Essential Temple Tee (Manhattan)

Status
Closed since March 2, 2024 for a renovation the First Presidency projected would take about three years. Dates for the public open house and rededication have not been announced. Patrons have been directed to the Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Hartford Connecticut temples in the meantime.

Location
New York, New York. The temple occupies part of a Church-owned building at 125 Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side, across the street from Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School, on a site of roughly a third of an acre. It takes its name from the borough of Manhattan; the postal city is New York, which is why the caption reads NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

Temple Number
The 119th dedicated temple.

Announced
August 7, 2002. The plan was to convert floors of an existing Church-owned building rather than to build new, following the approach used in Hong Kong.

Groundbreaking
September 23, 2002. Elder Spencer J. Condie of the Seventy presided.

Dedicated
June 13, 2004, by President Gordon B. Hinckley in four sessions, with Elder Robert D. Hales assisting.

Architecture
Built inside the shell of the six-story New York New York Stake Center, originally dedicated in the mid 1970s. About 20,630 square feet across the first, second, fifth, and sixth floors, with the chapel, classrooms, and offices remaining on the third and fourth. Roughly 80 feet tall, with a single attached corner spire carrying an angel Moroni statue. The original exterior was lightly variegated gray granite; the current renovation reclads the building in travertine.

Ordinance Rooms
Two instruction rooms, two sealing rooms, and one baptistry.

• President Gordon B. Hinckley walked the property on March 23, 2002 and wrote in his journal that day that he felt enthusiastic about converting the upper portion of the building into a temple. He read the entry back to members at a fireside two years later.
• He promised members that "within two years we will have a temple here for dedication." The dedication came in June 2004, which he acknowledged was roughly two years later.
• The conversion had to fit a working stake center around a temple in the same building, leaving the chapel, classrooms, and administrative offices in place on two middle floors.
• The public open house ran May 8 through June 5, 2004, drawing more than 53,000 visitors and coverage from national and international news outlets.

• The gray granite facade was chosen to sit comfortably beside Lincoln Center for the Arts and Juilliard directly across the street, rather than to stand apart from them.
• The temple interior is soundproofed against the noise of the street outside, a design requirement that a freestanding temple on open ground would never have faced.
• No angel Moroni stood on the building at dedication. The statue was attached on October 9, 2004, nearly four months later.

• The First Presidency announced the current renovation in August 2023, and the temple closed the following March.
• Released renderings show a substantially different exterior: building-height art glass, a golden spire, and a visitors' center with a statue of Jesus Christ. The meetinghouse on the third floor is being upgraded as part of the same work.

• Local members call it the "Miracle in Manhattan."
• When the open house and dedication were announced in March 2004, the Church operated 117 temples worldwide and counted more than 62,000 members in the New York area.
• The temple sits on a site of about a third of an acre, a fraction of the ground a freestanding temple occupies, and reaches its square footage by stacking rather than spreading.