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A nationwide poll of 1,100 Protestant church leaders in the last quarter of 2009 found that 57 percent said the economy affected their congregation negatively over the past year, but only 8 percent called the effect “very negative.”

A typical church saw its budget drop 7 percent from the previous year, according to Barna Research based in Ventura, California. Southern Baptist congregations, charismatic or Pentecostal churches, and black churches were most likely to say their budget was down.

More than a century ago, when Fifth Avenue was lined with mansions, its houses of worship were built, supported and populated by Vanderbilts, Astors and Belmonts.

It was, in the words of the late Kate Simon in her 1978 book, Fifth Avenue: A Very Social History, “a village of the greatest wealth and financial power in the world, the might reflected . . . by the companion churches.”