BY COLIN MIXSON
Talk about raising the roof!
A 130-year-old Park Slope
house of worship is hosting
an epic party to celebrate a
major milestone in the historic
building’s multi-million
dollar renovation that
followed a 2011 ceiling collapse
— and everybody’s invited,
according to a church
“We are extremely excited
to welcome our neighbors
and these talented artists
into our ‘reborn’ sanctuary,”
said Rev. Dr. Daniel Meeter,
pastor at Old First Reformed
Church, located on Carroll
Street between Sixth and
Seventh avenues.
The free, live-music blowout
will feature 14 all-Brooklyn
acts — including the Michael
Daves and Friends
bluegrass band, the String
Orchestra of Brooklyn, and
Brooklyn Conservatory of
Music’s Amy Winehouse
Teen Jazz Ensemble — and is
billed as the fi rst public event
at the 19th-cenutry church
since the unfortunate cavein
eight years ago.
That collapse precipitated
a $9.6 million renovation
project of truly biblical proportions,
330 5TH ST. BROOKLYN
(844) 841-9019
REBORN SANCTUARY: The Old First Reformed Church is hosting a
concert in celebration of the 19th-century house of worship’s newly
repaired ceiling, which collapsed in 2011. Old First Reformed Church
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Lunch: Thursday & Friday
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leader.
COURIER L 10 IFE, MAY 17–23, 2019 PS
PHOTO BY EMILY DAVIS
Book your Party
in our private room
which concluded
its fi rst $1.6 million phase of
construction work, which included
repairs to the sanctuary’s
212-foot-tall spire, altar,
chancel, pews, and — naturally
— it’s coffered ceiling
just in time for Easter weekend,
when the First Reformed
Congregation hosted its fi rst
church service since the disaster.
The second phase of construction,
pegged at $4 million,
will spruce up the
church’s walls, windows,
chandeliers, a mural by 19th
century artist Virgilio Tojetti,
and its 1891 Roosevelt-
Moller pipe organ, while the
fi nal $4 million phase of work
will see the holy house’s bathrooms
and classrooms renovated,
in addition to the installation
of handicapped
accessibility features to make
the church ADA compliant.
Work on the decade-long
construction project is being
handled by a whopping fi ve
restoration fi rms, and is expected
to wrap up in 2021.
The exquisite 19th-century
neo-Gothic revival sanctuary
was designed by famed
Brooklyn architect George
L. Morse, whose stamp on
Kings County’s skyline is
evident in a variety of iconic
private, public, and religious
buildings spread throughout
the borough, including the
Franklin Trust Building on
Montague Street in Brooklyn
Heights, the Temple Bar
Building on Court Street
Downtown, and the Abraham
and Strauss Department
Store building on Fulton
Street. The building was
added to the National Register
of Historic Places in 1998.
Party it up at the Old First
Reformed Church 729 Carroll
St. between Sixth and
Seventh avenues in Park
Slope, (718) 638–8300, oldfi
rstbrooklyn.org May 19, 3
p.m. Free.
Restoring faith
Historic Park Slope church celebrates
repairs with live-music performance
/rstbrooklyn.org