Elmendorf Reformed Church | |
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Location | 171 E. 121st St. Manhattan, New York City |
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Coordinates | 40°48′5.5″N73°56′18″W / 40.801528°N 73.93833°W |
Built | 1893-94 [1] |
Architect | Joseph Ireland [1] |
Architectural style | Classical [1] |
NRHP reference No. | 10000225 [2] |
Added to NRHP | April 27, 2010 |
The Elmendorf Reformed Church, formerly known as the Elmendorf Chapel, is a historic Reformed Church in America (RCA) church located at 171 East 121st Street between Sylvan Court and Third Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founded as a parish house and Sunday school [3] for the First Collegiate Church of Harlem, which had its beginnings in 1660 as the Low Dutch Reformed Church of Harlem or Harlem Reformed Dutch Church, the first house of worship in Harlem. The Church's original burying ground for its African American congregants was discovered in 2008 at the 126th Street Depot of the MTA Regional Bus Operations when body parts were found upon digging at the location. [4] The Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to move the Depot by 2015. [5] Sanctuaries were built in 1665–67, 1686–87, 1825 and 1897, at various locations in the area. In 1893-94 a Neoclassical parish house was built on this site under the auspices of Rev. Joachim Elmendorf, designed by Joseph Ireland. Around 1910, the church at the time was torn down, and the parish house was rebuilt as the Elmendorf Chapel, which then became the Elmendorf Reformed Church. It is the oldest congregation in Harlem. [1] [6]
The church is a two-story plus basement building which is "L" shaped in plan and fills much of its 53 feet wide by 120 feet deep lot. [7]
The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. [2]
On September 22, 2002, Patricia A. Singletary became the first female minister of the Elmendorf Reformed Church.
The Elmendorf Reformed Church was organized in 1660 as the Harlem Reformed Low Dutch Church[5][6][7]
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St. Michael's Church is a historic Episcopal church at 225 West 99th Street and Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan's Upper West Side in New York City. The parish was founded on the present site in January 1807, at that time in the rural Bloomingdale District. The present limestone Romanesque building, the third on the site, was built in 1890–91 to designs by Robert W. Gibson and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
St. Cecilia Church is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and a historic landmark located at 120 East 106th Street between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York. The parish was established in 1873. It was staffed by the Redemptorist Fathers from 1939 to 2007. The church was designated a New York City landmark in 1976. The church and convent were listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The Old Bergen Church is a historic church congregation in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Established in 1660 in what was then the Dutch colony of New Netherland, it is the oldest continuous religious congregation in what is today the State of New Jersey. The congregation is jointly affiliated with the Reformed Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (USA). The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 14, 1973. The original church building was constructed in 1680 and the current edifice was built in 1841.
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The Flatbush Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, also known as the Flatbush Reformed Church, is a historic Dutch Reformed church – now a member of the Reformed Church in America – at 890 Flatbush Avenue in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. The church complex consists of the church, cemetery, parsonage and church house.
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The Church of All Saints is a historic former Catholic church in the Archdiocese of New York, located at 47 East 129th Street, at the corner of Madison Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
The Church of Corpus Christi is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located on West 121st Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The parish was established in 1906. In 2022, the parish merged with the nearby.
St. Benedict the Moor Church was a Black Catholic parish church in the Archdiocese of New York, located at 342 West 53rd Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan (Clinton), New York City. The property was sold to a developer in 2023.
The Flatbush African Burial Ground or FABG is the site of a historic African-American cemetery dating to the 17th century at Church and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, on land formerly owned by the adjacent Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church.
The Harlem African Burial Ground was a segregated cemetery created in 1668 for the burial of enslaved and freed Africans in the Dutch colony of Harlem, located at what is presently 2460 2nd Avenue in New York City. It was maintained until 1858 by the Elmendorf Reformed Church, the successor of the Low Dutch Reformed Church of Harlem which founded the cemetery. Although historians of New York and Harlem, as well as church historians, were aware of the cemetery's existence, the East Harlem community was largely unaware of its history until the late 1990s when the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) began planning the reconstruction of the nearby Willis Avenue Bridge. The investigation revealed that the construction might affect a colonial site and historic burial ground which was under the decommissioned East 126th Street Bus Depot. Per New York State law, the DOT conducted a Phase I-A historical and archeological survey, which verified the existence of the burial ground.
Patricia Ann Singletary is an American pastor, educator, author, and community organizer. She is the founder of Adoni Economic Enterprises, Inc. In 2002, she became the first female minister of Elmendorf Reformed Church in Harlem, the oldest religious congregation in Harlem dating back to 1660. Singletary is the author of, “The African-American Guide to Buying Stock Without a Broker.” She is the co-founder of the Harlem African Burial Ground Task Force.
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