Grace Church

46 Grace Court | also 254 Hicks Street | Brooklyn Heights | built 1920

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. 1847

    Brooklyn Episcopalians incorporate Grace Church Brooklyn Heights and hire Richard Upjohn

    Brooklyn Episcopalians had been crossing the East River each Sunday to worship at Grace Church in Manhattan. A small group started Emmanuel Church on Sydney Place in the early 1840s, and a new parish, incorporated in 1847, took the name Grace Church Brooklyn Heights. Its first rector, Francis Vinton, and a building committee headed by Henry Evelyn Pierrepont bought the corner of Hicks Street and Grace Court for $15,000 and hired Upjohn.

    “…a new church was incorporated in 1847, taking the name Grace Church Brooklyn Heights…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1848

    December 10

    Grace Church holds its first service in its new Gothic Revival building

    Work began with the laying of the cornerstone on June 29, 1847, and the congregation held its first service in the church on December 10, 1848. Richard Upjohn, who also designed Trinity Church in Manhattan, drew the Gothic Revival design. The building cost $46,737.52 in all.

    “The cornerstone was laid on June 29, 1847, and on December 10, 1848 the doors were opened for its first service. The total cost for the structure was $46,737.52.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  3. 1849

    Upjohn designs Grace Church as an Ecclesiological Gothic brownstone with a long chancel

    Richard Upjohn, a specialist in church design and an early American champion of the English Ecclesiological Gothic style, designed Grace Church as a cut-brownstone building erected in 1847-1849. Its long chancel runs back along Grace Court, and the openwork wooden ceiling ties the interior to medieval Gothic models. Brownstoner's Suzanne Spellen notes that the church was built as High Church and remains so.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  4. 1866

    The church ceiling is painted with a celestial motif

    In 1866 the ceiling of Grace Church is painted in a celestial motif. The decoration comes less than twenty years after the first service in 1848, and a year after Upjohn designed a Sunday and parish school building for the church next door on Grace Court.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 2014

    Grace Church completes a $5 million restoration and wins preservation awards

    Between 2013 and 2014, EverGreene Architectural Arts restored the church for $5 million, adding a new copper roof, insulation, lighting and wiring and cleaning the 3,200 organ pipes. The work uncovered the open trusswork ceiling, which carries gold, yellow and red eight-pointed stars on a royal blue ground. The project earned a 2015 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

    “Between 2013 and 2014, Grace Church underwent an extensive $5 million restoration and renovation by EverGreene Architectural Arts.”

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 25 buildings with stories in Brooklyn Heights