Article October 5, 1899 Issue

Among the Churches

The foundation of the new temple of the Second Church of Christ, Scientist, is now laid and work on the superstructure is about to be started. The edifice, which is to be one of the most perfect of its kind in Chicago, is being reared at the corner of Wrightwood and Pine Grove Avenues. It will be spacious, comfortable—even elegant—in furnishings, and built for the one purpose of worship. The base of the building will be of granite and the superstructure of Bedford stone. Work on the edifice is being directed with all care and it will take fully nine months to finish it and have it ready for the pew-holders. The size of the building over all will be 113 by 96 feet. The main auditorium is designed to be a room of noble proportions. The dimensions are designed to be 83 by 110 feet. The seating capacity will be between fourteen and fifteen hundred people.

This auditorium will be supported by great columns columns over two feet in thickness and nineteen feet in height. Looking will see a vast dome whose apex is forty-five feet from the floor and exteriorly sixty-four feet from the ground. The diameter of the dome will be twenty-nine feet. There is to be a foyer covering six thousand square feet. Provision will be made for the readers and for the committee and directors. Smaller rooms will be designed for this purpose. There will also be cloak rooms and other similar apartments.

Among the attractive innovations will be a pretty portico, this to measure seven by thirty feet and to be nineteen feet high. A vestibule will lead into the auditorium. It will be fourteen feet wide and forty feet long. The main entrance will be from Wrightwood Avenue. The number of steps from the walk to the foyer will be six, and the extreme width of the step approach on Wrightwood Avenue will be forty-two feet. The building will be imposing from the outward view, as can be guessed from the above description. The architect's design is along broad and beautiful lines, money is not to be spared, and all in all the church will be among the ornate edifices in Chicago.

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