James Gamble Rogers – Analog Artist Digital World

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.

I took my Urban Sketching students from Crealde School of Art to Casa Feliz in Winter Park to demonstrate using perspective to sketch a building on location. This sketch was done to show which visual clues to look for when trying to decide where a vanishing point would be on the sketch.

Casa Feliz was designed by James Gamble Rogers. The building was constructed in 1933 and has become known as Winter Park’s parlor. Prior to the pandemic, the music series hosted weekend concerts in the ground floor living room behind the blue bay windows in my sketch.

My intrepid students kept their masks on as they sketched, but driving down Park Avenue in Winter Park, very few residents wore masks.

On November 15, 2020 the United States had surpassed 10.8 million cases and 245,000 deaths, as states continued to break daily records. Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine told CNN coronavirus “fatigue” was a serious problem. Dr. James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University Hospital, said he was “terrified” about the imminent holiday season. “We’re going to see an unprecedented surge of cases following Thanksgiving this year, and if people don’t learn from Thanksgiving, we’re going to see it after Christmas as well,” Phillips said.