Apartments Rise on Bushwick Church Parking Lot and Former Townhouse Site

Two big apartment buildings are going up on either side of an early 20th century Bushwick Avenue church, obscuring the historic red brick structure and making it look somewhat swallowed by the bright new towers.

When Brownstoner stopped by Calvary & St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church at 966 Bushwick Avenue recently, workers were busy at both construction sites at 962 and 972 Bushwick Avenue. The eight-story building at 972 Bushwick Avenue, formerly a parking lot, has topped out and windows have been installed. The scaffolding is down and the facade is in full view.

Covered in patchwork-style geometric orange, yellow, and brown panels, with a number of vertically aligned but differently shaped windows, the facade stands out.

The building at 962 Bushwick Avenue, which is shrouded in scaffolding, will be similar in appearance to the one at No. 972, a worker told Brownstoner. Permits show the two new apartment buildings will both be eight stories and have a total of 81 units — 41 at 972 Bushwick Avenue and 40 962 Bushwick Avenue.

Both structures were designed by prolific New York City architect Nicholai Katz and are owned by Shimon Greenfeld of SCG Capital LLC, according to permits.

The Gothic style Calvary & St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church, designed by the Brooklyn firm Hopkins, McEntree & Speers, was constructed in 1910 for the Calvary Protestant Epsicopal Church.

The congregation had been worshipping on Bushwick Avenue since 1903 in a wood frame church that could have dated to the 1870s. The building was sold to Calvary P.E. in 1903, but the church was destroyed by fire in 1910 when the congregation built the current brick building. In 1957, St. Cyprian’s Church of Boerum Hill combined with Calvary P. E. to become the Calvary and St. Cyrpian’s Church.

Calvary & St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church first sold off the parking lot to the east of the church building building at 972 Bushwick Avenue and two townhouses it owned to the west at 962 Bushwick Avenue to an LLC in 2018 for $2.5 million, city records show. Artemesia Spe LLC, the new owner, applied for new-building permits back in 2018, but plans seemed to stall.

Then in January 2024, Artemesia Spe LLC sold the two sites to 962 and 972 Bushwick LLC for $6.975 million. A demolition permit for a two-story structure at 962 Bushwick Avenue was issued in March this year.

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