It depicts influential figures including the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, the U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, the artist Michelangelo, the social reformer Florence Nightingale, and the author Booker T. Washington. The panels depict physicians, teachers, prophets, humanitarians, missionaries, reformers, and lovers of beauty. Above the doorway between the cloister and the tower base are statues of architects Henry Pelton and Charles Collens, as well as general contractor Robert Eidlitz. Sculpture When the Martin Luther King Jr. Wing was built, Jacob Epstein's sculpture Madonna and Child, which was commissioned in 1927, was placed in the courtyard between the MLK Wing and the cloistered entrance. Social services Riverside Church was conceived as a complex social-services center from the outset; the building has meeting rooms, classrooms, a daycare center, a kindergarten, library, auditorium, and a gymnasium. It was described by The New York Times in 2008 as "a stronghold of activism and political debate throughout its 75-year history ... influential on the nation's religious and political landscapes". Riverside Church provides various social services, including a food bank, barber training, clothing distribution, a shower project, and confidential HIV tests and HIV counseling. In 2007, The New York Times'' said Riverside Church has frequently "been likened to the Vatican for America's mainstream Protestants". Social justice ministries Charity and shelter Riverside Church's prisoner-related ministries, Riverside's Prison Ministry and Family Advocacy Program, conduct worship services in the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, help prisoners and their families, links prisoners to their communities, workshops, support groups, and events, and lobby for prison reform and humane legislation. Riverside's Coming Home ministry, which was founded in 1985, helps ex-prisoners after they have been released. The prison ministries began in 1971, when the Council on Christian Social Relations created a prison reform and rehabilitation task force. It also deals with homelessness in New York City. Riverside's advocacy of the homeless originated from a similar ministry, the Clothing Room and Food Pantry, which was a subdivision of the Social Services Department. The church began sheltering homeless people overnight from 1984 until 1994, when it was closed due to the decreasing homeless population and a staff shortage. Riverside participated in the Sanctuary movement during the 1980s, and was among numerous congregations nationwide that sheltered and assisted undocumented immigrants. As part of the New Sanctuary Coalition, volunteers at Riverside Church assist detained asylum seekers and those on parole from immigration detention.