St. John's Episcopal Church
1334 Bay Street | Shore Acres | built 1871
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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.
- 1869
St. John's lays the cornerstone of Arthur D. Gilman's granite church
The cornerstone of the present St. John's Church went down on November 10, 1869. Its architect, Arthur D. Gilman, was known in the city chiefly for his part in the old Equitable Life Assurance Building, since demolished. He gave the rose-colored granite church a cruciform plan with three aisles, a crossing tower topped by a tall spire and a carved wooden porch on the south side, in a Victorian Gothic style that recalls an English parish church.
“The cornerstone of the present building was laid on November 10, 1869, and the Church was consecrated on September 30, 1871.”
- 1871
St. John's consecrates its new stone church across from its first one
Clifton's Episcopalians had formally founded the congregation in William B. Townsend's home on September 23, 1843, worshiping at first at the Clifton Hotel on Cliff Street. Its first church was consecrated on March 30, 1844, nearly opposite the present site. The new granite building was consecrated on September 30, 1871.
“The congregation was formally organized on September 23, 1843, at the home of William B. Townsend…”
- 1871
Local builder James Thompson does the church's carpentry inside and out
Staten Island builder James Thompson, owner of Woodland Cottage on nearby Belair Road, did the carpentry inside and outside the church completed in 1871. Parish records single out the doors and the porch at the south entrance. He later built the parish hall, the Mercer Memorial Chapel, completed in 1886, where his children placed a bronze plaque to his memory in 1912.
- 1974
The city designates St. John's Church a landmark
Three witnesses, among them the rector and the church's warden, spoke for designation at a November 27, 1973 hearing, and none spoke against. The designation report noted that the spire, a 1960s replacement of the original, has long been a prominent landmark for ships coming through the Narrows, and that the church bells rang to greet troopships coming home from Europe after World War I.
“…the church bells tolled a welcome to troopships returning from Europe after World War I.”
Nearby
- St. John's P.E. Church Rectory1329 Bay Street | 4 entries
- Woodland Cottage33 Belair Road | 4 entries
- Alice Austen House (Clear Comfort)43 Maryland Avenue | 1 entry
- McFarlane-Bredt House30 Hylan Boulevard | 8 entries
- Alice Austen House (Clear Comfort)2 Hylan Boulevard | 8 entries
- St. Mary's Church1107 Bay Street | 3 entries