Amity Church Settlement was an American settlement house founded in 1896 and auxiliary to Amity Baptist Church. It was located at 314 West 54th Street in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York. Its purpose included the religious and social well-being of the neighborhood. Services included educational classes, lectures, and poor relief. The director was Rev. Leighton Williams, Pastor. The undenominational spirit and able management of the House attracted confidence and financial assistance from outside Baptist lines. Its basal function was that of establishing residence in the crowded neighborhood where its work lay and bringing to bear upon the labor in hand the influence of the home. It sought to unite the idea of the Church and of the social settlement. The settlement was unincorporated, and was maintained by Amity Baptist Church and by voluntary contributions. The work was classified as (1) religious, including the various church services; (2) educational, including kindergarten, industrial school, evening classes, public lectures under the board of education; (3) medical, including dispensary and nursing work; (4) social, including Workingmen's Institute, social clubs and entertainments; (5) relief work; and (6) neighborhood work, including visitation and all work outside of the building, as well as promotion of neighborhood interests.
Location
Amity Church Settlement was locataed on the south side of West Fifty-fourth Street, just west of Eighth Avenue, Manhattan. The church building, a diminutive pent-roofed wooden building born the inscription "Amity Church," so called from its original site in Amity Street. It was an institutional church conducted by Baptists. At 312 West Fifty-fourth Street, adjoining the frame house of worship, was an imposing brick structure, known as "Amity Building". Here was the Deaconess Home, established in 1895, with the object of training women to exercise the office of deaconesses in both teaching and nursing. Here also was the Settlement, which was opened in November, 1896, as an auxiliary to the church.
History
Amity Church Settlement was established in November, 1896, by Rev. and Mrs. Leighton Williams and Mr. and Mrs. John W. Clark, with the sanction of the trustees of Amity Baptist Church in their parish house. It was an auxiliary to Amity Baptist Church. The building was located in the Middle West Side. The residents in the areas were skilled manual workers, housed in five-story tenements. The saloons were twice as numerous as the churches. The racial complexion was largely Irish-American and German-American with a small admixture of Jews and Italians.
Amity Church Settlement held the first Municipal Program Conferences, 1904-5; was instrumental in securing De Witt Clinton Park, and also in starting the Federation of the Churches in this city and state. It helped organize the New York Kindergarten Association. Activities included religious services, Bible school, and the various church activities; industrial school, with classes in sewing, carpentering, printing, etc.; dispensary and clinic; poor relief; gymnasium; Christian Workingmen's Institute (for the discussion of social questions from a religious standpoint); choral society; boys' club and literary society; the Amity Theological School; kindergarten; Baptist Deaconess Home; piano instruction; basket ball classes for boys and girls; Sunshine Band, King's Daughters, etc. Amity Lodge.
Residents
The settlement was under the guidance of the pastor, Rev. Leighton Williams, who for many years had been interested in economic matters and was well and favorably known to the vast body of wage-earners in the Metropolis, whose organized cause he frequently espoused. His co-workers in residence were Mrs. Williams and the Superintendent, J. W. Clark, and his wife. The Deaconess Home, which contained twelve residents, while constituting a separate organization in itself, was yet regarded as a part of the Settlement, which thus included sixteen residents.