singing and playing musical instruments were common forms of entertainment and history-telling—even more common than today when electrically enabled technologies and widespread literacy make other forms of entertainment and information-sharing competitive. Some believe that folk music originated as art music that
18792-452: The plans entailed a church facing 122nd Street and wrapping around the existing apartment buildings on the site. The exception was a plan by Allen & Collens and Henry C. Pelton —who had designed Park Avenue Baptist Church—that called for a Gothic Revival church with its main entrance on the side, facing Riverside Drive, with a bell tower and apartment towers for the neighboring Union Theological Seminary. The building committee removed
18954-400: The preservation of songs as artifacts of deceased cultures. "Functional" folklorists (e.g. Botkin and Alan Lomax) maintained that songs only retain relevance when used by those cultures which retain the traditions which birthed those songs. "Left-wing" folk revivalists (e.g. Charles Seeger and Lawrence Gellert) emphasized music's role "in 'people's' struggles for social and political rights". By
19116-429: The president of disarmament organization SANE/Freeze, and held his last sermon that December. Riverside Church formed a committee that conducted a nationwide search for its next senior minister over the next year. In February 1989, the committee chose James A. Forbes , a professor at nearby Union Theological Seminary, for the position. The congregation voted almost unanimously to approve Forbes's selection and he became
19278-531: The progressive ideology, the Gothic design "can only be interpreted as an outward confession that religion is dead". The New York Sun referred to the building as one of the "most outstanding additions" to New York City's church architecture "in recent years". Eric Nash, in his book Manhattan Skyscrapers , called Riverside Church "Manhattan's last great eclectic skyscraper" while the AIA Guide to New York City dubbed
19440-486: The project with Pelton. While Taylor believed the design should have been more modernist , Crane defended Pelton's Gothic design as being "fundamentally Christian". The writers of the 1939 WPA Guide to New York City said the tower's features make the "building itself seem smaller than it is, so that its scale is scarcely impressive, even when seen at close range". Other critics called the building's exterior overly opulent; according to one critic, when considered along
19602-455: The rail contains a pulpit with a wooden canopy and three carved limestone blocks. A labyrinth composed of three types of marble; it was inspired by a similar design at Chartres Cathedral and is inlaid in the middle of the chancel floor. The labyrinth is flanked on both sides are four rows of oaken choir stalls with carvings of Psalms texts. To the north, behind the choir stalls, is the organ console. A communion table made of Caen stone
19764-408: The roofline. The Gothic-themed nave was inspired by Albi Cathedral , France, and measures 100 feet (30 m) high, 89 feet (27 m) wide and 215 feet (66 m) long. The width between the overhanging clerestory walls is 60 feet (18 m). The low, wide form of the nave is inspired by those of southern French and Spanish churches. The nave has a metal roof, whose base is surrounded by
19926-471: The songs they hear. For example, around 1970 the song Mullā Mohammed Jān spread from Herat to the rest of Afghanistan , and Iran where it was recorded. Due to its repetitive refrain and the predictability of the second half of each verse, it allowed for both its popularization, and for each singer to create their own version of the song without being overly-concerned for a melody or restrictive poetic rhythm. Because variants proliferate naturally, there
20088-609: The south of the existing church, started in 1955. The seven-story wing was designed by Collens, Willis & Beckonert, successors to Allen & Collens; its $ 15 million cost was funded by Rockefeller. The wing was dedicated in December 1959 and contained additional facilities for the church's programs. A 15-foot (4.6 m) dummy antenna had been placed on top of Riverside Church's 392-foot (119 m)-tall carillon earlier that year to determine whether it could be used by Columbia University's radio station, WKCR (89.9 MHz FM ), despite strong opposition from parishioners and
20250-461: The south. Riverside Church's main architects; Henry C. Pelton, Francis R. Allen, and Charles Collens; created the general plan for the church. Pelton was most involved with tactical planning while Collens was most involved with the Gothic detail. Sculptural elements were designed by Robert Garrison and constructed by local studios, including the Piccirilli Brothers . The church's interior
20412-492: The southern Yangtze area. Jiangnan Sizhu (silk and bamboo music from Jiangnan ) is a style of instrumental music, often played by amateur musicians in tea houses in Shanghai. Guangdong Music or Cantonese Music is instrumental music from Guangzhou and surrounding areas. The music from this region influenced Yueju (Cantonese Opera) music, which would later grow popular during the self-described "Golden Age" of China under
20574-405: The southern facade is mostly blocked by the MLK Wing to the south. The top portions of four narrow, arched stained-glass windows can be seen above the hip roof of the structure that connects the two sections. Above these stained-glass windows are three recessed, arched windows that are topped by a pediment containing a circular window. The eastern facade also has five groupings of windows facing
