M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Temple to Be Built in Manhattan

NEW YORK CITY — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced today the construction of a temple in downtown Manhattan.

Located near Lincoln Center, the new temple will occupy the top floors of an existing Church facility — a pattern already established successfully in Hong Kong.

Like the temple in Hong Kong, the New York building is adjacent to other city buildings and blends into the surrounding urban landscape. The recent pattern of Latter-day Saint temple building allows newer temples to adapt to smaller and more varied sites.

Also as in Hong Kong, the Manhattan building will continue to house a chapel and classrooms for Sunday worship services and a cultural hall for midweek social activities. A Public Affairs Department office and a family history center — a genealogical research facility open to the public — will remain.

Design and renovation work has already begun.

The temple in Manhattan will be the Church's second in New York. Church President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated a temple in Palmyra on 6 April 2000 — exactly 170 years after the Church was organized in nearby Fayette. The fast-growing faith currently has 113 temples in operation throughout the world and another 13 announced or under construction.

The Church also has land and building permission for a temple at Harrison, New York.

For more than 11 million Latter-day Saints worldwide, including more than 62,000 who reside in the New York area, temples are considered "houses of the Lord" where Christ's teachings are reaffirmed through marriage, baptism and other sacred ordinances that unite families for eternity.

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