St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

Written by Julia Lu and Brigitte Bozer

Every day, thousands of City College students walk along Convent Avenue past a pedestaled statue of Alexander Hamilton and the locked doors of St. Luke’s, curious as to what’s hiding inside and why the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury is lurking in the front yard. This church, a place that matters with its rich, longstanding history in Hamilton Heights is under immediate threat — faced with sale and demolition, and dwindling numbers of churchgoers.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, located at the corner of West 141 Street and Convent Avenue, sits on top of a hill in the Hamilton Heights Sugar Hill Historic District. Across the street are the City College campus and Hamilton Grange, Alexander Hamilton’s former home sited within St. Nicholas Park.

The St. Luke’s congregation, established in 1820, first worshipped in a church on fashionable Hudson Street in what is now known as West Chelsea. The congregation moved north to Harlem Heights in 1887. Threatened by a growing immigrant population and an offer from Trinity Church to buy their building, the congregation elected to move “far enough north to be sure of peace for at least a good long term of years,” recalled Penelope Tuttle, the daughter-in-law of Reverend Isaac H. Tuttle who oversaw the relocation (Penelope Tuttle. History of Saint Luke’s Church in the city of New York, 1820-1920. New York, 1926). The first service in Harlem was December 18, 1892 and within Hamilton Grange, which had been given to the congregation, a gift of banker Amos Cutting (The New St. Luke’s. (New York, December 19, 1892). The home, built by Alexander Hamilton in 1802, was moved from its original location on 143rd Street to a site adjacent to the congregation’s new church designed by Robert H. Robertson, built in red-hued brownstone, and at this point still under construction (Michael Henry Adams. SOAPBOX; Harlem’s Neglected Jewel. New York, December 19, 1993). The architect’s design, in the fashionable Richardsonian Romanesque style, was not entirely fulfilled; the construction of a tower was postponed to be built at a later time and the brownstone was left uncarved, leaving the church minimally ornamented.

St. Luke’s was privileged in 1895 to host the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution for a “commemorative church service on the battleground of Harlem Heights,” (On the Harlem Battleground. June 3, 1895). George Washington had retreated to this part of Manhattan Island after a battle that ended with the British driving the U.S. Army north out of New York City. Washington built a fort atop a hill in what is now called Washington Heights, and St. Luke’s Church sits near the southern edge of the fort’s boundary. At this service, Reverend E. A. Bradley called for a union between faith and patriotism and preached Washington’s own spiritual patriotism, what Bradley called “loyalty to the law of God [and] loyalty to the law of land,” (Ibid). Such an equal loyalty to land and faith would remain a theme for St. Luke’s Church and its congregants even as the world around it changed.

The new church, designed for a congregation of up to 1,000 people, grew to include as many as 3,500 by 1915, just 23 years after it opened (St. Luke’s 95 Years Old. November 5, 1915). It remained racially segregated as the surrounding neighborhood changed. In the 1920s the African American population in Harlem grew massively due to the Great Migration while the white population diminished (Matthew A Postal. Hamilton Heights Historic District Designation Report. March 28, 2000). St. Luke’s, a church for middle and upper class white families, refused to change once again given its history of relocating. Several churches in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood were sold to African-American congregations but St. Luke’s held out, resisting sale and refusing to allow African Americans to join in this parish.

Down the hill, in Central Harlem, the community foment resulting from the Great Depression and the Harlem Renaissance pressed heavily on black churches. The parishioners of St. Martin’s Church, located on 122 Street and Lenox Avenue, initiated strategies to overcome segregation in Harlem businesses, specifically launching the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign. This movement, led by St. Martin’s Reverend John Johnson, aimed to increase black employment in Harlem and black-owned businesses. In 1942, St. Luke’s consolidated with St. Martin’s Church and embarked on the campaign to combat inequality issues (2 Churches in One Parish. May 1, 1942). St. Luke’s finally officially welcomed people of all color to practice their Christian faith in the church, establishing themselves as social centers for the community alongside St. Martin’s (Historic Preservation Studio II. Harlem in Transition. New York, 2017: 23).

When the church became inclusive to all people in the neighborhood and St. Martin’s Reverend John Johnson became the rector for both churches, local Caribbean families in the neighborhood started attending services at St. Luke’s, primarily due to proximity. Local resident and lifetime member of St. Luke’s Church Karen Shaw recounts all the buildings along Convent Avenue where parishioners lived and proclaimed how closely knit the community was because “everyone was within walking distance to the church,” (Ibid). For Shaw, St. Luke’s became a landmark for many life events including her wedding, children’s baptisms, and family member’s funeral services. St. Luke’s is a window into the changing histories of Harlem and America and is a social beacon for the community. The church would be attended by local Caribbean families until 2013. With only eight remaining congregants at St. Luke’s, the vestry decided to direct its resources to St. Martin’s Church.

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is a place that matters to New Yorkers because of its important historical ties to the Founding Fathers of this nation and because it evolved into a cultural locus for Caribbean-Americans in Harlem. Such a history truly reflects the changing social landscape in the United States and what that actually means.

“Both churches are windows into the broader social history of Harlem and are the few remaining representations of these larger social histories in the rapidly changing neighborhood. It is important to preserve this element of the churches…” (Ibid).

It is remarkable that descendants of slaves participate in a congregation that has a statue of Alexander Hamilton, who detested the institution of slavery and was born in the British West Indies, on the front porch of their historic church! (Ankeet Ball. “Ambition & Bondage: An Inquiry on Alexander Hamilton and Slavery” https://columbiaandslavery.columbia.edu/content/ambition-bondage-inquiry-alexander-hamilton-and-slavery). Hamilton inadvertently has become a beacon for local Caribbean families looking to create a familiar social fabric.

This church, sitting a large, valuable parcel of land in a gentrifying neighborhood, is currently threatened with sale by the vestry of St. Luke’s and St. Martin’s. With church attendance decreasing, many congregations in New York City are struggling to make ends meet. Congregations with historic structures have the added challenges of financing expensive repairs to deteriorating buildings. The vestry of St. Luke’s and St. Martin’s is in a unique position of having two church buildings in its possession. Since the congregation is not large enough to support both churches, the vestry has unofficially decided to reserve its resources in favor of St. Martin’s Church. St. Martin’s, which is in slightly better physical condition, could be restored to full glory if the vestry were to sell St. Luke’s to the highest bidder.

(December 2017)