NEWS FEATURE: The `God-Box’ Turns 40

c. 2000 Religion News Service NEW YORK _ When the Rev. James Forbes was a student at Union Theological Seminary in the late 1950s, the din of construction work across the street would occasionally drown out the voice of an instructor. Far from minding the noise, however, Forbes and others of the seminary community in […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ When the Rev. James Forbes was a student at Union Theological Seminary in the late 1950s, the din of construction work across the street would occasionally drown out the voice of an instructor.

Far from minding the noise, however, Forbes and others of the seminary community in upper Manhattan thought the sounds represented something glorious _ the construction of a 19-story building, the Interchurch Center at 475 Riverside Drive, which would house some of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations and agencies.


Ecumenism was still something novel, and the construction of the Interchurch Center was seen as the most tangible symbol of an eagerly anticipated cooperation that had long eluded the nation’s leading Protestant denominations. So significant was the building’s construction that President Dwight Eisenhower laid the cornerstone in 1958. Two years later, the Interchurch Center was formally dedicated.

“It was a wonderful time,” said Forbes, now senior minister at the neighboring Riverside Church. “It was as if we Christians had responded to Jesus’ call that we `be one.’

“We thought we’d make all things right.”

But as Forbes noted during a recent worship service commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Interchurch Center’s dedication in 1960, the era of Protestant triumphalism was short-lived. Mainline Protestantism is not the cultural force it once was, and as a telling example, some of the Interchurch Center’s most prominent denominational tenants have since left the building and New York City itself.

Alluding to the building’s nickname, the “God Box” _ a term not always used endearingly due to the building’s boxy 1950s architectural style _ Forbes said: “You can’t put God in a box. You can’t even put God’s people in a box. Some come, some go.”

To some, the “going” _ at least of church agencies _ is an essential part of the story of a building constructed on land leased for 100 years by the Rockefeller family, and constructed with funds from philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and many of the building’s original tenants. One of them, the National Council of Churches, has remained at “475” from the beginning.

Another long-term tenant is the United Methodist Church’s mission agency, the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM), one of the largest tenants in the building. Yet another is a decidedly secular institution, Columbia University, and some at “475” grumble that Columbia’s increased presence in the building is another sign that the original mission of the building is slowly being chipped away.

Fueling that sentiment is the upcoming move of another church agency. The United Church of Christ’s Board of World Ministry is leaving the building July 1, the last remaining UCC agency, moving to the denomination’s national headquarters in Cleveland, part of a series of moves that began in 1990.


This final move from the Interchurch Center, said Dale Bishop, the board’s executive vice president, “doesn’t feel good.”

“The building has been our home for a long time and it has been a real asset to our ministry,” he said. “We have felt very much at home.” But despite better international air travel connections from New York and New York’s unparalleled cultural diversity _ something Bishop views as an asset for the church _ it was ultimately decided that it was better for the denomination to move its world ministry board and join the rest of the UCC offices in Cleveland.

Bishop said he misses the days when the major offices of several denominations were all at “475” and believes there were sound arguments for the major denominations to remain at the Interchurch Center.

“There was a level of sharing and collegiality at `475′ that I miss,” he said, adding that despite an era of e-mail and telephone conference calls, scheduling common meetings among the denominations is now much more difficult. “I don’t think anything replaces human contact.”

Still, he added, the issue for the UCC and the other national denominations offices that left were never about the building itself. At $14.16 a square foot, a third of the cost of office space in prime locations elsewhere in Manhattan, the Interchurch Center remains a bargain for its tenants, all of whom are nonprofit agencies.

Rather, individual denominations faced particular issues of identity, Bishop said. For the UCC, it meant moving closer to the church’s large Midwestern constituency. For the Presbyterians, perhaps the most prominent group to leave, it meant moving to a neutral locale (Louisville, Ky.) after a new denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in 1983 united the so-called “northern” and “southern” branches of the Presbyterian church.


Sue Dennis, the Interchurch Center’s executive director, seems unfazed by any lingering nostalgia for an earlier age or by complaints about the growing clout of secular tenants such as Columbia. In fact, she said, the building has kept to a stated goal of having religious organizations make up 60 percent of its tenants, which now number more than 60 nonprofit organizations.

The biggest change in the building during the last 40 years, Dennis said, is that there is now greater diversity among the religious groups represented, with Jewish, Muslim and Catholic organizations working in the building, though Protestant groups continue to dominate the tenant list. There are also increased numbers of local and regional religious groups represented, including a new tenant, the local New York synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

“We are a reflection of an increasingly pluralistic society,”Dennis said.

Occasionally, there have been bumps along the way to greater diversity. An inadvertent mix-up in a printed program caused a rabbi to call into question another participant’s invocation of Jesus during the May 25 interreligious rededication service.

In the building’s day-to-day work life, the lingering “church” ethos of “475” can seem like a quaint curiosity or a musty throwback, particularly to a new generation of employees. But the Interchurch Center’s Protestant legacy continues in positive ways, too: tenants are expected to serve on committees and take their responsibilities toward the building and other tenants seriously. “The creation of the community is, in fact, the primary thing we seek,” Dennis said.

That feeling of community, a tenant waiting list of some 50 groups, ongoing art exhibits, a library, a medical office and a friendliness rare in other Manhattan office buildings, all point to a building “that has been an extraordinary success,” she said.

Elliot Wright, a journalist, church historian and long-time ecumenical observer, agrees. He said the Interchurch Center’s success shouldn’t be judged on whether national denominational offices still share building space at “475,” something he believes is no longer necessary given the advance of office technologies and air travel.


While ecumenism nationally “is not a growth industry,” Wright said, the success of local interfaith councils that now include Jews and Muslims as well as Christians is proof of ecumenism’s quiet strength and evolving character over the years.

That these changes are now reflected at the Interchurch Center itself is a testimony to the building’s adaptability and resilience, he said. “It’s a building,” Wright said. “There’s no great sense of defeat that the world didn’t stay the same.”

DEA END HERLINGER

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