CHURCH OF GOD
25 East 132nd Street
DECEMBER 8, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 188

Church of God, variant image

The Pilgrim Pentacostal Church of God, which had 28 members, was typical of Harlem's many storefront churches. Despite its small size, the church held services five days a week and supported a Sunday School. The congregation could not pay the Reverend Elder Johnson a salary, but he lodged rent-free in the church study and supported himself selling insurance. On the ground floor was the Pentacostal Barber Shop, run cooperatively by the brethren. Abbott first photographed the church without the pastor; by chance, he entered the frame of her second exposure (O'Neal, 146). His appearance provides evidence that the signboard of a pastor on the church's facade was a striking, if unschooled, portrait of Rev. Johnson.

In 1948, the north side of East 132nd Street between Lenox and Fifth Avenues, which included the Church of God, was torn down for the Abraham Lincoln Houses, a massive public housing project. The south side, where Abbott stood to take the photograph, still consists of shabby, nineteenth-century brownstones.

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