irection by the Judson Poets Theatre director Lawrence Kornfeld.
In the 1980s, the church sponsored various political-theater performances, such as those by the Vermont-based Bread and Puppet Theater. These performances included Insurrection Opera and Oratario, performed in February and March 1984. In this performance, the Bread and Puppet Theater, under the direction of its founder, Peter Schumann, used opera and the company's now signature oversized puppets to convey an anti-nuclear message. The church has recently become the home of the West Village Chorale, directed by Michael Conley. The Chorale's former home was St. Luke's in the Fields on Hudson Street.
The church celebrated its centennial in 1990 with performances and symposia involving many of the artists who had been involved with the arts ministry in the 1960s and 1970s. It continues both its support of the arts and its social outreach to the community.
The church building is located at 54–57 Washington Square South. In addition to La Farge's stained-glass windows and Saint-Guadens's marble frieze, it features Italian Renaissance influences wedded to a basic Italianate form, and has notable examples of scagliola, a very convincing handcrafted imitation of marble made of highly polished pigmented plaster. Overall, the exterior and shape of the building is said to resemble the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, Italy, while the entrance is said to be inspired by the Renaissance church San Alessandro, built in Lucca, Italy, in 1480. The fourteen stained glass windows in the church's main sanctuary are the largest collection of major LaFarge windows in any one place in the U.S.
The campanile tower, located at 51–54 Washington Square South to the west of the church itself, was built in 1895–96, after the sanctuary had been completed, and was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. The adjacent Hall, however, predates the church, having been built in 1877, and was designed by John G. Prague.
In 1999, facing financial difficulties, the church's board of trustees sold the Judson House, the parish building behind the church, to New York University School of Law, which used the site for its new Furman Hall. At eleven stories tall, the new building now towers over the church and Washington Square Park beyond, causing considerable controversy in the community at the time of its construction. The church's offices and a small assembly hall now occupy a condominium suite in one corner of the new building, adjacent to the main church, at 239 Thompson Street.
From 1990 to 2006, the church building was repainted, repainted, reroofed; the stained glass windows were cleaned and reinstalled by Cummings Studio; an elevator was installed to make the building accessible and air conditioning was added. These projects exhausted all the proceeds from the sale of the back lots, plus approximately $1 million additional, raised from contributions of arts patrons and the congregation.
Ministers and staff
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- White, Norval & Willensky, Elliot (2000). AIA Guide to New York City (4th ed.). New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-8129-3107-5., p. 122.
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- [dead link] "Hal Bromm Interview with Meryl Branch-McTiernan". Thursday, October 18,[clarification needed] at 4:30 p.m. Kress Foundation, 174 East 80th Street. The New York Preservation Project Archive. p. 19.
- Brozan, Nadine (October 7, 2001). "Postings: On West Third Street Between Sullivan and Thompson Streets; New Academic Building for N.Y.U. Law School". The New York Times. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
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- Carmen, Arlene and Moody, Howard. Abortion Counseling and Social Change: From Illegal Act to Medical Practice (Judson Press, 1973)
- Carmen, Arlene and Moody, Howard. Working Women: The Subterranean World of Street Prostitution (Harp