Christ Lutheran Church Hebron Connecticut

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Christ Lutheran Church on 330 Church Street, Amston Connecticut, is a recent addition to Hebron, being built in the built in the 1980’s.

The Church’s COVID policies as of August 29, 2022 are as follows:

  • Do not attend service if you are running a fever or feeling sick.
  • Masks are not required.
  • Seating capacity is no longer limited.
  • Hand sanitizing stations are available in the Narthex.
  • “Sharing the Peace” and passing the plate are suspended.
  • Communion will be distributed by individuals or families. The pastor will wear a mask.
  • Individual cups and hosts will be used. The common cup will be unavailable.
  • Hand sanitizer is available at the distribution of communion.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Woodrow United Methodist Church

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In November, 1771, Francis Asbury, called the farmers together at the house of Peter Van Pelt which became the birthplace of the Methodist church on Staten Island. In May of 1787, a meeting was called for the purpose of establishing the Woodrow Methodist Church.

The first church in this site was built of wood, smaller than the present building.  In 1842 that church was struck by lightning. The building was torn down, and the materials sold to many of the worshipers. That same year the present church was built on the same site. It was located with the front facing the road. On December 25th of 1842 it was dedicated.

Woodrow United Methodist Church at 1109 Woodrow Road in Woodrow, Staten Island, New York is a wood-frame, clapboard-sided, temple-form Greek Revival style building. It features a portico with four Doric order columns supporting a plain entablature and unadorned pediment. Above the portico is a three-stage, open bell tower and spire in a vernacular Italianate style added in 1876. It is the oldest Methodist Church on Staten Island.

   In 1850 two acres of land were purchased for a parsonage site. The parsonage was built in that same year. A frame structure was built in 1884 as a meeting hall. This was on the easterly side of the church.  The hall burned in the fire of April, 1963, which leveled Staten Island’s South Shore. In 1971 the church hall was rebuilt.

 The burial grounds surrounding the church are older than the church organization. The oldest grave site known to be used is marked with a tombstone dated 1767.

On December 1, 1976 the Wesley Methodist Church, and the South Shore Presbyterian Church which had been meeting in Eltingville, on Richmond Avenue, and the Woodrow United Methodist Church  merged in a decision to become one church and to meet at the Woodrow location.

United States National Historical place and in 1967 it was registered as a New York City Landmark.

 

 

Lake Lorna Doone Park

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Lake Lorna Doone Park is a 12 acre park located in the between the neighborhoods of Westfield and Parramore in Orlando, Florida. The physical address is 1519 West Church Street, just to the north of Camping World Stadium. I had a fun assignment to add landscaping improvements to the park. Improvements had already been made, thanks to a donation from the Arnold Palmer Foundation. The $8 million dollar renovation including a new walking loop, fitness stations, a pavilion, inclusive playground, basketball courts, covered seating, and a splash pad and even a putting green. Walking around the lake I was quite impressed, but what really stands out is the wildlife. Water birds off all types can be seen exploring the shores.

What I was tasked with was to show less grass and more butterfly garden plantings. Other proposed additions include an outdoor classroom under a huge live oak tree, a natural log climbing play area and a small floating platform for water birds to rest on. For all the money that had been invested in the park, the planners didn’t consider the brutal Florida sun in their plans. Most outdoor benches have no shade from the sun making them unusable. Outdoor chess tables suffer the same fate.

Lake Lorna Doone: The Meadow

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The Ideas HIVE has been planning the the pollinator garden, park improvement concept which is planned for the south west corner of the park. The IDEAS Hive is an interdisciplinary, inter-generational community Think + Do Tank designed to educate the public about sustainability and develop their ideas into local action projects. The IDEAS Hive is designed to transform communities to advance positive change.

In this particular illustration I had included an inset of a bee pollinating a flower. This was a macro view making the bee look as large as the children. It turns out having a six foot bee in the scene is rather unsettling. Other insects like the butterfly and dragon fly also had to be reduced in size. I simply got rid of the bee so no one could be stung.

On the shore, a fisherman is testing the waters. Several kids are playing on a natural log climbing area. The meadow is an area that would be allowed to grow naturally. A white picked fence is planned to keep over zealous city maintenance workers from mowing the meadow down. I am left wondering how much of this will become a reality. It would certainly be an improvement if it does.

