North Shore House of Worship Project

Kingsley Methodist and parsonage

My original impetus for blogging about the North Shore of Staten Island was to complete something I called "the Church Project." Fascinated by the rise and fall of communities, the changing demographics of Staten Island over the last century or two, and the persistence of congregations despite surrounding changes, I planned to investigate and chronicle the history of the churches of the Island's North Shore. Where it occurred, I'd look into how buildings transferred from one denomination to another in the light, most often, of demographic changes. 

Kingsley buildings today

As some of the oldest churches are destroyed (i.e. Brighton Heights Reformed and Trinity Methodist), it is also important to document the churches as tangible things, as works of spiritually-inspired art and architecture. I wanted to get as many pictures of as many buildings as possible, particularly the lost ones.

I made a list of all the main worship buildings, past and present, I could think of or document. I put stickers on a map to get some sort of impression of where old ethnic or religious communities were located. I even reached out to one Episcopal church for information (they never got back to me). It was clear it was going to be a difficult undertaking, so when other elements of Staten Island history caught my eye I let the Church Project drop.

St. John's Lutheran

Now, I've been doing this site for about a decade. It's had it good and bad times, but my time at the CSI SI Archives for the last three years has been exactly what I needed to keep me revved up and excited about this site. So excited it turns out, I'm going to attempt to carry out the Church Project.

I'm going to start small. I'll start with one denomination at a time and see how it goes. I'm debating whether to do the Dutch Reformed Church or the Methodist Church first. The former is smaller, with fewer congregations, and its main archives are only in New Brunswick. It's also the church my dad grew up in.

The Methodist Church was bigger on Staten Island, at least through the sixties, and more intriguing. Something happened about fifty years ago and numerous congregations closed and merged with others. From seven churches it shrank to the three that exist today: Faith United, Christ United, and Summerfield, all concentrated in the NW corner of the Island. I'd love to learn what precipitated such a drastic change. The Methodist investigation, though, might be much tougher, so I'm still deciding.

St. John's today

I'm writing about this because I want your help. If you have any information about the archives or histories of any North Shore churches or synagogues, please let me know. I'm especially interested in buildings that have been permanently closed or destroyed. I want pictures, any pictures, but I also want documents discussing the conversations the congregants were having as believers and as members of an organization. I want to know what they were doing for mutual self-help and for their communities. Did community extend beyond fellow worshippers or out into the streets and homes beyond? At this early stage, any help will be greatly appreciated. At the very least, it will help me start focusing on exactly how I want this project to proceed.

For my purposes, the North Shore includes everything north of Victory Blvd. and the Expressway. I'm including the churches along Richmond Avenue opposite Willowbrook Park because several of them figure directly into the history of others further north. 

Lutheran Churches

Trinity - St. Paul's Ave. and Beach Street

Our Savior - Bard and Forest Avenues (originally Nicholas Ave.)

St. Paul/St. Luke  - Decker and Catherine (originally Wasa Lutheran)

St. Paul  - Cary Avenue - defunct, merged with Wasa

Zion - Watchogue Rd - originally Park Ave and before that Avenue B
Immanuel - Richmond Avenue
German Church - York Avenue - split from Trinity and closed ca. 1930

St. John's - Jewett and Post - LCMS

Bethany - Westcott - Lutheran Brethren

St. Olaf's - defunct, bottom of Hendricks - I don't know if this was actually Lutheran, but as it was Norwegian it's possible.

Methodist Churches

Faith United - Heberton and Castleton Avenues

Christ United - Forest Avenue in Graniteville

Summerfield - Harbor Road

Asbury - Richmond Road - defunct, presently SonRise Faith Church

Willowbrook Road (I don't even know the name of this church, or now that I think about it, that it was even Methodist. Maybe it's something I read once) - defunct, presently occupied by Iglesia Pentecostal Rehoboth

Kingsley - foot of Cebra Avenue, defunct

Trinity - defunct, Delafield and Elizabeth - burned down recently
Italian Mission - disbanded, Harbor Road

More Lutherans

St. Paul's - St. Luke's Lutheran Church (formerly Wasa Lutheran) - 186 Decker Ave - Port Richmond


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Originally founded as Vasa Lutheran by Swedes in 1908, this was the church of my mother's family. One of her sisters is still very active in the congregation.
In 1971, the renamed St. Luke's Church merged with the dwindling St. Paul's Church (originally a German congregation) from over on Cary Avenue in West New Brighton creating the new and improved St. Paul's - St. Luke's Lutheran Church.

The old, sold, and condemned St. Paul's Lutheran Church - Cary Ave. and Caroline St. - West New Brighton

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Our Savior Lutheran Church - 557 Bard Avenue - West New Brighton


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My mother always told me how Our Savior existed only as a basement through the early sixties. It had relocated from that old Scandinavian stronghold, Port Richmond, to Forest and Bard Avenues and could only afford to excavate the present basement of the church and throw a flat roof over that. Eventually the congregation raised enough money and built the present modern and, inside at least, surprisingly beautiful sanctuary and chapel. Not surprisingly, the Norwegian heritage of the congregation is reflected in the clean Scandinavian modern wood work throughout the church.
The church parsonage (not pictured) is one of the several remaining stone houses in the area built by the opthamologist Samuel MacKenzie Elliot in the mid 19th century.




The original Our Savior Lutheran was located on Nicholas and Hatfield Avenues. Now it's a Moose Lodge.

The Church Project Lite

So I'm too lazy/too overwhelmed/too tired, or just too something indefinable to carry out the Church Project the way I originally intended to. So...
So, what I'll do is just get googlemap shots and the occasional old timey picture of the North Shore churches and some information about them.
I'll do it by denomination, starting with my home court, the Lutheran churches.

DAY ONE

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran - 309 Saint Pauls Ave - Stapleton


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My old church and elementary school. Founded by Germans back in the nineteenth century, Trinity really took off in the early twentieth century under the stewardship of Pastor Fredrick Sutter. In the google picture you can see the damage to the steeple caused by the tornado that ravaged the North Shore 2 years ago.


Zion Lutheran - 505 Watchogue Road, Westerleigh


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The group that founded Zion Lutheran started as an adult Norwegian Sunday school class in a no longer standing building in Port Richmond. At some point they collected enough money and built a beautiful neo-Gothic church on Bennett Street alongside Port Richmond Park. In the sixties they relocated to Westerleigh and built the kind of ugly modern church they still occupy on Watchogue and Willowbrook Roads.










I started with Trinity and Zion because they represent the two most active and vibrant Lutheran congregations remaining on Staten Island. They also still have a strong sense of their initial ethnic origins. Trinity was still holding German services in the early eighties.

They also represent two distinct wings of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Trinity came from money (particularly the Stapleton beer barons of the nineteenth century) and Zion from working class poverty. Today Trinity maintains a much more ritual filled worship service and Zion's is more stripped down.

The great wave of Lutheranism that once represented Germans, Norwegians and Swedes in numerous churches has receded with the demographic changes across the Island as well as the general collapse of the mainline denominations.