This spectacular building is one of the finest examples of gothic church architecture in LA. It also tells us a lot about how West Adams transitioned from a wealthy white enclave to a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

I’m celebrating Black History Month throughout February by visiting sites important to the history of Black Angelenos.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 17, 2002

I’m the son of a Jewish clergywoman, who was the daughter of a Jewish clergyman. There’s nothing Christian about me. Except I freakin’ love fancy old churches. If it’s got a nave with stained glass and an alter at the end, I’m all about it. While Los Angeles isn’t exactly known for its church architecture, it’s also not lacking for fine examples of old-world styles. And at the moment, McCarty Memorial Christian Church in West Adams/Jefferson Park might be my favorite.

Just look at that tower! That weathered concrete belfry itches for its own Hunchback as it scratches the sky above West Adams Blvd. Fancypants stonework decorates the front entrance, and outlines the window tracery like God hit “bold” on the borders of a stained glass spreadsheet. Even the rain gutters are cool at McCarty. 

Architects Thomas P. Barber and Paul Kingsbury designed McCarty Memorial in classic English gothic revival style. Dedicated in 1932, the church was built at a time when period revival styles ruled the day in all types of institutional buildings. You gotta imagine that in a city like LA, only a generation or two removed from its undeveloped state of pastures and agricultural land, building a church that looked old projected a much-needed sense of continuity with the past – especially on the heels of the 1920s, a decade that found LA’s population more than double. It must have been nice for the many recent immigrants to the city to see buildings that looked like what they had back home. 

Barber & Kingsbury were working at the behest of Dr. Isaac McCarty and his wife, Ona Bell McCarty. The two moved from Illinois to SoCal in the early 1910s, where Isaac established a successful medical practice in Corona. They moved to LA in 1927 and settled in the posh, largely white West Adams neighborhood. 

After traveling extensively throughout Europe, the McCartys were well-versed in medieval churches, and were determined to donate one of their own as a gift to their community, debt free. They paid upwards of $250k to build it, and their family kicked in the funds for nearly all of the sanctuary windows. McCarty Memorial was dedicated in May 1932, supposedly on Isaac and Ona Bell’s 45th wedding anniversary. Interestingly enough, the McCartys weren’t a regular part of the congregation at the church that bore their name – they preferred to attend Magnolia Christian Church, closer to their home further east on West Adams. 

So what does this have to do with Black History Month? I think McCarty Memorial is a useful lens for viewing the social and geographic shifts of LA’s Black community in the ‘30s through the ‘50s. When McCarty Memorial first opened, its congregation was drawn from two existing churches, South Park Christian Church and West Adams Christian Church. Both of these congregations were small and very white. 

At the time McCarty was founded, West Adams was undergoing demographic changes. Many of the rich white folk who occupied the historic Victorian and craftsman homes there were moving to newer affluent enclaves in Hollywood, Beverly Hills and West LA. A small number of wealthy Black families owned homes in West Adams, but the area’s Black population really took off after the 1948 Supreme Court ruling that barred racial housing covenants (see Shelley v. Kraemer, 1948). 

In 1967, the LA Times interviewed Rev. Kring Allen, McCarty Memorial’s pastor from 1954-1976. He reflected “Our neighborhood is 85% Negro. So’s our church, I would guess…” Allen led the charge to integrate McCarty Memorial in the mid-’50s, at a time when attendance was dwindling. “I came with the understanding with my board here that this church was going to integrate or I wouldn’t stay…When some of the board wanted to go in a segregated way, I said: ‘I won’t go that road, and if you go it, you go without me.’” 

The board eventually agreed with Rev. Allen, and more than half a century later, it’s clear that history was on his side. Church attendance soared, with more than 1000 active in the congregation by the 1980s. West Adams has continued to shift in demographics; it’s now majority Latino, with a still-sizable population of Blacks. But the results of the church’s integration are still felt today. McCarty’s current pastor Eddie Anderson is a young African-American man; its entire leadership is Black.

I visited McCarty Memorial on a Saturday afternoon. There was a caterer bringing food and a big “5” balloon into the basement social hall for a kid’s birthday. A door was open to the sanctuary, but nobody was there. My daughter and I had the whole place to ourselves. There was no one to distract us from the awe-inspiring grandeur of that sanctuary, with its lights imported from Czechoslovakia, its boat-like wooden beams supporting the ceiling, and the magical colored light streaming through the stained glass windows of the clerestory.

Recommended Reading

+McCarty Memorial NRHP nomination form

+McCarty Church history (mccartychurch.org) (includes a note from the architects)

+Why the bedrocks of L.A.’s civil rights movements won’t embrace Black Lives Matter (LA Times, 2016)