First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn

First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn is a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Brooklyn, NY. The Society was established in 1833, and is celebrating its 175th anniversary in 2008. It is one of the earliest Unitarian congregations established in the United States, established just 8 years after the American Unitarian Association was formed in 1825.

First Unitarian has a thriving and growing community of members and offers Religious education, numerous social justice programs and initiatives. It also features a highly regarded music program, including weekly music presentations during services that range from traditional hymns and choral arrangements to jazz improvisations and special music guests. First Unitarian is also the home of an acoustic music festival, First Acoustics, featuring live folk and jazz concerts during the fall and winter.

The Congregation holds weekly services on Sundays at 11am in its historic Brooklyn Heights sanctuary, at the corner of Pierrepont Street and Monroe Place. The current Senior Minister is Rev. Dr. Patrick O'Neill.

Today, the church is a declared Peace Site; a Welcoming Congregation, affirming its support for Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender people; and a part of a wider Unitarian Universalist effort to counteract racism. First Unitarian is also a part of the Heights & Hill Council, serving the elder population, and a founding member of the Brooklyn Interfaith for Action, a group that organizes citizens traditionally on the social margins.

External Link(s) [http://www.fuub.org/ Official Congregation Website]

HISTORICAL NOTES

Tired of the ferry ride to Unitarian services in Manhattan, and weary of being rebuffed by other Brooklyn churches, the founders held the first Unitarian Worship and Sunday School in August, 1833. After meeting in rented halls and buying a building on Adams Street, the members purchased the current site and secured Minard Lafever as architect. His design marks the beginning of the Gothic Revival in Brooklyn. The building was dedicated in 1844.

Over the years, three other Unitarian societies were formed, flourished and eventually rejoined the First Church. Samuel Longfellow, brother of the poet Henry and himself a noted poet, served the Second Unitarian Society. That church also ordained the first woman to the Unitarian ministry, Celia Burleigh. Prominent in the history of the First Unitarian Church is a tradition of social ministry that includes youth work, a settlement house for immigrants, support for the Civil Rights movement and opposition to the Indo-China war.

Architectural Notes on the Second Unitarian Church

According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (March 3rd, 1858) the Second Unitarian Church was designed in the Anglo-Italian style and it was much different in its appearance from other churches in the neighborhood. The building was eighty-six feet long and seventy-five feet wide in the transept. The nave was forty feet wide and the transept – thirty-five. The floor to ceiling height was twenty five feet. The masonry building was made of brick and overlaid with brown mastic. Aside from the brown mastic on the exterior, there was a “water table” line made of brown stone with wide stripe of Philadelphia faced brick on the top. The building was in the shape of the cruciform, with a low pitched roof covered with green and purple octagon slates in alternate rows – resembling a tortoise for which the church was called by some “the Church of the Holy Turtle”, however more often it was called “the Little Church on the Corner” or “New Chapel”. In the centre of the roof was an ornate wooden ventilator, and the entire ridge of the roof was finished with the “ridge crest”. The cornice was made of Caen stone and Philadelphia brick. The building had seventeen arched, stained glass windows with the tracery made of Caen stone. Located at the north-west corner of the church was a tower that measured forty one feet. The tower was topped with a twenty-three feet tall octagonal belfry. The base of the belfry was ornamented with encaustic tiles on the face of the stonework. The roof of the tower was covered with slate tiles, with a cross above. The main entrance to the church was located at Clinton Street, through a porch, above which there was a rose-window with stained glass framed with Caen stone. Under the window was an inscription, “The truth shall make your free” – a famous quote of the church’s beloved pastor, Rev. Longfellow. Inside of the church, the walls were pearl grey. The ceiling was rose-tinted and moulded between heavy beams of open timber roof, and part of the ceiling in the apse area was azure. The church held 104 pews made from black walnut and pine and upholstered with crimson damask, they were able to seat 600 people. There were no obstructions as pillars or gallery, so the pulpit could be seen from every place in the church. To the right of the altar was a separate minister’s room “with every convenience” (Brooklyn Eagle, 2) and to the left, the organ and a place for the choir. During cold days the church was heated with furnaces. The building also contained a basement where the Sunday school and Library were located.