20736-630: The sponsorship of the Washington Post , the festival was held in Washington, DC at Constitution Hall from 1937 to 1942. The folk music movement, festivals, and the wartime effort were seen as forces for social goods such as democracy, cultural pluralism, and the removal of culture and race-based barriers. The American folk music revivalists of the 1930s approached folk music in different ways. Three primary schools of thought emerged: "Traditionalists" (e.g. Sarah Gertrude Knott and John Lomax ) emphasized
20898-433: The successive tiers have two, three, four, and five windows on each side. There are narrow, canopied niches in each corner of the tower, with one statue inside each niche. At the top of the tower is a conical metal roof. Most of the tower's stories have plaster floors, steel doors, steel window frames, and iron lighting fixtures hanging from each ceiling. There are elevator lobbies with vaulted ceilings on several stories of
21060-574: The successor denomination to the Congregational Christian Churches . Rockefeller purchased the Stone Gym, an existing Union Theological Seminary building southeast of the original church, and reopened it as a community facility in April 1962 after a five-year renovation. In April 1967, McCracken announced he would leave his position as senior minister, citing health issues. Ernest T. Campbell became pastor in November 1968. Less than
21222-558: The term "folk music": newly composed songs, fixed in form and by known authors, which imitated some form of traditional music. The popularity of "contemporary folk" recordings caused the appearance of the category "Folk" in the Grammy Awards of 1959; in 1970 the term was dropped in favor of "Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (including Traditional Blues)", while 1987 brought a distinction between "Best Traditional Folk Recording" and "Best Contemporary Folk Recording". After that, they had
21384-485: The term can also apply to music that, "...has originated with an individual composer and has subsequently been absorbed into the unwritten, living tradition of a community. But the term does not cover a song, dance, or tune that has been taken over ready-made and remains unchanged." The post– World War II folk revival in America and in Britain started a new genre, Contemporary Folk Music , and brought an additional meaning to
21546-602: The term folk music should be used. Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of "old songs, with no known composers," another is that of music that has been submitted to an evolutionary "process of oral transmission ... the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character." Such definitions depend upon "(cultural) processes rather than abstract musical types...", upon " continuity and oral transmission ...seen as characterizing one side of
21708-933: The texts of 217,996 Latvian folk songs, the Latvju dainas . In Norway the work of collectors such as Ludvig Mathias Lindeman was extensively used by Edvard Grieg in his Lyric Pieces for piano and in other works, which became immensely popular. Around this time, composers of classical music developed a strong interest in collecting traditional songs, and a number of composers carried out their own field work on traditional music. These included Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams in England and Béla Bartók in Hungary. These composers, like many of their predecessors, both made arrangements of folk songs and incorporated traditional material into original classical compositions. The advent of audio recording technology provided folklorists with
21870-520: The then-known variations of both the texts and tunes associated with what came to be known as the Child Canon. He also advanced some significant theories concerning the workings of oral-aural tradition. Similar activity was also under way in other countries. One of the most extensive was perhaps the work done in Riga by Krisjanis Barons , who between the years 1894 and 1915 published six volumes that included
22032-558: The top of the tower's carillon in early September 1930, the tower was completed later that month, and the first Sunday school class was held there on September 29. The church was completed on October 5, the same day the first service was held in the altar; it was attended by 3,200 people. All of the space in the nave and basement was filled and thousands more people wished to enter. The next month, officials received two oil paintings from Rockefeller Jr.'s collection. The first officers of Riverside Church were elected in December 1930 and
22194-407: The top tier serves as the clerestory. Each of the three center bays behind the chancel screen has one window group on the lower tier, each of which has two lancet windows topped by a rose window and is divided by vertical buttresses. The apse clerestory, the upper section of the ambulatory, is recessed slightly inward. The upper section's fenestration is similar in form; each window grouping contains
22356-422: The tower. On the stories that contain common spaces, including the ninth and tenth floors, the floors are finished with stone, terrazzo , and wood, and are fitted with wooden doors. Several spaces in the tower have been used by outside entities, who carpeted floors and installed lighting fixtures in some office rooms. Originally, the fourth through fourteenth floors were occupied by Riverside Church's school while
