The First Congregational Church of Albany, also known as The Ray Palmer Memorial, is located on Quail Street in the Woodlawn section of Albany, New York, United States. It is a brick building in the Colonial Revival architectural style built in the 1910s and expanded half a century later. In 2014 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Within two years of its establishment in 1850 the congregation hosted the Albany Convention, a gathering which helped Congregationalism develop a nationwide reach. The Rev. Ray Palmer, later known for his hymns, guided the church through its early years, when it was located in downtown Albany, first in a former Presbyterian church and later in its own building. In the early 20th century, the church followed its congregants in moving out towards the more suburban areas of Albany being developed along the city's trolley lines.
The Fuller & Robinson Company designed the present church, following the Wren–Gibbs tradition. It was the first Colonial Revival church in the city, attracting much local media attention. Construction was delayed by the onset of World War I; it was formally dedicated to Ray Palmer in 1919.
As one of the first churches to establish itself in those areas, it formed a social center of the new neighborhood. After World War II, plans went ahead to build a Sunday school wing intended for the original church. It was completed, in an architecturally sympathetic modernist style, by the early 1960s. It continues to have an active congregation, affiliated with both the United Church of Christ and National Association of Congregational Christian Churches.
Building and grounds
The church is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Quail Street and Maple Avenue in the Woodlawn neighborhood west of central Albany. Its lot, just under an acre () in size, takes up all but the northwest quadrant of the irregularly shaped block between Maple, Quail and Grove and Woodlawn avenues. The surrounding terrain is mostly level, at the crest of gentle rises to the north and south.
Other than the church building, the surrounding neighborhood is residential, consisting mainly of two-story single-family detached homes, with a few three-story and multiple-unit properties, on small lots. This gives way to some one-story commercial properties on New Scotland Avenue, the area's main road, a block to the south. Two blocks to the east the residential development yields to the large institutional parcels of Albany Medical Center and Sage College of Albany. Between the two along the south side of New Scotland is the Lewis Pilcher-designed New Scotland Avenue Armory, also listed on the National Register.
A paved parking lot fills the southwestern portion of the lot. A concrete walkway across a lawn with a bike rack, mature evergreen at its west side and two mature deciduous trees at the corner of Maple and Quail connects the south side of the building to the city sidewalks. On the north side is a wide driveway from Woodlawn. A lawn with some more mature trees and shrubs fills the northeastern corner of the property; another sidewalk connects to an entrance at the lawn's south end.
Exterior
The building itself is a two-story, steel framed three-by-five-bay) cross-gabled structure faced in brick laid in running bond on a cast stone foundation set off from the brick by a beveled water table. The roof is shingled in asphalt and pierced by a steeple on the east and a brick chimney on the west. A similarly gabled two-story brick addition extends from the side gable on the north side.
Main building
Six full-width stone steps, with four decorative iron handrails, lead up to the entrance portico on the east (front) elevation, which itself is almost as wide as the building. From stone plinth blocks on the portico rise four fluted round wooden columns topped by Ionic capitals. Above them is a wide frieze between molded cornices and an entablature with "First Congregational Church" engraved across the width in capital letters. A dentilled cornice tops it, setting off a pediment with a recessed bullseye window in the tympanum and triangular moldings on each side, topped with another dentilled cornice.
Behind the portico, the facade itself features four square pilasters with the same treatment as the columns. Between them, on the first floor, are three entrances. All have the same treatment, with paneled wooden double doors topped by a decorative glass transom, set in a stone surround. Scrolled brackets support a stone cornice over each door with Adam style tracery. Above each entrance is a stone panel; the one in the middle is engraved with the words "Ray Palmer Memorial." A cast stone beltcourse separates the first and second stories, serving as the sill for the six-light casement windows above them, set in more restrained stone surrounds than the doors below them.
At the corners the bricks are laid to simulate quoins. The stone beltcourse continues onto the side profiles. On the first of the five bays west of the portico, the basement is set with six-over-six double-hung sash topped by a splayed brick lintel. The second story has a six-light casement similar to those on the east, topped by an eight-light transom. It is set with a stone sill and splayed brick lintel with a central keystone topped by the beltcourse. At the roofline the frieze continues.
On the south facade, the cross-gabled section projects slightly. The eastern two of its three bays are set with double six-over-six double-hung sash. From the western bay a small brick vestibule with gently pitched gable roof sheltering two glass and wooden doors projects. It has three full-pane glass windows on either side.
