{"nrhp_refnum":"75000648","name":"Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"126 E. Chestnut St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":41.89869409000005,"lon":-87.62463565199994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-09-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A Gothic Revival church complex at 126 E. Chestnut St. on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, completed and dedicated in 1914. It includes the church, a manse, offices, a Sunday school wing and a cloister around a courtyard.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the church as a work of architect Ralph Adams Cram, whose knowledge of Gothic gives it a serious tone. The auxiliary buildings by Howard Van Doren Shaw are praised for their aesthetic quality and urban significance as human-scaled neighbors to the surrounding towers. The complex was also the religious home of many prominent north side residents.","narrative":"Fourth Presbyterian Church occupies a block-deep parcel on the west side of Michigan Avenue in Chicago, between Chestnut and Delaware streets. Dedicated in 1914, the gray limestone church and its auxiliary buildings form a U-shaped group around a grassed courtyard with a fountain, joined by a cloister along Michigan Avenue. Ralph Adams Cram designed the church in a relatively pure Gothic style, with a 122-foot spire, a deeply set art glass window over the entrance and a polychromed wood ceiling. Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, a congregation member, designed the manse, offices, school rooms and courtyard fountain in a more informal English Romantic manner. Stained glass came from the Connick studios of Boston, and Frederick Clay Bartlett and Associates produced the ceiling designs and wooden statuary. The congregation formed in 1871 from two north side churches. The complex was valued for its architectural quality and for its scale amid the taller buildings around it.","period_of_significance":"1914","architect_builder":"Ralph A. Cram & Howard V. D. Shaw","architectural_style":"Gothic Revival; Late Gothic and Jacobethan Revival elements","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and in use as a church; exterior unaltered, with minor interior remodeling and a chapel redone inside in 1971.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:34.398982-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/60/8921/28892160/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/75000648.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000648/61281e5eac-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000648/61281e5eac-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 2.0","author":null,"credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4th_Presbyterian_Chicago_2004-11_img_2602.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Unknown author</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4th_Presbyterian_Chicago_2004-11_img_2602.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892160","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Presbyterian_Church_(Chicago)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4290682"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/fourth-presbyterian-church-of-chicago-75000648/"}