On a Cobble Hill Church Tour, History and Real Estate

Brooklyn was once nicknamed the "City of Churches," and a tour through Cobble Hill on Saturday gave the more than 50 participants a glimpse into why.

On “Churches of Cobble Hill: The Here, the Now, the Long Gone & the Forgotten," organized by the Municipal Art Society of New York, residents and visitors took a crash course on the religious and historic roots of the neighborhood. The tour made stops at churches that are still serving a religious community, but also at structures that were once churches, but now serve another purpose. In the neighborhood,

In fact, most stops on the tour were at sites where a church once flourished. Some were converted into condos and apartment buildings, and in the case of on Henry Street, the building was re-purposed as a supermarket. Once the Congregationalist Pilgrim Chapel, the outlines of former stained-glass windows are still visible in the brick.

Mary Ann DiNapoli, a local historian and resident of Carroll Gardens, started the tour at Court Street and Atlantic Avenue and led the group south through Cobble Hill, stopping at various street corners along the way. Before Brooklyn became part of New York City in 1898, she explained, it was nicknamed the “City of Churches” for its numerous houses of worship.

Cobble Hill was a prime church hotspot.  

But this being Brooklyn, the population changed over time, and the church denominations changed with it.

One structure once served three different religious populations. The , first built as the Middle Dutch Reformed Church, only to become the German Evangelical Lutheran Trinity church, in 1905 finally became the local Jewish community worship space it is today. Even the synagogue’s name changed through the years: it began as the Harrison Street Synagogue, and then took its current name in 1928 when the tree-lined street was renamed Kane.

“Aaron Copland had his bar mitzvah here in 1913,” DiNapoli said, referring to one of Brooklyn’s most famous former residents. “Rabbi Israel Goldfarb convinced Aaron’s father to let him study music instead of law, and thankfully he was persuasive enough that Aaron became the talented composer we know today.”

The English Lutheran and Unitarian churches on Clinton Street and Atlantic Avenue a century ago have all but disappeared, and apartments now stand in place of the original buildings. The area used to be central to the city’s Syrian and Lebanese immigrant enclaves, but church congregations disbanded or moved as populations shifted, DiNapoli told the group.

DiNapoli, a genealogist, stumbled upon many of Cobble Hill’s lost churches in her search for clients’ ancestral marriage records, which were meticulously kept by the churches.

But tracing 19th Century lineage gets tricky when the churches are no longer standing, or when the buildings have switched denominations as different groups moved in and out of the neighborhood.

That’s when DiNapoli realized the metamorphosis of the area’s houses of worship was a direct reflection of a changing community.

“I’ve always loved local history,” she said. “That’s really how I got started.”

Two more stops on the two-hour tour were at former churches. The Landmark at Strong Place, for example, is a 23-unit residential space that takes the place of the former Strong Place Baptist Church, which closed in 1996. The original church bell stands near the building’s entrance as a reminder of the structure’s roots.

At 249 Degraw Street, stands a four-unit apartment building, once home to Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, whose parish has long since moved to 9020 Third Avenue, in Bay Ridge. But the stained-glass windows on the building’ sides still gleam in the sun, and present-day tenants still keep up the .

Marilyn Serge, a Long Island resident who went on Saturday’s tour, said she was most intrigued by the telltale clues in a building's architecture, which gives away the building's original function.

“I thought it was interesting going into these neighborhoods and finding out the history,” Serge said. “Where apartments are now, there used to be churches, and sometimes people never know the historical significance of where they live.”

The group also explored the inside of Christ Church at Clinton Street, which is one of the few church buildings that has consistently clung to one denomination – Episcopalian – since it was erected in 1842.

Parishioner and renowned architect Richard Upjohn, who also designed Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan, designed the ornate building. In addition, the church’s colorful stained-glass windows, marble altar and pulpit were the last projects supervised by famed stained-glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose company now produces Tiffany’s jewelry.

When a fire destroyed the Christ Church building in 1939, the U.S. had just entered World War II and local steel supplies were scarce. But the church received generous donations from local labor unions, which allowed it to rebuild within a few years.

Though few houses of worship, in a neighborhood once known for its wealth of churches, are still functioning, DiNapoli said she sees it as her duty to remind people of the area's religious roots.