In 1874, the Methodist minister Christian Blinn arrived in New York from Germany with his wife, a religious passion, and a comfortable personal fortune. Immediately, he recognized the need for a German-language Methodist church.

In November 1888, the Rev. Christian Blinn traveled to Kansas City to attend a conference of the General Missionary Committee. While there he fell ill. The Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church announced in January 1889 that he “was obliged by illness to remain in his place of entertainment. He died at Kansas City the day after the adjournment of the committee, November 21, 1889.”

Blinn’s will provided $3,000 each (nearly $82,000 today) to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the German Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Mission Institute in Texas (which was soon renamed Blinn Memorial College). Almost immediately, plans were laid for a church in the upper section of Manhattan named in Blinn’s honor.

On November 20, 1891, the newly organized Blinn Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church paid $17,000 for the empty plot at the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 103rd Street. The land was part of a large tract previously owned by William H. Gebhard.

He placed deed restrictions on the plot, limiting its use to “a Protestant church or a private house.” The trustees were apparently confident in their negotiations because The Sanitary News had reported months earlier, on July 1, that Frank Wennemer had filed plans for the church and parsonage. “The front will be of long meadow stone and Philadelphia brick.”

The Record & Guide added that the cost would be $60,000 and “The church will be Gothic in style.” There was, in fact, little Gothic in the style of the completed structure. Wennemer had drawn heavily from the German version of the Romanesque Revival known as Rundbogenstil. Hints of Gothic Revival appeared in the terra cotta detailing of the brick eyebrows over the arched openings, and in the engaged granite and terra cotta columns flanking the entrance. The delicately arched brick corbel tables that outlined the upper facade and the bell tower softened the stern Germanic architecture.

The first decades of the 20^th century

On January 13, 1927, newspapers announced that the church’s trustees had petitioned the Supreme Court to remove the deed restrictions. The Times reported, “The petition discloses that the church wants to sell its property and establish itself elsewhere.” The church argued that the neighborhood was now filled mostly with commercial and tenement buildings and “is no longer desirable for a private dwelling.” Its attorney said, “because of the change in the character of the neighborhood the congregation now is exceedingly small.” The church did not get its wish and the congregation limped along until 1930.

The building was taken over in 1931 by the Greek Orthodox Community of Saint George. That congregation had been located on 105th Street and Madison Avenue. In 1935, the church merged with the Greek Orthodox Community of Saint Demetrios, formed just eight years earlier.

Now known as the Greek Orthodox Community of Saint George and Saint Demetrios, the congregation purchased the church building for $32,000 in 1938. The community room, accessed through 140 East 103rd Street, was severely damaged by a fire on March 12, 1946. Responding firefighters battled the blaze for an hour before it was brought under control. A substantial interior renovation was instituted in 1952.

The newly assigned Grand Archimandrite Matthew Papavasilou (more easily addressed as Father Matthew) envisioned a “true Greek Orthodox Church” with an east-facing altar and iconography-covered walls. The result was the relocation of the main entrance to 103rd Street, and dazzling interiors. New stained glass windows were installed, and artist Constantine Yousis, an expert in Byzantine-style iconography, decorated the walls.

Author: Tom Miller

Source: http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-blinn-memorial-methodist-episcopal.html