First Presbyterian Church

A Presbyterian society was founded in Ithaca in 1804. Members met first in a school where DeWitt Mall is now located, and in 1818 a wood-frame meeting house was dedicated on the present site. The second building was a Gothic Revival structure designed by James Renwick, architect of Grace Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. As in the case of the First Baptist Church, Gothic Revival gave way to Romanesque Revival. Noted New York architect J. Cleveland Cady, designer of the old Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan, used a double-apse plan, typical of twelfth and thirteenth century German Romanesque churches. The striking western apse curving out to Cayuga Street contains vibrantly colored stained-glass windows.

LISTEN HERE