Greenstone Church
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Greenstone United Methodist Church
1882, Solon S. Beman. 11211 S. Saint Lawrence Ave.
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(Photograph by Peter Fitzgerald, CC BY SA-2.0)
Greenstone Church was completed in 1882 by Solon Beman. Located on the southeast corner of 112th Street and Saint Lawrence (originally Watt) Avenue, the Richardsonian Romanesque building features a 92-foot tower and large, stained glass rose window on the west elevation. Serpentine limestone quarried in Pennsylvania gives the building its distinctive green color. The interior features cherry wood furnishings, including the altar and pews, and a Steere and Turner manual tracker pipe organ located prominently above the sanctuary.
The Pullman Company erected the Greenstone Church for the use of all Christian denominations. The rent, however, proved too high for some, who found cheaper meeting space in the Market Hall, Arcade, and Casino buildings. A Presbyterian congregation occupied the church until 1905, when a Methodist congregation purchased the building. Since 2002, it has been occupied by the Greenstone United Methodist Church.
References
Crawford, Margaret. Building the Workingman’s Paradise: the Design of American Company Towns. London: Verso, 1995.
Dinus, Oliver J., and Angela Vergara. Company Towns in the Americas. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011.
Jackson, Donald, and Carol Poh Miller, “Pullman Industrial Complex,” Cook County, Illinois. Historic American Engineering Record, 1976. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
Lillibridge, Robert M., “Pullman: Town Development in the Era of Eclecticism,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians12, no. 3 (October 1953): 17-22.
Lindsey, Almont. The Pullman Strike: The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.
Snell, Charles, “Pullman Historic District,” Cook County, Illinois. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, 1970. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
Writing Credits
Coordinator:
Jean A. Follett
Elizabeth A. Milnarik
James E. Peters
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