{"nrhp_refnum":"78002461","name":"Wesley AME Zion Church","other_names":["Big Wesley"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1500 Lombard St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"PA","lat":39.94460501300006,"lon":-75.16759421799998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-12-01","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black","Religion","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story Gothic stone church at the southwest corner of 15th and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with a stained glass front window, a bell tower, and a sanctuary on the upper level. The congregation's present church building dates from 1925-26.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the church is associated with the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, with the congregation's role in regional and national African American church leadership, and with its social and humanitarian work, including feeding and housing people during the Great Depression and later community and civil rights efforts in Philadelphia. The congregation is described as the fourth building it has occupied.","narrative":"Built in 1925-26 on the southwest corner of 15th and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia, the Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is a two-story Gothic church of stone, with a bell tower, a large stained glass window across its front, and a sanctuary on the upper level that seats about two thousand people. The congregation traces its origins to 1820, when about thirty members left Mother Bethel and began worshiping on Lombard Street. In 1821 the congregation joined other churches to form the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Wesley's pastors include eleven who later became bishops of the denomination. During the Depression, the church fed more than 34,000 people in the winter of 1932-33 and housed people in an apartment building. In the 1950s its pastor helped lead the Selective Patronage Program, a series of boycotts that pressed Philadelphia employers to hire Black workers, and the church later supported the founding of the Opportunities Industrialization Center.","period_of_significance":"1925-1926","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Gothic","criteria":[],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:30.751024-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/78002461.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002461/acf765ac57-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002461/acf765ac57-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Smallbones","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wesley_AME_Zion_Philly.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Smallbones</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wesley_AME_Zion_Philly.JPG"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"84003563","name":"Washington Square West Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/pennsylvania/washington-square-west-historic-district-84003563/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997540","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_AME_Zion_Church","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7983837"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/wesley-ame-zion-church-78002461/"}