St. George's Protestant Episcopal Church

800 Marcy Avenue | also 456 Gates Avenue | Bedford-Stuyvesant | built 1931

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. 1886

    June

    Bishop Abram Littlejohn lays the cornerstone of St. George's Church at Marcy and Gates Avenues

    The congregation had grown a great deal over ten years, and it acquired the Marcy Avenue site in 1883. The rector, Richard Harris, led fundraising for a new building, and Bishop Abram N. Littlejohn laid its corner stone in June 1886. The parish had begun as St. Thomas Church, became Guion Church for its founder, and was renamed St. George's after the diocese objected to the Guion name.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1886

    Richard M. Upjohn designs a red brick Victorian Gothic church with a chimney-tower

    Upjohn, son of the Gothic Revival architect Richard Upjohn, also designed the Green-Wood Cemetery gates in 1861 and St. Paul's at Clinton and Carroll Streets. For St. George's he used red brick with light stone trim in a polychrome pattern, and a polygonal tower that doubles as a chimney. A corner tower with a belfry and broach spire was planned but never built, probably for lack of funds.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1888

    January

    The new church holds its first services, with a Sunday school wing following in 1889

    The landmark report dates the first services in the new church to January 1888. An extension for Sunday school and parish activities was added in 1889, also designed by Richard M. Upjohn.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1900

    January

    A fire guts St. George's Church, which is rebuilt by 1906

    In January 1900, less than 20 years after it was built, a fire gutted the church. Because the congregation was wealthy and the building well insured, it was fully rebuilt by 1906. Brownstoner adds that the church has several Tiffany Studio windows.

    Source: brownstoner.com

  5. 1977

    The Landmarks Commission designates St. George's, whose original congregation still uses it

    The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the church a landmark in 1977, calling it an excellent example of Victorian Gothic architecture. It singled out the polychromy, picturesque massing and unusual polygonal tower, and observed that the original congregation still used the building and the church still served Bedford.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Further reading

Nearby

All 23 buildings with stories in Bedford-Stuyvesant