In 1957 there was as survey of churches in the Northwest Urban Renewal Area, which included Shaw, Downtown, and the area we’ll call Swampoodle. To learn more about the 1957 Church Survey read my previous posts, The Uniqueness of the 1957 Church Survey and Church Survey Northwest Urban Renewal Area October 1957.
The church we have here is Mt. Vernon Square Methodist located at 900 Massachusetts Ave NW. Like it’s building it was a big white church. It boasted of having 4,000 members in 1957 and they were white. Looking at their website, it looks like they are still majority white.
Looking at the 1957 demographics this was a middle to upper middle class church. Most of the people were white collar workers (71%), and most lived outside of the urban renewal area in other parts of Washington, DC (58%). There was also a chunk of membership who lived in the ‘burbs of MD and VA (32%). Financially, they looked pretty good with $6,000 in expenses and a $233,000 budget ($2.7 million in 2021 dollars).
CS-26-Mt Vernon Place Metho… by Mm Inshaw