St. Philip's Episcopal Church

210 West 134th Street | Harlem | built 1911

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. 1909

    St. Philip's sells its Chelsea church to buy land in Harlem

    The congregation sells its West 25th Street property for $600,000 and uses the proceeds to buy the West 134th Street site plus ten apartment buildings on West 135th Street, becoming a landlord in the growing Black neighborhood. Construction of a new church on the site begins soon after and finishes in 1911.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1911

    St. Philip's, founded in 1809, moves uptown to a church by Black architects

    Founded in 1809 by free Black worshippers at Trinity Church, St. Philip's sold its West 25th Street property around 1909 for $600,000 and moved to Harlem. Its Neo-Gothic church on West 134th Street, completed in 1910 and 1911, was designed by Vertner Woodson Tandy and George Washington Foster, both African American architects. The parish also bought ten apartment buildings on West 135th Street. W.E.B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall and Langston Hughes were later members.

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1993

    July 13

    The city designates St. Philip's Episcopal Church a landmark

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the Neo-Gothic church, completed in 1911 by the firm Tandy & Foster. Co-architect Vertner Tandy holds the distinction of being the first Black architect to gain a New York State license. The church joins the National Register of Historic Places fifteen years later, in 2008.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

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