50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Grace Church

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Grace Church was initially organized in 1808 at Broadway and Rector Street, on the current site of the Empire State Building. Under rector Thomas House Taylor, who began service at the church in 1834, the decision was made to move the church uptown with the city’s expanding population.

The church is located at 800–804 Broadway, at the corner of East 10th Street, where Broadway bends to the south-southeast. The church, which has been called “one of the city’s greatest treasures”, is a French Gothic Revival masterpiece designed by James Renwick, Jr., his first major commission.

The cornerstone for the new church was laid in 1843 and the church was consecrated in 1846. Grace Church was designed in the French Gothic Revival style out of Sing Sing marble, and vestry minutes from January of that year break down some of the expenses for building a new church—including items ranging from the cost of the workers from Sing Sing state prison who cut the stone to the cost of the embroidery for the altar cloth.

The church originally had a wooden spire, but under the leadership of the rector at the time, Henry Codman Potter, it was replaced in 1881 with a marble spire designed by Renwick. The interior of the church is primarily constructed from lath and plaster. The marble steeple had its lean fixed in 2003.

Like Trinity and the First Presbyterian Church, Grace Church spun off new congregations by building chapels elsewhere in the city. Its first chapel was on Madison Avenue at East 28th Street, built in 1850. The congregation became the Church of the Incarnation in 1852 and built its own sanctuary, and the chapel, which is no longer extant, was renamed the Church of the Atonement.

Grace Church is a National Historic Landmark designated for its architectural significance and place within the history of New York City, and the entire complex is a New York City landmark, designated in 1966 (church and rectory) and 1977 (church houses).

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: First Presbyterian Church

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First Presbyterian Church known as “Old First”, located at 48 Fifth Avenue between West 11th and 12th Streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. It was built in 1844–1846, and designed by Joseph C. Wells in the Gothic Revival style. based the sanctuary after the Church of St. Saviour in Bath, England, but for the tower used Magdalen Tower, Oxford, as a model.

The First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York was founded in 1716, and held its first services in 1719 at its sanctuary at 10 Wall Street between Broadway and Nassau Street. This building was rebuilt twice, in 1748 and 1810, and was subsequently taken down and put up again in Jersey City, New Jersey.

First Presbyterian’s original pastor was James Anderson, who had been preaching in New York to the small-but-growing Scots population, whose influence increased with the appointment of a number of Scotsmen to be Governors of the New York colony.

During the American Revolution, the church became known as the “Church of Patriots” due to many from its congregation being involved in the effort against Great Britain. Their dissatisfaction partly arose partly because the King had consistently refused to issue the Church a charter in 1766 and afterwards, claiming a duty to uphold the exclusive rights of the Church of England, represented in New York by Trinity Church. When the British invaded the city, the church was captured, along with other churches associated with the Patriot movement, and used as barracks for British troops, stables for their horses, warehouses and prisons.

The congregation relocated to its present site in 1846 with the encouragement of James Lenox, one of the richest men in the city, and an elder of the congregation. in 1893, the church installed stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Francis Lathrop, D. Maitland Armstrong and Charles Lamb. These were restored in 1988.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: First Presbyterian Church

Posted on by Thor

The First Presbyterian congregation was founded in 1822, at a time when affluent merchants were beginning to move to Brooklyn from Manhattan. Their original church was located on Cranberry Street between Henry and Hicks Streets, and was where the celebration of Brooklyn’s official incorporation as a city was held.

First Presbyterian Church (124 Henry Street south of Clark, Brooklyn, New York) was built in 1846 and was designed by William B. Olmstead in the Gothic Revival style. The church’s memorial doorway was added in 1921 and was designed by James Gamble Rogers. The doors are constructed of Teek wood and cost more than the entire structure.

Architecturally, the church’s dominant feature is its 90-foot tower with pointed arch windows. Many of the stained glass windows in the church are by the Louis Comfort Tiffany Studios.

American Presbyterianism split over the issue of slavery, some members of the church, in reaction to the “New School” abolitionist preaching of Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox – who was the church’s pastor for 17 years – split to start a conservative “Old School” church, located at Remsen and Clinton Streets, while others left to help start the Church of the Pilgrims or joined the Plymouth Church.

First Presbyterian minister Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox,  became known as “Brooklyn’s first abolitionist.”

The church is part of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, created by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on November 23, 1965.