The beltcourse serves as the springline for the three round-arched windows on the second story of the cross-gable. The center window is set with stained glass while the two flanking windows have 24-light central sections, 12-pane sidelights and radiating muntins in the arch. All three are set in splayed brick surrounds topped by keystones. The pediment above is broken with a bullseye window set amid splayed brick and keystones at all four cardinal points. West of the cross-gable is another bay with the same treatment as the one to the east of it.
An entrance to the basement, flanked by two more six-over-six double-hung sash, is in the center of on the west (rear) of the building. It is set in the center of a section that, like the entrance portico on the other end, runs nearly the full width of the face and projects slightly. Just east of the south corner, a wooden staircase with wooden handrail ascends to a small roofed porch on the first story. By using the Street View option, the southwest corner of the building can be seen.
The stone beltcourse does not continue on to the west projection. Each story has two narrow six-over-six double-hung sash in the side bays, with a blind central bay. At the northwest corner, a nine-light wooden door provides access to the basement on the north facade. A window on the above story is more modern in style, similar to those on the adjacent wing. By using the Street View option, the northwest corner of the building can be seen.
North wing
Like the church's main block, the Sunday School wing on the north side has two stories with an exposed basement, but is not as tall. On the main block's facade above it, the bullseye window has been bricked in although its surround remains. It is faced in similar brick and topped with a gently pitched gabled roof covered in asphalt shingles. At its southeast corner, where it meets the main block, a full-height glass facade marks the main entrance.
On the rest of the wing's east facade, bands of windows run across the basement and both stories. All have a small section in the bottom that opens vertically. The north facade has two of these windows at either side, flanking a slightly projecting blind middle section in which a brickwork cross has been created
The northern bay of the wing's west facade has an entrance at the basement level; it is blind above. To its south the banded windows, similar to those on the opposite side, resume. On this side they end where a one-story flat-roofed hyphen sits between the wing and the main building. A set of stone steps with a metal handrail lead from the driveway to an entrance, sheltered by a broad eave.
Steeple
Atop the pediment the first of the steeple's four stages, a square brick platform, begins. It is topped with a molded cornice and turned balustrade, behind which is an octagonal stage. On the wider surfaces are double ten-light casement windows topped by a round-arched transom with radiating muntins. All are between small smooth square pilasters topped by molding. The narrower surfaces have two vertical panels, the bottom one longer than the top.
A paneled frieze between two molded cornices sets off that stage from the one above, where classical urns mark the chamfered corners. From it rises a louvered octagonal belfry with all facets of equal width, topped by a copper bell-shaped cupola. A plain finial is at the very top of the structure.
Interior
All three entry doors open into the same narthex, with stairs leading to a full-width platform where doors opposite them open into the sanctuary. On the north and south sides are doors with stairs leading to the choir loft above. All doors in the narthex are paneled double doors with transoms in simple classical surrounds topped with entablatures.
Two aisles divide the wooden pews, on a carpeted floor. To their west, at the nave, is a large wooden table on a platform, with a Gothic Revival baptismal font next to it. A knee wall separates it from an upper platform in the chancel where the pulpit is located. On either side of the chancel are large racks with organ pipes; however, those on the south side are purely decorative and non-functional.
On the walls fluted composite pilasters with cushioned egg-and-dart capitals rise to a modillioned entablature with triglyphs at the ceiling line. The ceiling itself is mostly flat. On the north wall, artificial lighting behind the windows in the shallow transepts, now blocked by the Sunday School wing, balances the natural light on the other side. The chancel features the same wall treatment as the rest of the sanctuary, with an elliptical arched molding above. It is topped by the bullseye window, set with stained glass depicting Christ in Gethsemane. The pilasters and entablature continue in the choir loft as well.
Below the sanctuary is the church basement. It is divided into a large meeting room, cafeteria and social room. The latter has a small stage with proscenium, and metal beams support the ceiling.
The north wing has on both floors a T-shaped plan. The double-loaded corridors at the south end reveal the original church's exterior wall and features. To the north it opens into classrooms, meeting rooms and a small chapel. The halls and rooms have modern finishings such as vinyl tile, concrete block walls and dropped ceilings.
History
The church has used three buildings in its history.
1600s–1850: Congregationalism and its journey to Albany
Congregationalism arose in the 16th century, during the English Reformation, when local churches sought greater control over their affairs than the Roman Catholic Church, and after it the Protestant Church of England, would allow. Many of its adherents were among the Puritans who left England during the next century for its North American colonies. For a century afterwards, even after the establishment of the United States, American Congregationalists were primarily concentrated in New England. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as settlers from that region began to move west in search of land to farm, the denomination began establishing itself in those regions, particularly upstate New York.