Riverside Church, New York City

We were visiting the GSO Archives next door where there was a picture of John D. Rockefeller and Rev. Fosdick, the founding pastor of Riverside Church.. Leaving GSO in the Interchurch Centre we saw the sign for the Rienhold Neibuhr place. He’s famous for the Serenity Prayer.  The location by the Hudson River was certainly  a serene place despite the inclement weather.  I loved the famous Heinrich Hofmann painting of Jesus praying in the Gethsemane Chapel in Riverside Church.  The church is Neo-Gothic and opened 1930.  It was conceived by John D. Rockefeller and Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick as a larger interdenominational church.  Martin Luther King Jr. gave his Riverside Church speech in opposition to the Vietnam War there. Jesse Jackson, Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and Dietrich Bonhoeffer have spoken at the Riverside Church.  Bill Clinton, Fidel Castro and Cesar Chavez have also spoken there.
We were just glad to be in this wonderful place of God, stopping to pray for family and friends and give thanks to those who have gone before.