Nature walks are already being offered to kids aged 5 to 10 at Lake Lorna Doone Park.

Lake Lorna Doone: Outdoor Classroom

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One of the coolest ideas to revitalize Lake Lorna Doone Park was an outdoor chickee hut classroom under a huge live oak tree. The goal of the classroom would be to teach kids about the wide diversity of life in the park. In preparation for this illustration I spent an afternoon with an advanced urban sketching student and we sketched the splash pad. I got to appreciate the shade offered by the live oak as I sketched. Sketches I had done of kids enjoying the water spray were directly incorporated in the final illustration, just way smaller.

Another program discussed was a photography program for kids. Money is being raised to acquire cameras for the kids and the plan is to have the kids photograph the wildlife and then develop the film themselves. I like how they are planning to teach the history of photography rather then just having kids take cell phone photos which will eventually be lost when their phones die.

A free library is planned where you can take a book or leave a book. There is also a plan to also plant native fruit trees so kids can pick their own fruit.

Lake Lorna Doone and nature

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It is human nature to mow down beauty and replace it with grass. Close cut grass lawns first emerged in 17th century England at the homes of large, wealthy landowners. English landowners depended on human labor to tend the grass. Before lawnmowers, only the rich could afford to hire the many hands needed to scythe and weed the grass, so a lawn was a mark of wealth and status.

Now the walkway around Lake Lorna Doone only has close cut grass which is buzzed down by gas lawn mowers. The loud lawn mowers scare away the natural diversity of life. The grass also offers a barren landscape as it dies down near the waterline. The hope is that someday the grass can be replaced with natural florida plants and natural meadows. The hard part will be to keep indifferent city employees from mowing it all down.

The wildlife already exists, it just needs to be encouraged to stay. Another unique thing about this lake is that it is being stocked with fish. People are encouraged to bring a fishing pole or binoculars for bird watching.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: St. Ann’s and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church

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The National Historic Landmark church now known as Saint Ann and the Holy Trinity was built as The Church of the Holy Trinity by Brooklyn paper manufacturer Edgar Bartow who wanted a magnificent edifice for the City of Brooklyn, with pews that were rent-free. Construction of the church began in 1844 on the highest point in Brooklyn Heights, which was then sparsely settled with some large merchants’ homes, small homes and shops and a number of unfinished streets and vacant lots. Minard LaFever designrf the church and adjoining chapel and rectory.

The church is an important example of Gothic Revival architecture in America, the richly ornamented church is notable for its elaborately vaulted roof and extensive suite of stained glass windows by William Jay Bolton. The church’s official opening was on April 25, 1847, although the building was not entirely completed. A 275-foot tower was designed and installed by 1869. Its spire was the most visible landmark in Brooklyn and was used in conjunction with the spire of Trinity Church Wall Street by ship captains to navigate into the New York harbor. The church removed the spire in 1906 because of concern about falling stone and the high cost of maintenance.

During the Cold War in the 1950s, there was a clash between the bishop and rival factions within congregation which eventually led to the dissolution of the church in 1957. The building was closed and stood mostly vacant for more than a decade.

In 1969, nearby St. Ann’s Church, the oldest Episcopal congregation in Brooklyn, sold its property to The Packer Collegiate Institute next door and moved four blocks into the long-empty Holy Trinity building. St. Ann’s took the new name of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity in honor of the building’s heritage. In 1979, the New York Landmarks Conservancy intervened to save the aging church and stained glass, and in 1983 the St. Ann Center for Restoration and the Arts was founded.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: New Lots Reformed Dutch Church

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New Lots Reformed Dutch Church and Cemetery located at 630 New Lots Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn, New York was built in 1823–1824 and is a small, rectangular wood-frame building sheathed in clapboard. It has a pitched gable roof and sits on a rough stone foundation. Adjacent to the church is the cemetery divided into two sections. The older section dates to the 17th century and includes burials of Revolutionary War soldiers and slaves. The present cemetery was established in 1841. The cemetery is one of only a handful of private cemeteries left in the entire city.

