Old First Reformed Church

126 7th Avenue | also 729 Carroll Street | Park Slope | built 1931

Open on the map5 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1886

    Old First Reformed Church settles into a small chapel at 7th Avenue and Carroll Street

    After roughly a century of moving as its earlier locations turned commercial or became too valuable to keep, the Dutch Reformed congregation settled in 1886 into a chapel at the corner of 7th Avenue and Carroll Street, the corner where the present church stands. Within a couple of years that chapel proved far too small, and the present church was dedicated there in 1891.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  2. 1893

    George L. Morse completes the Neo-Gothic limestone church, dedicated in 1891

    Architect George L. Morse designed the limestone church, which was dedicated in 1891 and fully finished in 1893. Morse also designed Brooklyn's Temple Bar Building, the Franklin Trust Building and the Abraham & Straus Annex, and had worked on another Dutch Reformed church, Grace Reformed in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. The church is on the National Register of Historic Places but is not a New York City landmark.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  3. 1893

    Wealthy parishioners donate stained glass, including a Tiffany Samaritan Woman window

    The church's stained-glass windows, most of them by Otto Heinigke, were all installed in 1893 as the building was finished, paid for by wealthy and influential members. One Tiffany window, the Samaritan Woman, was donated by Phebe Ryerson Kissam, wife of George Kissam, one of the church's oldest members, who had served as an elder and belonged for more than fifty years. She is thought to have been the model for the figure.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  4. 1998

    A new face is painted on the Tiffany window after a parishioner's cleaning washes the old one away

    Over the years the Samaritan Woman window grew clouded and dirty, and an overzealous parishioner who tried to clean it washed away the painted face of Jesus. In 1998 it became the first of the church's windows to be restored, and a new face was painted using a photograph of the window taken at its dedication. The church was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places that year.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  5. 2019

    Sanctuary reopens on Easter Sunday after a ceiling restoration traced to rusted screws and calcimine paint

    More than eight years before May 2019, leaks at the church led to what was thought to be a partial ceiling collapse. Conservators found the plaster ribs had been fixed to the framing with mild iron screws that rusted, and calcimine paint, which softens when damp, added to the problem. With the pews removed for scaffolding, the church also redid its floor, which had asbestos in its tiles, and reconfigured the pews. The sanctuary, seating 400 downstairs and 200 in the balcony, reopened on Easter Sunday, with total repairs projected at $10 million.

    Source: brownstoner.com

Further reading

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