Abyssinian Baptist Church

From the staid gingerbread Gothic exterior, you’d never suspect the energy that charges the Abyssinian when the gospel choir rocks the church every Sunday (9am and 11am—get there early, and don’t wear shorts or flip-flops). A cauldron of community activism since its Ethiopian elders moved it uptown in the 1920s, the church was under the leadership of legendary civil-rights crusader Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in the 1930s (there’s a modest exhibit about him inside). Today the pulpit belongs to Reverend Calvin Butts, who keeps the flame burning.