50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Friends Meeting House

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The Flushing Friends Quaker Meeting House, also known as the Old Quaker Meeting House, is a historic Quaker house of worship located at 137-16 Northern Boulevard, in Flushing, Queens, New York.

It was designed by William Tubby, a prominent Brooklyn architect, to house the Brooklyn Friends School. Tubby was himself a Quaker and an early graduate of the school. The meeting house remains in regular use as a house of worship by the Brooklyn Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

Built in 1694 by John Bowne and other early Quakers, the Old Quaker Meeting House is, by all known accounts, the oldest house of worship in New York State and the second oldest Quaker meeting house in the nation. Visitors to the Meeting House have included George Washington, John Woolman and William Penn.

It is a plain rectangular building erected on a frame of forty-foot oak timbers, each hand hewn from a single tree. The architectural interest of the building is derived mainly from its unusually steep hipped roof; the roof is almost as high as the two stories below it. This feature can be traced to the high steep roofs of medieval Holland.

The Meeting House housed the first school in Flushing. For 300 years, Flushing Meeting members have made history struggling against religious intolerance, slavery, injustice and violence. And here Flushing Meeting continues to work, hope, and pray for a peaceful, just world.

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1967 and a New York City designated landmark in 1970.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint Luke in the Fields

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Saint Luke in the Fields, in Greenwich Village, 487 Hudson Street New York City, was founded in 1820 on farmland donated by Trinity Church, to accommodate the expansion of northward into Greenwich Village. The original church building was reminiscent of an English village church, with a square tower at one end, but made of brick and built in the Federal style.

The church was constructed in 1821-22 and has been attributed to both John Heath, the building contractor, and James N. Wells. The church complex cost $7,500 according to church records

The complex was laid out by Clement Clarke Moore, who would serve as the church’s first pastor. Clement Clarke Moore is most known for writing, Twas the Night Before Christmas. wrote “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Greenwich Village at the time was a sanctuary for people fleeing the yellow fever endemic disease of the city proper, and the name of the new parish  was Hughtchosen to evoke the pastoral quality of the area. “St. Luke’s” was chosen in honor of the patron saint of physicians, an evocation of the disease that catalyzed the church’s development.

On July 10, 1863, just five days before his 84th birthday, Clement Clarke Moore died in his summer home in Newport. His body was returned to New York during a time of tremendous upheaval. In March a strict federal draft law was enacted whereby every male citizen between 20 and 35 was subject to military duty for the Civil War. A lottery was established to select the draftees; but those who could afford the $300 waiver fee could avoid conscription. On the day after Moore’s death the first lottery was held. Two days later, when the working classes realized the inequity of the system, riots broke out. For five days no one was safe on the streets of New York as mobs murdered civilians and torched homes and businesses. Moore’s casket arrived in the city and was secretly moved through the streets to the churchyard behind St. Luke in the Field where it was quietly buried.

On October 26, 1865, just a few months after the end of the Civil War, Francis J. Lyon and Mary Imogene Greene were married in the church by Reverend J. H. Tuttle. The newlyweds boarded the steamer St. John for their honeymoon excursion. Three days later, at 7:00AM, the vessel’s boiler exploded. Both Francis and Mary were scalded to death. On Tuesday, October 31 just five days after their wedding, their coffins were carried into the church. The New York Times reported “the coverings being removed, the bodies were seen in their bridal attire.” The church was crowded with mourners. Rev. Tuttle the same clergyman who had officiated at the marriage ceremony officiated their final rights.

Within a few years of the church’s erection, houses were constructed along the sides of the church to obscure views of its burial ground and garden. Of the seven houses which once flanked the church on each side, a total of six remain.  In the late 1880s, when the surrounding neighborhood become predominantly poor and largely composed of immigrants the congregation moved north to West 141st Street, and St. Luke’s became a chapel of Trinity Church, only regaining its independence in 1976.

The church building was damaged by fire twice, in 1886 and on March 6, 1981. After the latter fire, which gutted the building, it was reconstructed by Hugh Hardy of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, who restored much of its original Federal style touches. The reconstruction was completed in 1985. Starting in the 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic deeply affected the Village community, hitting the congregation hard. The AIDS Project of St. Luke’s was founded in 1987, providing Saturday dinner and weekend teas to tens of thousands of afflicted persons. One of the priests ministering to AIDS patients then was former actress Molly McGreevy. St. Luke’s is actively involved with the gay and lesbian community, participating with its own contingent at the annual Gay Pride March.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: North Baptist Church

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North Baptist Church, 130 Park Avenue at Vreeland in Staten Island, New York.

