Queen of All Saints Church

300 Vanderbilt Avenue | also 296 Vanderbilt Avenue, 201 Lafayette Avenue, 306 Vanderbilt Avenue | Clinton Hill | built 1911

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. 1910

    Construction begins on Queen of All Saints church and school, designed by Reiley & Steinback

    The parish began as St. John's, whose chapel, dedicated in 1878, soon proved too small for its growing congregation. Work on a new church and school at Lafayette and Vanderbilt Avenues began in 1910, to designs by the Catholic church architects Reiley & Steinback. The apse of the church and the rectory on Vanderbilt Avenue were not built until 1915.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1910

    The school facing Lafayette Avenue gets a Gothic portal, saint statues and gargoyles

    The complex's school building faces Lafayette Avenue as a symmetrical five-story block under a tall hipped roof. Its Gothic entry portal sits between paired buttresses, each carrying a column that supports a statue of a saint in a canopied niche. A cornice of foliate ornament supports projecting gargoyles, and a traceried parapet runs in front of the gabled dormers.

    “The school is basically a symmetrical, five-story rectangular building surmounted by a tall hipped roof and clad in Gothic facing.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1913

    November 27

    Queen of All Saints is dedicated as the Cathedral Chapel, hailed as Brooklyn's most beautiful church

    The new Cathedral Chapel Queen of All Saints was dedicated on November 27, 1913. The Landmarks Preservation Commission's report quotes a contemporary view that there was unusual agreement that it was the most beautiful ecclesiastical structure in Brooklyn and one of the most important additions to the country's architecture.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1913

    A Wirsching organ is built for the church and later earns a Historical Citation

    Philipp Wirsching of Salem, Ohio, built the church's organ in 1913, and it was electrified in 1925. The Organ Historical Society regards it as an outstanding example of Wirsching's artistry and has given it Historical Citation number 66.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 2019

    August

    The Queen of All Saints school closes after enrollment falls

    The parish school, built together with the church in the 1910s, closed in August 2019 because enrollment had fallen by 30 percent. Wikipedia notes it was not yet known what the school building would be used for next. Faith formation classes were no longer offered at the church once the school had shut.

    “The school closed in August 2019 because of a 30% decline in the number of students enrolling in the school.”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 13 buildings with stories in Clinton Hill