Driving across the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge,
one of the most distinctive scenes greeting travelers is the line
of stately steeples.
Standing on the corner of Third and Market streets is
the square-steepled parish, St. James Episcopal. Next door,
French-crafted brass bells ring inside the rooster-topped
steeple at First Presbyterian Church. Up the street stands the
197-foot steeple of First Baptist Church. And one block west
stands the pink and green tiled steeple of St. Paul’s Evangelical
Lutheran Church on Sixth Street.
Each church features its own traditions, of course, but these
congregations also hold some of the city’s most distinctive
architecture.
First Presbyterian Chapel with a Gothic Revival bell tower features bells cast
in France. The rooster at the top of the steeple is symbolic of Peter’s denial of
Christ in Matthew 26:34. Inset: St. James Episcopal Church anchors the corner
of Market and Third streets. Above the tree line, one block west, the onion
domes of the Temple of Israel appear.
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