ROCKEFELLER CENTER WITH COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS
Fifth Avenue and 48th Street
DECEMBER 8, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 189

The Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas housed Manhattan's oldest congregation, founded in 1628. The brownstone edifice on Fifth Avenue was constructed in 1872, when the avenue south of Central Park was home to many of New York's most prominent families. By the turn of the century, Fifth Avenue had assumed a commercial character, and by the 1930s, the venerable church was wedged against Rockefeller Center, "the largest building project ever undertaken by private capital."

Abbott's photograph shows the Time-Life Building (left), not completed until 1937, and in the background the RCA Building (1933), the Center's 70-story "campanile." The photograph masterfully illustrates Abbott's reflection that "in Europe, it's the big church and the little buildings, and here little churches and the big buildings of business." (McQuaid, 401).

The Fifth Avenue buildings north of Collegiate Church--the Child's Restaurant Building (1925) and the Goelet Building (1932, now Swiss Center)--still stand. In 1952, the church was razed for the Sinclair Oil Building, which was later purchased by Rockefeller Center.

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