Calvary Baptist Church
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Virginia Commonwealth University Music Building
1893, Marion J. Dimmock; later renovations. 1010 Grove St.
This is one of the few surviving nineteenth-century church buildings in the Fan, most having been replaced by other structures or simply torn down as the congregations relocated to the suburbs. The brick church was erected with the main body perpendicular to Grove Avenue and a disproportionately large (85-foot) tower at the juncture of the nave and transept. Although the building is nominally Gothic Revival in style, Dimmock, as always, departed from strict imitation by inflating elements and creating odd twists such as the exuberant top of the tower, which recalls H. H. Richardson's far squatter tower for Trinity Church, Boston. Each side of the tower is articulated by a pair of extremely elongated pointed arches. The entrance consists of a large archway ornamented with wrought iron and flanked by Gothic arches.
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