Walden Jam-e-Masjid facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Walden Jam-e-Masjid |
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North elevation and west profile, 2008
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| Religion | |
| Affiliation | Islam |
| Location | |
| Location | Walden, NY |
| Architecture | |
| Architectural style | Victorian Gothic |
| General contractor | N/A |
| Groundbreaking | 1893 |
| Completed | 1893 |
| Specifications | |
| Direction of façade | north |
| Length | 90 feet (27 m) |
| Width | 60 feet (18 m) |
| Height (max) | 100 ft (30 m) |
| Materials | Stone, brick, asphalt, wood |
| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| Added to NRHP | February 28, 2008 |
| NRHP Reference no. | 08000103 |
| Website | |
| ["https://darulquranwassunnah.org/"/ Darul Quran Wassunah] | |
The Walden Jam-e-Masjid is a special building in Walden, New York, United States. It used to be known as the Historic Walden United Methodist Church. In 2013, the church stopped using the building for services. It was sold in 2014. Then, in 2022, a Muslim group bought the building and turned it into a mosque.
This historic building is made of brick. It was built in the late 1800s for a church group that started in 1817. The building mainly shows the Victorian Gothic architectural style. It also has parts that look like other styles from that time, such as Romanesque Revival. The inside of the building is very fancy. It was first designed using something called the Akron Plan. This plan showed new ideas about how church insides should look back then.
The building is still mostly the same as it was when it was built. It even includes parts of an older church from 1840 that was on the same spot. Later, in the early 1900s, a house for the pastor (called a parsonage) was built next door. Other buildings were added later in the century. The church group decided to move because the old building cost too much to keep up. In 2008, the historic building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This means it's a very important historical site.
Contents
About the Building
The Walden Jam-e-Masjid is located on the edge of downtown Walden. It sits on the corner of West Main and Pine streets. The land here gently slopes down towards the Wallkill River. The main bell tower of the building is very tall. You can see it rising high above the trees, making it a clear landmark in the village, especially from the west.
There are three buildings on the property. The main building is the masjid itself. Next to it, on the east, is the old parsonage. To the west is another building that is rented out. All these buildings face West Main Street. Behind them is a parking lot with an entrance on Pine Street. There is also a fenced-in playground area. In front of the buildings, there is a small grassy lawn that slopes down to the sidewalk. It has a large old tree and some bushes.
Outside the Building
The masjid's outside walls are made of dark red brick. The roof is black asphalt. You can also see rough-cut bluestone details. The building has three main parts. There's a fellowship hall on the east side, a central bell tower, and the main worship area on the west.
The front of the building faces north. It starts with a section that has a three-sided roof. This part has tall, arched windows that look like they belong in a Gothic building. The middle window is bigger than the ones on the sides. All these windows have bluestone sills and special keystone shapes above them. Higher up, in the pointed part of the roof, there are two smaller windows.
At the northeast corner, there is a tower. Six stone steps and a railing lead to its entrance. This door has two wooden panels and is shaped like a Gothic arch. Above the door, there's a stained glass window and a small diamond-shaped window. The roofline has decorative brickwork. The tower then goes up to a pyramid-shaped roof with a pointed top.
The main bell tower is very tall and has three levels. The bottom level has a Gothic-style door, which is similar to the northeast tower's door but larger. On each side of this door, there are strong corner supports. These supports go up to a bluestone line that marks the start of the second level. This line also acts as the sill for three small windows. The third level holds the bell. It has large, arched openings with slats, rising from another stone line. Above the decorative roofline, an eight-sided spire rises. It is topped with a cross and has four small pyramids at its corners. This spire reaches 100 feet (30 meters) high.
The worship area has a steeply sloped, three-sided roof section that sticks out from the main building. The walls in this section have large windows, like those on the fellowship hall. The windows on the sides are split into two smaller arched windows below. Two small windows are also in the pointed top of the roof. On the far west side, there is a third entrance. This is a small, gabled entrance area with similar doors. It leads to a white wooden wheelchair ramp.
The east side of the building has five tall, square-shaped windows with bluestone trim. On the southeast, there's a gabled section used for an office. The west side has three gabled sections, with the middle one being the largest. It has three arched windows, like the others. The side gables have small diamond-shaped windows at their tops. In the center top, there are two smaller rectangular windows. This section also has a chimney built into the wall. It looks like two chimneys that rise separately and then join at the top. On the southwest, there's a small brick classroom addition with a flat roof. Its arched window openings are now filled with modern aluminum windows.
At the back of the building, you can see the two back sections of the classroom addition. There's also a bricked-in window on another gabled part and seven arched windows in the choir area. One of these is also bricked in. There's also a small roofed section between the south wall and the west addition, plus two more rectangular windows on the second story.
