Congregational Church of the Evangel

1950 Bedford Avenue | also 100 Hawthorne Street | Prospect Lefferts Gardens | built 1925

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. 1907

    Members of two Congregational churches meet to start a new church in northern Flatbush

    In 1907 members of two Congregational churches, Lewis Avenue in Stuyvesant Heights and Flatbush, met to discuss founding a church in northern Flatbush. The group rented an old mansion on Flatbush Avenue for services, and 83 people signed its charter as founding members. The new church took the name of the Evangel Circle of the Lewis Avenue church, and anyone who joins today still signs the same charter book.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  2. 1916

    Church lays its cornerstone at Bedford Avenue and Hawthorne Street on a $15,000 lot

    One of the first jobs of the young congregation was to raise money for a church at the corner of Hawthorne Street and Bedford Avenue, on land that one parishioner had bought for $15,000. The cornerstone was laid in 1916 with much fanfare. The Sunday School wing was finished first, so the congregation could hold services while the main sanctuary was still going up.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  3. 1917

    The church is dedicated, built of granite dug out for subway tunnels

    The English Gothic Revival church was credited to Harold S. Granger, an associate of the firm Nelson & Van Wagenen. Its walls are quarried ashlar made of granite that came out of Manhattan bedrock when subway tunnels were dug. Carroll H. Pratt, a Flatbush architect and church trustee who was active in the committee to get the church built, designed the interior. The congregation dedicated the building in 1917, a decade after the founders signed their charter.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  4. 1920

    The church hosts the country's largest Boy Scout troop and New York State's largest Girl Scout troop

    The church soon became the neighborhood's social center, with athletic teams, scout troops, and separate groups for men and women. During the 1920s its Boy Scout troop was the biggest in the whole country, and its Girl Scout troop the biggest in New York State. In the two world wars, 41 members volunteered in the first and 58 in the second, and the church's ladies' groups sent goods and letters to the troops and organized Red Cross drives.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  5. 1927

    A Tiffany Studio window is given to the church in memory of Joseph Milton Cromwell

    For the church's 20th anniversary in 1927, Emma Cromwell gave a large Tiffany Studio window in memory of her brother, Joseph Milton Cromwell. Called the Cromwell Memorial Window, it depicts an angel addressing the women who find Christ's tomb empty. Brownstoner's writer praised it as a beautiful example of Tiffany Studio artistry.

    Source: brownstoner.com

Further reading

Nearby

All 2 buildings with stories in Prospect Lefferts Gardens