At the time the church was built, New Lots was a small community surrounded by farms. It was part of Flatbush, and got its name from being the location of the new lots of land available for settlement. This was not a town of wealthy merchants; these were farmers, without a lot of money. A hurricane, which knocked down a great number of oak trees provided the wood for the church. Parishioners  harvested the trees, and then allowed them to season for almost two years, before  cutting the lumber into boards in preparation to build a new church.

In May of 1823, people from near and far came to build the new church in a massive barn raising. These volunteers worked tirelessly to build the church building, which was put up by their efforts alone, and is reported to have cost only $35.00. The entire building is built with notched and joined timber, using wooden pegs to secure the wood, not nails. That craftsmanship has lasted in its original form for almost two hundred years.

The only structural changes to the building occurred in 1990, when the building finally began to lean. A large truss beam cracked causing the building to be declared unusable until it was fixed. The congregation raised the money to fix the damage, and the church was back in use in 1991.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Michael’s Chapel

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In 1859, a “Gingerbread Gothic” Chancery Office Building was built at 266 Mulberry Street, just north of the St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral sanctuary, designed by James Renwick Jr. and William Rodrigue, who would go on to design the new cathedral.  The building would later become St. Michael’s Chapel, then St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Byzantine Church, and, from 1936 until 2019, St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Church of the Byzantine Rite. St. Michael’s is the last Russian Catholic church in New York City, and was one of only four remaining such sanctuaries in the United States. Services are now held at the Church of St. Catherine of Siena, 411 East 68th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Fryer Andrew Rogosh arrived in New York at Christmas of 1935 in order to establish an apostolate to serve the needs of the émigré Russian Catholics who had made their way to the New York metropolitan area after the tragic upheavals in their homeland. In the following months of 1936, he began the work of establishing a chapel. Soon thereafter, St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Chapel opened its doors at 266 Mulberry Street in Manhattan in order to serve their needs. It is the only Russian-Byzantine Catholic Church in the eastern continental United States.

Underneath the basilica are catacombs which currently consist of 35 family crypts and 5 clerical vaults, and which have reopened to new interments. The basilica has also opened the catacombs to walking tours led by “Tommy’s New York”. Among the notable interments are the first resident Bishop of New York John Connolly, General Thomas Eckert, several members of the Delmonico restaurant family, Countess Annie Leary, and Congressman John Kelly.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Brotherhood Synagogue

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In 1859, an early Quaker group, 20th Street Meeting House, expanded beyond the capacity of its home on Orchard Street, and acquired four lots on Gramercy Park South for $24,000. They commissioned the architectural firm of King & Kellum to construct the new space.

The original Quaker group had to obtain special permission to build a non-residential structure on Gramercy Park. The building was built using an innovative combination of heavy timber and iron post and beam. The exterior materials included light brick and a Dorchester Olive stone façade facing Gramercy Park. The design, created with the help of members, was considered unusual as it was “less severe” than most other Quaker buildings.

While the Quakers were traditionally pacifists, members of the 20th Street Meeting House took an active role in the Abolitionist movement during the Civil War era. Some members traveled South to open trade schools for freed slaves. Even more significantly, historical records indicate that members of the 20th Street Meeting House sheltered fugitive slaves on the second floor of the building, a stop on the Underground Railroad. A tunnel underneath the building that was used as an escape route for runaway slaves is still visible and accessible today.

In 1958, the Quakers moved out of 28 Gramercy Park South. Not long after, the newly created Landmarks Preservation Commission rushed to designate the structure. Unfortunately, landmark status in 1965 did not actually guarantee its preservation as a house of worship. In 1964, the 106-year old building had been sold to a developer for $500,000, who intended to turn the building into apartments. Following public outcry at the impending loss of the meeting house, it was purchased from the developer by a foundation hoping to convert it to a performing arts center. This venture failed. It was then sold to the United Federation of Teachers, which intended to use it for offices and meeting space. This, too, failed.

Then, in 1974 Rabbi Block, after a schism split his own congregation, came upon 28 Gramercy Park South. The deal to purchase the building was not finalized until 1975, but progress quickly took hold. Architect James Stewart Polshek, then Dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, took notice of the sale and was so impressed by the space that he offered his design services pro bono in order to renovate and reconstruct the building as a synagogue. Brotherhood Synagogue was born.