50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Christ Church and Holy Family

Posted on by Thor

The Christ Church and Holy Family  parish located in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn was organized in 1835, and the church building was completed in 1841-42.

Christ Church was founded on the wave of affluence and confident urban expansion following the opening of the Erie Canal, an economic transformation wrought in both New York City and Brooklyn in the 1830s.

It was designed in the English Gothic Revival style by Richard Upjohn who designed Trinity Church, Wall Street in New York and the gates of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. He lived down the street.

The altar, altar railing, reredos, pulpit, lectern and chairs were added in 1917 and were designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

The parish holds an annual Saint Francis Festival in October, with Blessing of Animals. The church hosts a number of musical events throughout the year, especially as a part of the Gotham Early Music Society series, and yearly Christmas caroling through Cobble Hill.

The building was destroyed by fire in 1939, and was rebuilt. In recent years, the church has been difficult to maintain, and additionally suffered lightning strikes. The tower began to collapse in 2012, tragically killing a passer-by. The height of the tower was greatly reduced, a large amount of scaffolding was erected, all by order of the NYC Department of Buildings who also ordered that the nave be vacated.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Trinity Church Wall Street

Posted on by Thor

Trinity Church Wall Street is an active Episcopal Parish that has been an integral part of New York City’s history for more than 300 years. In 1696, a small group of Anglicans (members of the Church of England) petitioned the Royal Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York, then a mercantile colony, for a charter granting the church legal status. Fletcher granted the charter in 1697 and the first Trinity Church was erected at the head of Wall Street facing the Hudson River.

To ensure the church’s success, Governor Fletcher granted Trinity a six-year lease on a tract of land north of Trinity known as the King’s Farm. In 1705, Queen Anne made this land grant permanent by giving 215 acres, which Trinity has used over the years to support the mission and ministry of Trinity and Anglican Church. My 10th great grandmother Anneke Jans, was the original owner of the land granted to Trinity.

The first Trinity Church building was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1776 during the Revolutionary War. After the war Trinity, and all Anglican churches in the former colonies, legally separated from the Church of England and became the Episcopal Church.

in 1790, the second Trinity Church was completed. This church faced Wall Street and was both longer and wider than the first. The new steeple soared to a height of 200 feet. President George Washington and members of his government were regular worshipers in the new Trinity building during the brief period New York City was the capital of the United States.

In 1838, the support beams of the second Trinity Church buckled. An architect named Richard Upjohn was hired to repair the building, but recommended demolishing the structure and constructing a new church. Upjohn, a fan of Anglo-Catholic liturgical style and English Gothic architecture, designed a church that looked like a 14th-century English parish church. The new Trinity Church was  consecrated on Ascension Day 1846. It is considered one of the finest examples of Neo-Gothic architecture in the United States. With a 281-foot high steeple, Trinity was the tallest building in New York City until 1890.Today it is dwarfed on all sides by office buildings.