50 Oldest Churches of NYC: St. Ann’s and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church

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The National Historic Landmark church now known as Saint Ann and the Holy Trinity was built as The Church of the Holy Trinity by Brooklyn paper manufacturer Edgar Bartow who wanted a magnificent edifice for the City of Brooklyn, with pews that were rent-free. Construction of the church began in 1844 on the highest point in Brooklyn Heights, which was then sparsely settled with some large merchants’ homes, small homes and shops and a number of unfinished streets and vacant lots. Minard LaFever designrf the church and adjoining chapel and rectory.

The church is an important example of Gothic Revival architecture in America, the richly ornamented church is notable for its elaborately vaulted roof and extensive suite of stained glass windows by William Jay Bolton. The church’s official opening was on April 25, 1847, although the building was not entirely completed. A 275-foot tower was designed and installed by 1869. Its spire was the most visible landmark in Brooklyn and was used in conjunction with the spire of Trinity Church Wall Street by ship captains to navigate into the New York harbor. The church removed the spire in 1906 because of concern about falling stone and the high cost of maintenance.

During the Cold War in the 1950s, there was a clash between the bishop and rival factions within congregation which eventually led to the dissolution of the church in 1957. The building was closed and stood mostly vacant for more than a decade.

In 1969, nearby St. Ann’s Church, the oldest Episcopal congregation in Brooklyn, sold its property to The Packer Collegiate Institute next door and moved four blocks into the long-empty Holy Trinity building. St. Ann’s took the new name of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity in honor of the building’s heritage. In 1979, the New York Landmarks Conservancy intervened to save the aging church and stained glass, and in 1983 the St. Ann Center for Restoration and the Arts was founded.

50 Oldest Churches of NYC: Church of the Holy Apostles

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The Church of the Holy Apostles is located at 296 Ninth Avenue at 28th Street in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York. Its historic church building was built from 1845 to 1848, and was designed by New York architect Minard Lafever. The geometric stained-glass windows were designed by William Jay Bolton.

The Holy Apostles congregation was founded in 1844 as the result of an outreach by Trinity Church to immigrants who worked on the Hudson River waterfront west of the Church’s location in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

Lafever enlarged the building by 25 feet by adding a chancel in 1853–54. In 1858 the congregation needed to expand, so architect Charles Babcock of the firm of Richard Upjohn & Son enlarged the building into a cross-shaped sanctuary with the addition of transepts.

The church, is the only one that Lafever designed which remains standing in Manhattan. It is also one of the very few of Italianate design on the island.

It is rumored that the church was a stop on the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War.

In the 1970s, the church was instrumental in the foundation of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, a synagogue for gays and lesbians begun by Jacob Gubbay. It hosted the congregation from 1973 to 1975, and again from December 1998 until it found a permanent home in April 2016.

In that same decade, Holy Apostles hosted the ordination of the first woman priest (and openly lesbian) in the New York diocese, Rev. Ellen Barrett.

In 1959, builders of Penn South, a housing cooperative that surrounded the church,  considered demolishing the church to make way for development.  Ultimately, four churches on the site, including the Church of the Holy Apostles, were saved. The sanctuary was badly damaged in 1990 by a fire, in which some of the stained-glass windows were lost. A restoration began almost immediately, and was completed in 1994 under the supervision of Ed Kamper, without interruption of the social services the church provides.

The Church of the Holy Apostles was designated a New York City landmark in 1966, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.