★★★★★ 5.0
Discover
The Riverside Church
The year is 1927, and workers are hauling a TWENTY-TON bell up America's future tallest church! Those limestone walls you see are totally fake - they're hiding a steel skyscraper wearing a Gothic costume! John D. Rockefeller Jr. built this 392-foot tower on Riverside Drive with 74 bronze bells that boom across Manhattan. Inside, 2,100 people can sit beneath stained glass so massive that repair crews today use DRONES to reach them!
Did You Know?
- The Riverside Church is home to the largest and heaviest tuned carillon bell in the world, a 20-ton bourdon bell, part of a 74-bell carillon donated in honor of Laura Spelman Rockefeller—this musical instrument is so massive that the church’s steel frame was specially reinforced just to support its weight.
- On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous 'Beyond Vietnam' speech from the Riverside Church pulpit, marking the first time he publicly opposed the Vietnam War and cementing the church’s reputation as a hub for social justice and historic activism.
- The church’s labyrinth, located on the floor of the chancel, is a rare medieval-style maze adapted from the famous labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France—one of the few such designs in existence and a unique feature that families and children can walk and explore during visits.