In August 1889, although his Boston congregation was willing to double his pay if he would stay, Dixon accepted a post in New York City. There he would preach at new heights, rubbing elbows with the likes of John D. Rockefeller and Theodore Roosevelt (whom he helped in a campaign for New York governor). He had "the largest congregation of any Protestant minister in the United States." "As pastor of the Twenty-third Street Baptist Church in New York City…his audiences soon outgrew the church and, pending the construction of a new People's Temple, Dixon was forced to hold services in a neighboring YMCA." Thousands were turned away. John D. Rockefeller offered a $500,000 matching grant for Dixon's dream, "the building of a great temple". However, it never took place.