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.