22518-477: The town. Folk music was already, "...seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived)," particularly in "a community uninfluenced by art music" and by commercial and printed song. Lloyd rejected this in favor of a simple distinction of economic class yet for him, true folk music was, in Charles Seeger 's words, "associated with
22680-478: The traditional folk music of many cultures. This encompasses such forms as traditional epic poetry , much of which was meant originally for oral performance, sometimes accompanied by instruments. Many epic poems of various cultures were pieced together from shorter pieces of traditional narrative verse, which explains their episodic structure, repetitive elements, and their frequent in medias res plot developments. Other forms of traditional narrative verse relate
22842-557: The transverse ribs and descend lower than the level of the triforium gallery. The vaults contain a finish of acoustic Guastavino tiles, which are mostly gray. The tiles above the chancel and the nave's northernmost two bays are brown because a sealant that was applied in 1953 to increase the organ's acoustical reach has turned yellow over time. The nave was built with a seating capacity of either 2,400, 2,408, or 2,500. The ground level contains 38 rows of oaken pews that have Gothic decoration; five additional rows of pews used to exist at
23004-635: The twenty-first century many cherished Chinese folk songs have been inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . In the process, songs once seen as vulgar are now being reconstructed as romantic courtship songs. Regional song competitions, popular in many communities, have promoted professional folk singing as a career, with some individual folk singers having gained national prominence. The art, music and dance of Sri Lanka derive from
23166-514: The uncultured classes". The term further derives from the German expression Volk , in the sense of "the people as a whole" as applied to popular and national music by Johann Gottfried Herder and the German Romantics over half a century earlier. Though it is understood that folk music is the music of the people, observers find a more precise definition to be elusive. Some do not even agree that
23328-540: The west and Claremont Park to the north. Rockefeller felt the Riverside Drive site was more easily visible because it abutted the Hudson River and would be seen by recreational users of Riverside Drive. In May 1925, Rockefeller finalized his purchase of the new church's site at Riverside Drive. That July, he exchanged his previous purchase of a plot on Morningside Drive for another plot on Riverside Drive. Shortly afterward, he acquired yet more land, after which he had
23490-404: The world's tallest elevators inside a church. Two staircases ascend from ground level; one on the western side of the tower ends at the ninth floor, and the one on the eastern side continues to the carillon. Balconies are at the southern corners on the 8th floor and on all sides of the 10th floor except the north side. The tower's main entrance is on the western elevation of the tower's base and
23652-508: The young-adult fellowship, held worship services during Sunday evenings. Weddings and funerals were also hosted at the church. In 1942, the United States Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Columbia started using Riverside Church for services, drawing 2,000 attendees on average, and continued to hold its services at the church until October 1945. In June 1945, Fosdick announced he would step down as senior minister
23814-529: Was arguably the most prominent US folk music scholar of his time, notably during the beginnings of the folk music revival in the 1930s and early 1940s. Cecil Sharp also worked in America, recording the traditional songs of the Appalachian Mountains in 1916–1918 in collaboration with Maud Karpeles and Olive Dame Campbell and is considered the first major scholar covering American folk music. Campbell and Sharp are represented under other names by actors in
23976-579: Was attended by a capacity crowd. Two of the many reflections shared at the service speak to the impact of Mary Travers's work and the significance of her legacy. Feminist Gloria Steinem commented that with her poise and conviction as a performer, Ms. Travers "seemed to us to be a free woman, and that helped us to be free." Folk singer and co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival , Theodore Bikel , mused on her roles as political activist and glamorous pop-music touchstone: Folk music Folk music
24138-464: Was built to the south of the original building in 1959 to a design by Collens, Willis & Beckonert, and was renamed for Martin Luther King ;Jr. in 1985. The Stone Gym to the southeast, built in 1915 as a dormitory, was designed by Louis E. Jallade and was converted to a gymnasium in 1962. Riverside Church has been a focal point of global and national activism since its inception, and it has
24300-424: Was changed and probably debased by oral transmission while reflecting the character of the society that produced it. In many societies, especially preliterate ones, the cultural transmission of folk music requires learning by ear , although notation has evolved in some cultures. Different cultures may have different notions concerning a division between "folk" music on the one hand and of "art" and "court" music on
