How Grace Church In The Heights Came To Be

Grace Church is located on Hicks Street in Brooklyn Heights. We thought its history, lifted verbatim from the church’s own website, was worth sharing: In the early part of the last century, certain families affiliated with the Episcopal Church lived in Brooklyn Heights on open farm lands, near the waterfront of the East River. The land then stretched gently down from the high plateau, now obscured by buildings and highways, to the water’s edge. On Sunday mornings, members of Grace Church would go to the waterfront and blow a horn. A boatman would row across the river and take churchgoers to Grace Church in downtown Manhattan. When Grace Church moved to Broadway and Tenth Street (its present location) in Manhattan, the churchgoers from Brooklyn found the journey too difficult, and they planned to build a church in Brooklyn Heights. A small Episcopal congregation, called Emmanuel, already existed on Sidney Place. The rapid growth of this congregation, 120 members in one year alone, was too much for Emmanuel to assimilate, and in 1847 a new parish, called Grace Church, was incorporated. A building committee was appointed under the leadership of the newly elected Wardens, Colonel Tunis Craven and Henry E. Pierrepont, and the parish’s first rector, the Rev. Francis Vinton. Richard Upjohn, a distinguished architect known for his contributions to the Gothic Revival, was chosen to design the new church building. A lot was purchased on the corner of Hicks Street and Grace Court for $15,000. The church’s cornerstone was laid on June 29, 1847, and the first service in the completed building was held on December 10, 1848. The total cost for the structure was $46,737.52.
A Brief History [Grace Brooklyn Heights]
Church Architecture [CUNY]