__NOTOC__ The Flatbush Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, also known as the Flatbush Reformed Church, is a historic

Dutch Reformed The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

– now a member of the Reformed Church in America – at 890

Flatbush Avenue Flatbush Avenue is a major avenue in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn. It runs from the Manhattan Bridge south-southeastward to Jamaica Bay, where it joins the Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to the R ...

in the Flatbush neighborhood of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The church complex consists of the church,

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

, parsonage and church house. H.P. Lovecraft mentions the complex in passing in his story "The Horror at Red Hook", speaking of its "iron-railed yard of Netherlandish gravestones". The Church House and grounds are featured in season 2 of the Hulu TV series '' The Path'', where they are used as the Meyerists' New York City headquarters.

History

The land on which the complex sits has been in continuous use for religious purposes longer than any other in New York City. The congregation was founded in 1654 and the original church was built under the direction of Jan Gerritse Strijker at the order of Peter Stuyvesant. The 2.5-story stone Federal style church building designed by Thomas Fardon was constructed in 1793-98 and is the third church building on the site. p.711 It features a stone tower with stone belfry. The stained glass windows are by

Tiffany studios Tiffany may refer to: People * Tiffany (given name), list of people with this name * Tiffany (surname), list of people with this surname Known mononymously as "Tiffany": * Tiffany Darwish, (born 1971), an American singer, songwriter, actress know ...

and commemorate the descendants of many early settlers of Flatbush. The building was constructed of

Manhattan schist Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and the architecture includes Romanesque features such as arched windows and doors, as well as Tuscan colonettes. The church's bell was imported from

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...

, and paid for by John Vanderbilt. The bodies of American soldiers who died in the

Battle of Long Island The Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn and the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, was an action of the American Revolutionary War fought on August 27, 1776, at the western edge of Long Island in present-day Brooklyn, New Yor ...

during the American War are reportedly buried underneath the church structure. The cemetery is the last resting place for most of the founding families of Flatbush. The earliest legible grave marker dates to 1754. The 1853 parsonage is a 2.5-story wood-frame house designed in a vernacular style transitional between the

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

and

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

styles. It was moved to its present site at 2101-03 Kenmore Terrace in 1918. The church house is a 2.5-story red brick and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

building designed by Meyers & Mathieu in the Colonial Revival style and erected in 1923–24. ''See also:'' The complex was initially designated a New York City Landmark in 1966, with the boundary expanded in 1979. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1983.

Gallery

File:Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church Church House from front.jpg, Church House File:RPDC Flatbush w-Graveyard jeh.JPG, Cemetery File:Flatbush Reformed Dutch Church Parsonage.jpg, Parsonage File:07 01 2021 Flatbush Reformed Church under scaffolding.jpg, Undergoing repair work

References

Notes

External links

*
Official Facebook page
{{Authority control Churches in Brooklyn Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Brooklyn Federal architecture in New York City New York City Designated Landmarks in Brooklyn Cemeteries in Brooklyn Protestant Reformed cemeteries Reformed Church in America churches Former Dutch Reformed churches in New York (state) Flatbush, Brooklyn Dutch-American culture in New York City