Emmanuel Baptist Church

279 Lafayette Avenue | Clinton Hill | built 1887

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. 1882

    Emmanuel Baptist members break from Washington Avenue church and build a chapel on St. James Place

    A congregation of 194 members who had left the Washington Avenue Baptist Church formed Emmanuel Baptist around 1882. They hired E. L. Roberts, who had designed the Washington Avenue church, to put up a small two-story Gothic chapel on St. James Place in 1882-83. Fund raising for a permanent church began in 1884.

    “…established around 1882 with 194 members that had broken from the Washington Avenue Baptist Church…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1887

    April 17

    Charles Pratt's Emmanuel Baptist Church opens at Lafayette Avenue and St. James Place

    The new church opened on April 17, 1887. Charles Pratt paid for it, and Francis H. Kimball designed it in the Gothic Revival style, aiming at a blend of the cathedral type and the Baptist preaching church. Critic Montgomery Schuyler called the design rich, scholarly and well considered. The central font was the most conspicuous feature of the interior.

    “The church building was opened on April 17, 1887. Architectural critic Montgomery Schuyler praised it as "a very rich scholarly and well considered design.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1887

    Kimball gives Emmanuel Baptist Ohio sandstone walls and gargoyles, but its Lafayette Avenue spires are never built

    Francis H. Kimball, who had worked under the Gothic Revivalist William Burges on Trinity College in Hartford, designed the church in Ohio sandstone with buttresses, gables and gargoyles. His original rendering showed spires on the Lafayette Avenue towers, which were never built. Inside, the seating is arranged in a radial plan, a layout popular in churches with a strong preaching tradition.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  4. 1927

    A new church school building is dedicated beside the front entrance

    A school building was added to the Emmanuel Baptist complex and dedicated in 1927. It stands west of the church's front entrance on Lafayette Avenue, a two-and-a-half-story structure of smooth-faced stone laid in random ashlar. The landmarks commission later judged that it blends well with the main church. It is the third stage of construction after the chapel and the church itself.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  5. 1966

    November 12

    The city designates Emmanuel Baptist Church a landmark

    On November 12, 1966, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the church at 279 Lafayette Avenue, after a hearing on February 8 of that year at which three witnesses spoke in favor and none against. The church's own governing body had voted to support designation. The commission described the building, with its twin towers, as resembling a small French cathedral.

    “Three witnesses spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

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