Church Missions House
About this property
Church Missions House (also known as 281 Park Avenue South) is a historic building at Park Avenue South and East 22nd Street in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Part of an area once known as "Charity Row", the building was designed by Robert W. Gibson and Edward J. Neville Stent, with a steel structure and medieval-inspired facade. The design was inspired by the town halls of Haarlem and medieval Amsterdam. Church Missions House is so named because it was the headquarters of the Episcopal Church's Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society for much of the 20th century. The facade is made of granite at the ground story and Indiana Limestone on the other stories. The facade's composition is based on the arrangement of the superstructure, which is arranged as a grid of rectangles. The main entrance is through a porch at the center of the Park Avenue facade. Inside, the building contains at least 33,600 square feet (3,120 m2) of space. The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society sought to develop a dedicated headquarters for much of the 19th century. The Church Missions House building was built between 1892 and 1894. The building was sold in 1963 to the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (FPWA). The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Church Missions House as a landmark in 1979, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The FPWA moved out of the building in 2015. Fotografiska New York, an offshoot of the Swedish photography museum Fotografiska, occupied it from 2019 to 2024.
Location
Categories
Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Church Missions House
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Questions about this property
When was Church Missions House listed on the National Register?
Church Missions House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 2, 1982.
What type of historic resource is Church Missions House?
Church Missions House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Church Missions House?
The period of significance for Church Missions House is recorded as the colonial era.
Can I research the history near Church Missions House?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Church Missions House will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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An Aubrey US report for an address near Church Missions House will include this listing alongside battlefield records and other historical sources within your chosen radius.