Inside the Building
When you enter through the tower, you go into a small entrance area. This leads directly into the main worship space. The wooden benches, called pews, are arranged in a half-circle around a raised platform and an organ. Doors on the south side lead to two classrooms.
The walls inside are made of plaster and have wooden panels at the bottom. These panels are stained a lighter color than the railing above them. The walls go up to arched ceilings. These ceilings are made of thin, dark-stained wood boards with decorative wooden ribs and designs where the arches meet. Flat areas between the roof and ceiling have decorative plaster edges. Round, grooved columns with shaped tops support the roof.
On the east side, there's another entrance area, connected to the main one by a hallway and stairs. This leads into the fellowship room. It's decorated similarly but more simply. Its ceiling is covered with acoustic tiles. The windows in this room have flat frames, which means they are from the older building that was here in the 1840s. Four of these windows are stained glass memorials. Two show figures, while the other two show architectural designs.
The other rooms in the building are furnished more simply, with modern styles. The basement areas have stone floors and painted concrete block walls.
Building Style and Design
The masjid's original design followed something called the Akron Plan. In this plan, the Sunday school and worship areas were next to each other. They had sliding walls that could open or close the space between them. This allowed the worship area to be made bigger if there were a lot of people. However, by the early 1920s, these sliding walls were replaced with fixed walls.
Another interesting feature from when the building was constructed is the auditorium-style worship space. The pews are arranged in a half-circle around the raised platform. This was a popular way to make the best use of the space. It also allowed everyone to see clearly from their seats. The only part of the Akron Plan that this building doesn't have is a sloped floor.
The outside of the building has a mix of styles. This was common in the late 1800s. It shows a change from earlier Gothic styles that focused on being perfectly historical. The Victorian Gothic style can be seen in the tall, pointed windows and the steep roofs and towers. The stone lines mixed with the red brick and the subtle use of different colors are also typical of High Victorian Gothic. This shows the influence of John Ruskin's ideas and the Venetian Gothic style. However, the decorative brickwork on the towers hints at the Romanesque Revival style. The upper part of the fellowship hall's roof also suggests the Richardsonian Romanesque style.
Inside, the rich decorations were meant to make the worship service feel more special. The stained glass windows fill the hall with soft, natural light. Electric lights hanging from the ceiling add more light. The most important part of the inside is the detailed arched ceiling. All these features show a time when Protestant churches were moving away from very plain interiors. They wanted to create a more welcoming atmosphere for worship.
History of the Building
Early Days
The first Methodist meetings in Walden, which was then called Walden's Mills, started around 1817. At first, people went to services led by traveling preachers. They met in a local tavern's ballroom. Later, they used a schoolhouse on what is now Ulster Avenue.
By 1850, the church group decided they needed their own building. A committee was formed to make this happen. They bought an old church building for $1,000. This building had been built in 1840 by another church group on the same spot. In 1870, the church was made bigger. This was because the church was growing steadily in the late 1800s.
As the century went on, the village grew and became more successful, and so did the church. In the late 1880s, members started talking about building a new church. There were over 350 members, and almost as many children in Sunday school each week. With a new pastor, Reverend J.M. Cornish, the plans for a new church became more serious.
A fundraising effort brought in $11,000 for the church. We don't know who the architect was. The main builder, Edwin McWilliams, started construction in the spring of 1893. A special ceremony to lay the cornerstone happened in August of that year. A church leader and a member who had been with the church for 40 years attended. This member remembered when the church first moved into the building that was now being replaced. The old church building was moved to the east. It was then covered in brick to become the new church's Sunday school.
Changes Over Time
The first big change to the building happened in 1906. Four stained glass windows were added to the east side of the fellowship hall. In 1911, the parsonage (pastor's house) was built next to the church on the west side. This house is a two-and-a-half-story building with a gabled roof. It has since been covered in vinyl siding. Because of this, it is not considered part of the historic listing.
At some point before the 1920s, the sliding walls and flexible space of the Akron Plan inside were removed. They were replaced with fixed walls. To make up for this, a classroom wing was added to the southwest corner in 1933. In 1952, another small office section was added to the southeast.
Later in the 20th century, in the early 1960s, a big construction project took place. A new basement was dug out, and more rooms were added underground. In the 1990s and 2000s, wheelchair ramps were added to make the building more accessible.
Sale and New Purpose
The costs to maintain the building were still very high. In 2007, the church members voted to look into moving to a new location and building a new church. They said the building needed $2 million in repairs. Also, one-third of the church's yearly budget went to running and maintaining the building. This meant only six cents of every dollar donated could be used for church activities.
Some members disagreed. They felt that their fellow members were acting too quickly. They believed the building could still be saved. They also pointed out that only 95 out of 344 eligible members voted. They felt that those who were not there should have been allowed to vote too.
In November 2022, Darul Quran WasSunnah bought the building. This is a non-profit Islamic organization. They then changed the building into a masjid, which is a mosque.
See also
