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These photographs, circa 1938, shared by Walter Parry, offer rare glimpses of an unusual church, the People’s Tabernacle on East Cumberland Avenue near South Central Street. The church was founded and built in the 1890s by Rev. Robert Bateman, an Englishman who a Progressive Era reformer. He chose to put his tabernacle in the middle of the Bowery--known for saloons and brothels, it was Knoxville's most dangerous neighborhood--as a refuge for people in need. Bateman had been on a mission concerning prison conditions in England in 1912 when he made a fateful choice to board a ship called the Titanic. He was among the hundreds lost. His funeral, held in this church and presided over by Bateman's successor, Rev. W.E. Parry, was full to overflowing. The service featured the hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which Bateman was said to have asked the band to play as the ship was sinking. The People's Tabernacle remained here for almost a century more, ministering to the poorest of Knoxville. Displaced by Urban Renewal, in the 1950s, the church building was replaced by a simpler concrete structure nearby on Central that remains today, recently serving as a live-drama venue. Rev. Parry is shown with his son, Rev. William Moody Parry, who served as Assistant Pastor at the church during the 1930s (they're Walter Parry's grandfather and father, respectively). The group photo shows women who were involved at the church, standing by the old bridge that took East Cumberland over First Creek.  The bridge is no longer there, and thanks to Urban Renewal and what became James White Parkway, East Cumberland no longer exists.