Grace Episcopal Church

155-15 Jamaica Avenue | also 155-19 Jamaica Avenue | Jamaica | built 1862

Open on the map3 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. 1734

    Church of England worshippers finish Grace Church's first building on land deeded by the Heathcote heirs

    An earlier church stood here. Grace Church traces its start to 1702, when the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts sent a missionary to Jamaica at residents' request. In 1733 Colonel Caleb Heathcote's widow and his other heirs gave roughly half an acre by deed to rector Thomas Colgan, and the congregation's first church there was completed in 1734. The parish still holds the 1733 Heathcote Deed, and the present church is the third on the site.

    “…deeded about half an acre of land to "Thomas Colgan, Rector" on which these Church of England adherents erected their own first church building. It was completed in 1734…”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1862

    Dudley Field's rough sandstone Gothic Revival church is completed

    Begun in 1861 and finished in 1862 to plans by New York architect Dudley Field, the church is built of rough-cut sandstone with a steep gable roof. Its broached spire rises from a square buttressed base to an octagon topped by a cross, set to the left of the entrance. A chancel was added at the rear in 1901-1902 by Cady, Berg & See, matching the materials and scale of the original nave.

    “The Church was erected in 1861-1862 from plans by Dudley Field of New York and is the third church building on the site.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1967

    May 25

    Grace Church and the graveyard where Rufus King lies buried become a city landmark

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the church and its graveyard, calling the burial ground one of the oldest in the city, with tombstones from the 1700s. Rufus King, elected to the first United States Senate in 1789 and later Washington's Minister to England, is buried in the churchyard. He and two further generations of his family were parishioners, among them his son John Alsop King, who served as New York's governor from 1857 to 1859.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 24 buildings with stories in Jamaica