The congregation was founded in 1857 by abolitionists who recruited Rev. Theodore Cuyler as pastor by promising to build a new church. This church, designed in the Romanesque Revival style by architecture firm Grimshaw & Morrill, was completed in 1852, with stained-glass windows added later. Cuyler’s reach spread well beyond LAPC, writing weekly columns read by prominent figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain. Notably, Cuyler invited people of color, including Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass, and women, including evangelist Sarah Smiley, to preach at LAPC.  

LAPC’s tradition of social activism lives on today. The congregation works collaboratively with the community to advocate for immigrant rights, living wages, and prison reform. The Audre Lorde Project, a community organizing center for LGBTQ people of color, has met at LAPC since 1996. Irondale, a theater company that comments on social and economic justice issues through performance, found its home in LAPC’s double height Sunday school space in 2008. LAPC embodies the idea of a church as a community space, as seen in the sanctuary with Hank Prussing’s 1978 mural featuring candid photographs of people in the neighborhood.

With a $250,000 National Fund grant and $500,000 in matching funds raised by the congregation, LAPC will make progress in completing a 23-year project to restore the building’s envelope. Work will include restoring and cleaning the brownstone facade and study tower to prevent further water penetration and repairing the 1893 Tiffany-designed stained-glass triptych in the sanctuary.

Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church by Deborah Howard