The Town | Greenstone Church

The Greenstone Church, located on the southeast corner of St. Lawrence (Watt) Avenue and 112th Street, was built at a cost of $57,000. The exterior facade is of serpentine stone quarried in Pennsylvania. The sanctuary is unchanged with the exception of the chancel arrangements. All of the cherry wood that comprises the alter and the pews are original, as is the Steere & Turner manual tracker pipe organ, described below.

First established as a Unitarian Church "for all to unite in a union body and get a broad-minded evangelical clergyman," it was quickly realized that each donomination wanted to worship in their own religion and their own language with their own pastors. The church building sat empty due to the high monthly rent while small religious societies met in rooms rented at the Market Hall, the Arcade, or the Casino buildings.

The Presbyterians were the first tenants of the church, having leased the building by 1887. However, the church building was sold in 1907 to the Methodists, whose congregation still occupy the building today.

About the Steere and Turner Organ
The organ was built in 1882 by the distinguished firm of Steere and Turner as their Opus #170. It is one of the few manual tracker organs remaining in the United States.

It was originally powered by a hand bellows, then by a water-powered motor and now by an electric blower. The organ is otherwise in original condition and has had little repair over the last 100+ years, showing its high quality of materials and work.

The organ contains 1260 pipes ranging in size from the large front pipes to others the size of a pencil. It consists of two manuals for the hands, one for the feet, twenty-one stops and twenty-three ranks of pipes, three couplers and a twenty-seven note-pedal board.

Its tracker action means that the valves are mechanically linked to the keys and are directly activated by the organist's hands and feet. Most organs have an electrical system which eliminates this direct link between the keys and pipes. Today's organists find playing this organ a physically demanding but emotionally satisfying act.

The ideal location of the organ high up in the front of the church where it can speak unimpeded to the listeners enhances the excellent quality of the pipes.

The stoplist is as follows:

(from the Greenstone United Methodist Church)