New England Congregational Church
179 South 9th Street | also 185 South 9th Street | Williamsburg | built 1853
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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.
- 1852
The New England Congregational Church buys three lots on South 9th Street
In September 1852 the congregation paid $38,000 for three lots on the north side of South 9th Street, giving a site 75 feet wide and 110 feet deep. Ground was broken that November. The church, organized in 1851 under minister Thomas K. Beecher, had been meeting in two nearby lecture halls while it waited for a building of its own.
- 1853
Henry Ward Beecher gives the keynote at the cornerstone laying
Henry Ward Beecher, the famous Plymouth Church preacher in Brooklyn Heights, delivered the stirring keynote speech at the cornerstone ceremony on January 11, 1853. His younger brother Thomas K. Beecher was the congregation's minister and guiding spirit. Thomas stayed in Williamsburgh only three years but oversaw the construction of the church.
“…it was he who gave the rousing keynote address at the cornerstone laying ceremony on January 11, 1853.”
- 1853
Thomas Little's Italianate church is dedicated
The church was dedicated on December 22, 1853, about a year after the congregation bought its lots. Manhattan architect Thomas Little, mainly a public and commercial designer in lower Manhattan, gave the congregation its design, and it is said to have handed him a sketch plan.
- 1894
A fire destroys the church interior and J.B. Snook & Sons rebuild it
A fire in 1894 destroyed the original interior of the church. The firm of J.B. Snook & Sons remodeled it and kept the gallery. Brownstoner dates the fire to 1893.
“Although the original interior was lost in a fire of 1894, the gallery was retained in the remodelling by the noted architectural firm of J.B. Snook & Sons…”
- 1900
The Congregational church merges and the building goes to a Lutheran congregation
The New England Congregational Church combined with the nearby Lee Avenue Congregational Church in 1900, and the Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church bought the South 9th Street building. The Lutherans kept it until 1955.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1955
The Pentecostal La Luz del Mundo congregation takes over the church
In 1955 the Lutherans sold the building to the Iglesia Pentecostal La Luz del Mundo, a Pentecostal church of the Assemblies of God. Brownstoner says the congregation has been a good steward, keeping the church in fine shape through many repairs and restoration projects.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1981
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the church
The commission designated the church and its tax lot a landmark on November 24, 1981, after a 1979 hearing where three witnesses spoke in favor. It called the building a unique surviving Italianate church in Brooklyn, one of the earliest Congregational groups in the borough, with important ties to the Beecher family.
Further reading
- Iglesia Pentecostal La Luz del MundoWikipedia
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