The church was organized in 1841 when fifty-three members of the Old Clove Baptist Church were granted letters of dismissal to establish a new society known as the North Baptist Church in Graniteville. That same year the society called Reverend J.T. Seeley to be their first pastor. In 1842 a church was erected on Gun Factory Road in Graniteville.

In the 1870s, the congregation built a new church on Park Avenue and Vreeland Street in Port Richmond. The Gothic Revival building featured a facade with two towers, the one at the corner being taller and surmounted by a tall steeple. That tall steeple has been vastly reduced in size.

The Park Baptist congregation disbanded or merged. The building is now home to Saint Mary’s Orthodox Church, which is part of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of the East in the United States.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Saint James Parish Hall

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Saint James Parish Hall, is also known as Saint James Church, Church of England in America, Mission Church at Newtowne, Saint James Protestant Episcopal Church  or Old Saint James Church to distinguish it from the Saint James Episcopal Church two blocks away. It is located at 86-02 Broadway in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens in New York City.

The Mission Church at Newtowne was founded in 1704 as a mission of a parish based in Jamaica, Queens. The parish built its Newtown structure in 1735–1736 and became separate in 1761.

The church survived through the American Revolutionary War, since the Rector, Joshua Bloomer, was allied with the Loyalists. It was also a place of worship for British officers and men during the Revolution. The building was also used by British troops to store ammunition.

Boxed pews nearest the minister were generally reserved for the most important members of the community, while indentured servants, apprentices, slaves, and Native Americans were seated in the upper level of the tower.

The congregation used the building until a new church was built nearby in 1848, whereupon the old structure became a parish building. The graveyard at the old church remained in use until 1851, when most corpses were disinterred and relocated to the new church. The city government attempted to take the church’s former cemetery in the 1930s for the construction of a playground, under the argument that it was legally a town cemetery. In 1963, the Post Office wanted to buy Old St. James to tear it down for a new post office. The church rejected their offer.

The church was extensively repaired and expanded several times in the 18th and 19th centuries, including a major expansion in 1883. The old church building was used as a parish hall and Sunday school until 1941 when a new parish hall was built behind the newer St. James Episcopal Church. Since then, it has been used by several community groups, and was restored in 2004.

Saint James Church is designed in the English Colonial style and consists of the original main section and a rear section built in 1883. The interior features extensive carving and other decorative woodwork features. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the church as a city landmark in 2017. The commission stated that the church was historically significant as the second-oldest church still standing in New York City, behind the Old Quaker Meeting House in Flushing, as well as the oldest surviving Anglican building and Church of England mission church.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: New Dorp Moravian Church

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New Dorp Moravian Church, 1256 Todt Hill Road Staten Island New York, was founded in 1762 and this structure was built in 1885. New Dorp is the second oldest church on Staten Island, second only to Saint Andrews Episcopal Church in Richmondtown.

The first church building in a Dutch Colonial style was erected in 1763 and still stands at the rear of the present church, which was built in 1837. Local architect Jasper Cropsey, who later became well-known as a Hudson River School painter, designed the new church. The 1837 building was modified. In the 1950s the bell tower was replaced with the present steeple.

In the 1730s, Moravian settlers in New York and Pennsylvania commissioned a new sailing ship to be built by John Van Deventer at his shipyard at Van Deventer Point, located near today’s Verrazano Bridge. The “Irene” made 14 round trips to Europe, bringing mostly Moravian missionaries and church members to New York. Nicholas Garrison, a Staten Islander, was the first captain of the Irene; Cornelius Jacobsen, also a Staten Islander, served as captain on its last voyage in 1758. One of the oldest Protestant denominations, the Moravian Church has served Christ since 1457. Known then as the “Unity of the Brethren” early Moravians came from the area of what is now the Czech Republic known as Moravia – hence came the name Moravian.

On the grounds of the church is the largest and most beautifully landscaped cemetery on Staten Island. Covering 113 acres, the cemetery has graves dating from 1740 and is the burial place of many famous Staten Islanders, especially the Vanderbilts. The Vanderbilt Mausoleum and family graveyard are a private cemetery, not open to the public. The mausoleum, designed in 1886 by Richard Morris Hunt, architect of several Vanderbilt residences, is a copy of a Romanesque church in Arles, France. It is placed into the hillside and only its stone facade and dome are visible. The extensive grounds around the mausoleum were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed Central Park in NYC .