Note: Thisd [page is under construction.
This week’s piece of Civil War Era Brooklyn NY is First Unitarian Church. Completed in 1844 it stands on Monroe Pl. in Historic Brooklyn Heights.
The church was built by transplanted New Englanders. It is a marked break architecturally from the Puritan model. Gothic in design, it resembles Catholic and Episcopal churches.
With a high pulpit and sensuous decorations, the spirit of Puritan severity is not in evidence.
A baptismal font from 1846 is a treasured relic.
The high pulpit:
My girlfriend Michele, a member of the Congregation, explained that the pipe organ is 125 years old and still used every Sunday.
The church was a major organizer of the 1864 Brooklyn Sanitary Commission Fair which raised 400,000 dollars for soldiers aid.
The church attracts visitors for its post-Civil War Tiffany windows:
All the side windows are Tiffany:
Unlike many churches with roots in Puritanism, this church reached out to the mostly Catholic immigrants arriving in Brooklyn, offering literacy and other academic services in the 1860s.
The church expanded its social action by helping to create housing for more than 1000 immigrants.
The church’s pastor said “well it is to provide hospitals for the cure of disease, but better to build homes which will prevent it.”
This mosaic is also by Tiffany.
The Brooklyn Historical Society is across the street from the First Unitarian. For the Sesqui it has an exhibit on the Abolitionist movement in Brooklyn. I’ll review it in a few weeks. The exhibit will be there for three more years, so don’t worry about missing it.
The court where I was sworn in is also across from the church.
-
The street the church is on is filled with pre-Civil War homes, like these built between 1845 and 1850.
More pre-1850 houses.
Some houses are marked with construction dates.
An imposing view of the Church’s front.
All color photos taken by Pat Young.To see more sites Pat visited CLICK HERE
