St. Luke's was founded as a
Dutch Reformed congregation in 1850, first meeting in rented rooms on the third floor of a building on 35th Street and 9th Avenue. It reorganized as a Lutheran congregation in 1853. The church moved several times, acquiring its first owned building, a former Baptist church on
43rd Street, in 1863. It moved in 1875 to 233 West
42nd Street, into the former Forty-second Street Presbyterian Church. Finally, the congregation acquired property at West 46th Street to build its current church. The cornerstone was laid in October 1922 and the church dedicated in September 1923. For many years, Dr.
Donald Grey Barnhouse, pastor of
Tenth Presbyterian Church in
Philadelphia and teacher on the radio program,
The Bible Study Hour (now known as
Dr. Barnhouse & the Bible), held a Bible class on Monday evenings at the church, which lasted until his death in 1960. Formerly an independent congregation without
synodic affiliation since 1880, St. Luke's joined the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1987.
St. Luke's Theatre and
St. Luke's Soup Kitchen are located on the church's premises. ==Architecture==