Historic Flatbush Church Demolished Despite Locals’ Pleas

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — Preservationists were unable to save the century-old church on Cortelyou Road which was torn down despite numerous attempts to landmark it.

The Baptist Church of the Redeemer at 1921 Cortelyou Road faced the wrecking ball after the Department of Buildings approved plans for a new nine-story building in August, according to activists and city records.

Preservationists from Respect Brooklyn repeatedly petitioned the Landmark Preservation Commission in hopes that the group prevent owner Reverand Sharon Williams from tearing down the church to build apartments.

But the commission rejected Respect Brooklyn’s application in May, citing a lack of historic significance as the reason.

“Sensible development and potentially valuable programs should not require razing a 100 year old church in the neighborhood,” said Harry Bubbins of Respect Brooklyn. “It is disappointing that a creative and financially feasible adaptive re-use proposal was not pursued here.”

The group was further outraged by an admitted error by the LPC in their rejection of Respect Brooklyn’s proposal. Commissioners failed to acknowledge that Frank J. Helme collaborated with Harvey Eiley Corbett to design the tktk church, the preservations wrote in an email.

“The hasty first response was not entirely accurate even as it consigned this century year old architectural gem to a fate as a pile of bricks.”

The Romanesque and Art Deco church — designed by the architects behind the Prospect Park Boathouse and the Master Building on Riverside Drive — has stood on Cortelyou Road since first constructed in 1919, noted Bubbins.

The fate of artifacts buried underneath the church’s cornerstone by the congregation in 1919 remains unclear, Respect Brooklyn noted.

The developer has yet to inform them if the minutes of the first meeting of the Women's Missionary Society, a nickel bearing the date 1919, a list of 29 churchgoers who were also enlisted men, a ten-year history of the Church of the Redeemer and a copy of the Brooklyn Eagle dated June 29, 1919 were preserved.

“I am extremely disappointed with the demolishing of this landmark,” said New York State Assembly candidate Anthony Beckford. “There seems to be no land, structure, tenant safe these days.”

The church’s owner Reverend Sharon Williams has argued that the new nine-story apartment building planned for the lot will bring affordable homes and space for the church to offer improved social services.

Photo courtesy of Respect Brooklyn