Immanuel Congregational Church (Union Baptist Church)
461 Decatur Street | also 467 Decatur Street | Bedford-Stuyvesant | built 1898
Open on the map4 entries
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.
- 1898
Two Congregational churches merge and put up Immanuel Congregational Church on Decatur Street
Rochester Avenue Congregational and Patchen Avenue Congregational voted in 1897 to unite as Immanuel Congregational. The Brooklyn Eagle reported in July 1898 that their new church on Decatur Street was under construction, with a dedication planned for November. The paper then reported on December 6 that the first dedication ceremonies had been held.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1898
Axel Hedman gives the church golden brick, twin entrances and eight stained glass windows
Architect Axel Hedman, known mostly for homes and apartment buildings, designed the church in a Renaissance Revival manner closer to an apartment house than a Gothic church. He chose golden brick with limestone trim, rising to a central pediment above twin dormers, with the open Bible carved on the frames just below them. Across the broad front he planned room for eight stained glass windows with symbols such as the cross and the dove.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1945
The building becomes home to an African American Baptist congregation
The church later became St. Mark's Congregational Church. In 1945, with the neighborhood's makeup changing, the building became home to a Baptist congregation, an African American church that Brownstoner said in 2012 was still worshipping there.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 2006
The church is placed on the National Register and wins a $7,500 grant for its stained glass
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. That same year the New York Landmarks Conservancy's Sacred Sites program awarded the congregation $7,500, which went toward repairing the church's stained glass. Brownstoner noted in 2012 that much more repair work was still needed.
Source: brownstoner.com
Further reading
- Immanuel Congregational ChurchWikipedia
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