Mr. Denison set out to prove the right of the church to existence and he did it. He did more: he brought no end of friends that remained to the church. The thought of Cuyler to establish a mission, of Parkhurst to affiliate the church with a stronger one, was developed under Denison into an organization amply supported by the whole church, working out by itself its own local problems. It was no longer a self-evident proposition that a church not able to support itself must go.
52 Henry Street
One of the early steps was the establishment of a church house at 52 Henry Street. Mr. Denison said: "It was not an institution—it was not even a settlement; it was simply a house where people lived. The time is gone by for men and women to come down as outsiders and pry into the homes of poverty and sin, and then return to their own life far away. One must live in a community, one must be a neighbor."
Mr. John Crosby Brown was the munificent friend who made the house possible, Miss Mae M. Brown being a deeply interested resident there. Mrs. Rockwell was in charge, then Miss Eleanor J. Crawford. It was the center for all social activities, tastefully fitted up, the ladies working at the church living on the upper floors. In the same house Sea and Land people had lived for many years: the Stevensons, the Boyces, Miss McGarry.
In 1906 the building was torn down and other arrangements had to be made. For a time apartments were occupied at 138 Henry Street and 51 Market Street.
The Fresh Air Work, too, was put on a permanent basis. Besides making the church the local station for the Tribune Fresh Air Fund, houses were rented at Rockaway for five years, later at Huntington, until in a more recent time Staten Island property was bought. Later years saw an extension of this work to Schenectady, where Dr. Bigelow of blessed memory headed it.