24462-533: Was designed by Burnham Hoyt . The Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Wing to the south of the original building was designed by Collens, Willis & Beckonert and the Stone Gym to the southeast was designed by Louis E. Jallade. As of 2017 , Riverside Church is the tallest church in the United States and is among the world's tallest churches , with a tower rising 392 feet (119 m). Pelton and Collens chose
24624-467: Was diagnosed with leukemia . A bone marrow transplant in 2005 induced a temporary remission, but she died on September 16, 2009, at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, from complications related to the marrow transplant and other treatments. A memorial service for Travers was held on November 9, 2009, at Riverside Church In New York City. The four-hour service, on what would have been her 73rd birthday,
24786-405: Was dismissed after she and several other female staff members had experienced sexual harassment by another former council member, Dr. Edward Lowe. Michael E. Livingston became the interim senior minister. Riverside Church occupies a 454-by-100-foot (138 m × 30 m) lot between Riverside Drive to the west, 122nd Street to the north, Claremont Avenue to the east, and 120th Street to
24948-533: Was dubbed the "Little Cathedral", was designed by Henry C. Pelton in partnership with Francis R. Allen and Charles Collens. The final service in the Fifth Avenue location was held on April 3, 1922, and the renamed Park Avenue Baptist Church held its first class in the new location the next week. In 1924, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated $ 500,000 to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights , which
25110-510: Was further uptown from the Park Avenue location, in an unsuccessful attempt to influence the cathedral's ideology in a progressive direction. The following January, Harry E. Edmonds—leader of the International House in Morningside Heights for whose construction Rockefeller had provided funds—wrote to Rockefeller to propose creating a new church in the neighborhood. Edmonds suggested progressive pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick should head such
25272-418: Was inspired by the two western towers at Chartres. The rest of the facade consists of Indiana Limestone . Upon Riverside Church's completion, its design received both praise and criticism. In mid-1931, The American Architect published pieces in mid-1931 that featured a critical viewpoint from Columbia architecture professor Walter A. Taylor and a rebuttal from architect Charles Crane, who had worked on
25434-503: Was nominated; the nomination excluded the Martin Luther King Jr. Wing, despite preservationists' requests for the entire structure to be considered for landmark designation. The NYCLPC approved landmark status for the original church in May 2000. Two controversies involving Riverside Church arose in the early 2000s; an allegation of sexual abuse by the director of a basketball program at the church and an allegation of financial mismanagement due to
25596-405: Was not possible. Music was made by common people during both their work and leisure, as well as during religious activities. The work of economic production was often manual and communal. Manual labor often included singing by the workers, which served several practical purposes. It reduced the boredom of repetitive tasks, it kept the rhythm during synchronized pushes and pulls, and it set
25758-468: Was not sufficient to reconcile these disagreements. The same month saw the installment of the church's first female pastor, Evelyn Newman. By a vote in August 1977, William Sloane Coffin was selected as the next senior minister of Riverside Church. Coffin officiated his first service in November 1977. At this point, the congregation's size had been declining for several years but after Coffin's selection as senior minister, membership increased to 2,627 by
25920-411: Was originally created to preserve the lines of Gregorian chant , which before its invention was taught as an oral tradition in monastic communities. Traditional songs such as Green grow the rushes, O present religious lore in a mnemonic form, as do Western Christmas carols and similar traditional songs. Work songs frequently feature call and response structures and are designed to enable
26082-480: Was the first of several Rockefeller family members to attend the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church; he became a major financial backer of the church in the 1870s. William and his brother John D. Rockefeller later became trustees of the church and many of its services were held at the Rockefellers' home nearby. Cornelius Woelfkin , who became the church's minister in 1912, started leading the church in
26244-489: Was university educated and ultimately moved to New York City, where she made a number of classic recordings of the family repertoire and published an important compilation of these songs. In January 2012, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress , with the Association for Cultural Equity, announced that they would release Lomax's vast archive of 1946 and later recording in digital form. Lomax spent
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