First Reformed Church of College Point

The wooden church on 14th Ave. near 119th St. with the round-arched red door is the First Reformed Church of College Point (FRCCP). The tall-spired structure dates to 1872 and is one of the oldest surviving wooden church buildings in New York City. The similar building next door (on the corner with 119th) is their Sunday School building, built from 1874 to 1881. The building on the other side of the church is the second parsonage, built here in 1914. The Victorian Gothic style church complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2018; it is one of only three NRHP listings in College Point. The church was restored in 1994 and again after a fire in 2008. FRCCP celebrated its 150th anniversary in June 2022!

The First Reformed Church of College Point (FRCCP) was headed by Rev. E.S. Fairchild by 1874, with a congregation of about 85 families in the new building. Before the church was dedicated in 1873, the congregation met in the Poppenhusen Institute. Conrad Poppenhusen donated $30,000 to build the church in his thriving factory-filled town. Reverend Fairchild resigned as pastor in 1878 to become the head of a newspaper, the Flushing Times. Reverend John Baumeister was the pastor of FRCCP in the late 1890s, followed by Rev. Frank Malven, serving about 110 families in 1901. Reverend Malven left College Point in 1905 to head a Presbyterian church in Pennsylvania. The next pastor, Reverend Sheperd, left in 1907 and was replaced by Rev. C.D. Dangreman in 1908.

When the FRCCP was built in the early 1870s by local builder/ mason/ local sawmill operator E. W. Karker, 14th Avenue was called First Avenue. First Avenue became an informal dividing line for College Point residential areas in the nineteenth century, with the more elaborate mansions of the local factory owners and managers to the north, and the less pricey accommodations for the factory workers to the south. The narrow church building with its 60-ft. tall tower had an address of 69 First Avenue by the turn of the twentieth century. The Carpenter-Gothic style building with decorative trim is typical of the design of contemporary rural churches. The Sunday School building next door was finished by 1881 and is a wood frame structure in Eastlake style with plenty of decorative wooden brackets, incised carved elements, and fretwork. Machine-cut wooden trim was a recent invention, and the Sunday School was using the new materials. The address of the rectangular Sunday School building with a covered entrance was 65 First Ave.; a second entrance facing 10th St. (119th St.) was added in 1929. A wooden two and a half-story parsonage stood to the rear of the Sunday School, facing what was then 10th (or Bay) St.; the house lot was the gift of Adolf Poppenhusen in the early 1870s, who may have donated the land for the church and Sunday School, too. A single-family wood frame house clad in stucco was constructed next to (west of) the church in 1914 by architect Harry T. Morris Jr.; the building became the new parsonage for the church in 1928. the church was able to pay bac the $4,000 mortgage for the parsonage in one year. In 1951, the church and Sunday School were connected by a brick rear wing.

The former parsonage location on 119th St. is now undeveloped lawn and still part of the church property. The church still has an active congregation and streams Sunday services on its Facebook page. Reverend Linda B. Gold was recently the pastor. The church is part of the Queens Classis of the Regional Synod of New York.

Anonymous. "Personal." Roslyn News (Roslyn) November 30th 1878. 2-2.

Anonymous. "Among the Churches." Long Island Farmer (Jamaica) September 22nd 1905. 1-1.

Anonymous. "News of the Churches." Long Island Farmer (Jamaica) February 14th 1908. 1-1.

Historic Districts Council. First Reformed Church of College Point, Six to Celebrate. Accessed June 17th 2022. https://6tocelebrate.org/site/first-reformed-church-of-college-point-queens/.

Lederer, Victor. Poppenhusen Institute. College Point. Images of America. Charleston, SC. Arcadia Publishing, 2004.

Morache, William. NRHP Nomination of First Reformed Church of College Point Complex. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 2018.

Regional Synod of New York. First Reformed Church, College Point, Regional Synod of New York: Directory. January 1st 2015. Accessed June 17th 2022. https://newyorksynod.org/rsny_church/first-reformed-church-college-point/.

Reformed Church in America. Acts and Proceedings of the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America. Vol. 13, New York, NY. Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, 1877.

Reformed Church in America. Acts and Proceedings of the 92nd Regular Session of the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America...1898. New York, NY. Board of Publication of the Reformed Church in America, 1898.