The church on 22nd Street NE in Woodridge, D.C., just off of Rhode Island Avenue, is as unassuming as a wooden pew, but it’s had a long and interesting history.
Built in 1924, the 10,000-square-foot building at 3200 22nd St. NE was first home to the Sherwood Presbyterian Church.
It was designed by George T. Santmyers, the single-most prolific architect in D.C. history, with more than 16,000 buildings under his name from the age of 20 to just months before his death at the age of 72.
Santmyers was better known for apartment buildings, and the church follows that efficient style of construction. Instead of towering spires or pointed arches, it is a symmetrical rectangle, with only deeply recessed mortar on the front facade as an embellishment.
Over the years, the building has been home to a Presbyterian church, a Baptist church and a Christian Science congregation, and a prominent Route 1 synagogue got its start holding services in the church’s social hall annex beginning in 1947. In 1952, the synagogue moved to a private dwelling on Eastern Avenue in Mount Rainier with its first full-time rabbi hired in 1953 and then later to a building on Adelphi Road in Hyattsville.
The church’s current occupants, Evangel Missionary Baptist Church, suffered a setback in 2002 after a massive fire caused $400,000 in damage, but nearby congregations pitched in to help.
