Two Historic UWS Churches Get Conservancy Repair Grants

Two historic churches on the Upper West Side have received improvement grants, totaling in the tens of thousands of dollars, from the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

The Trinity Lutheran Church, located on W. 100th St., will receive $40,000 that will go towards framing and window replacement. Some of the money will also go towards rear elevation repointing, which essentially involves strengthening or replacing crumbling mortar.

Meanwhile, Grace & St. Paul’s Church on W. 71st St. will get $38,000 that will go towards roof replacement.

“Religious buildings are important because they tell us about history, architectural development, beauty and hold so many communal memories,” Landmarks Conservancy President Peg Breen said. “But congregations, including these recent grant recipients, also serve an important role today by providing their communities with a variety of social service and cultural programs.”

The funding infusions are two of 15 “Sacred Site” grants being issued statewide, which will add up to a total of $244,000.

Both churches have a rich history, as the Conservancy points out. Trinity Lutheran Church, built in the Gothic Revival style, dates back to 1908. The church has a busy nonprofit arm known as Trinity Community Connection (TCC), which provides everything from a residence for homeless LGBTQ+ youth to a Christmas Day breakfast, not to mention a free or low cost summer day camp.

Grace & St. Paul’s Church, meanwhile, was built as St. Andrew’s Methodist Chapel in 1882. It was one of the first buildings on W. 71st St., and its Victorian Gothic facade was a welcoming sight for those attending support groups during the AIDS crisis a century later.

Grace & St. Paul’s is also known for helping found the W. 71st St. Block Association, which still hosts meetings there. The church has also hosted a colorful and community-minded slew of other organizations and artists: Alcoholics Anonymous, the New York Bronies (My Little Pony superfans), the New Amsterdam Symphony, the Amor Artis Choir, the Ren Gyo Soh Theater Company, and the pianist Matthew Graybil.

The commitment to preservation signalled by the new grants cuts a notable contrast with the suspended fate of another Upper West Side landmark, the West Park Presbyterian Church on W. 86th St.

That church’s own congregation is asking the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to modify its landmark status via a financial “hardship” designation, so that they can sell it for over $30 million to a private condo developer—who would demolish it—and shore up their finances. They say that they’d be promised a space for worship in any new development.

In turn, this has drawn sustained outrage from a variety of local residents (including celebrities), who have made saving the church a grassroots priority. Hearings are currently being held on the subject.

Indeed, the question of needed repairs serves as the key point of dispute between the West Park congregation and local preservationists, with the congregation arguing that it would cost tens of millions of dollars to fortify the 135-year-old structure; preservationists raised $7 million in a bid to convince the congregation that fixing the church is possible.

As for how the LPC might rule on the question of West Park, the fate of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church on the Upper East Side might provide an alarming—if not definitive—precedent for local activists.

The city agency refused to grant landmark status to the closed church in 2024, despite pleas by the local preservationist group Friends of the Upper East Side. It is now currently being demolished, in order to make way for a luxury condo building.

Preservationists, as well as Lower Manhattan City Council Member Chris Marte, are also hopeful that they can get the Church of St. Mary on Grand St. officially designated as a landmark. Operated in partnership with Our Lady of Sorrows, the parish church was founded in 1826 to serve Irish immigrants, and has been sustained by a predominantly Hispanic congregation in recent years.