New England Congregational Church building

The brick and sandstone church building at 185 S. 9th St. in the Williamsburg neighborhood was built in the early 1850s for the New England Congregational Church. Thomas Kinnecut Beecher was the New England preacher who became the church's first pastor. Beecher was the brother of abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the book Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Italianate style structure became an Assemblies of God Pentecostal church in 1955. The church building became a New York City landmark in 1981. The church building and its adjacent rectory, built in 1868, were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The church is now known as Light of the World Pentecostal Church.

Three lots on South Ninth Street were purchased in September 1852 to build the church, covering about 75 feet along the road, 110 feet deep. The church building was designed by architect Thomas Little. Ground was broken in November 1852 and the cornerstone of the rectangular, Italianate style building was laid on January 11th 1853. The church is composed of brick on a rough stone foundation, clad in brownstone with metal and wood trim on the street-facing side. The exterior was meant to blend into a residential neighborhood instead of towering above it. The main facade is symmetrical with entrances on either end and a low pedimented temple design; the cornice blends in with those of the neighboring townhouses. One of the neighboring buildings, to the west (left) of the main facade (177 S. Ninth St.), was built in 1868 as the church's rectory. The narrow arched windows reveal the second-floor gallery. The interior of the simple rectangular church was designed to create as much seating as possible, with as little obstruction as possible between the congregants and the preacher.

Thomas Kinnecut Beecher was the pastor of the New England Congregational Church for only four years (1851 to 1854). The congregation was formed after a preliminary meeting held in Brooklyn at the Fourth Street home of Dr. Edwin Cole on March 18th 1851. Beecher held the first services on April 5th 1851 at Central Hall, on the corner of Fifth and South First Streets. Central Hall was destoyed in a fire in 1853, and church services moved to the Odeon, a public hall on Fifth Street between South Third and South Fourth Streets. The first services were held in the new church in July 1853. The new pastor in 1854 was Henry B. Elliott. In 1855, the church was no longer within the Village of Williamsburg after the village was incorporated into the City of Brooklyn. The church's new pastor in 1856 was Reverend William R. Tompkins, who served until 1864. Leonard W. Bacon took over the position in 1865 and left in 1870. A parsonage was built next door in 1868 at a cost of $10,000. By February 1869, the congregation numbered 234. W.H. Thomas was the pastor by 1889.

The original interior was lost in a fire in 1894. The upper-level gallery design was replicated in the remodeling, under the plans of architectural firm J. B. Snook & Sons. The church was purchased by the Lutherans by the 1910s. The building housed a German Evangelical Lutheran Church by 1918 ("Evangelische Lutherische Immanuel Kirche"). In 1955, after a century of being within the City of Brooklyn, the Lutherans sold the building, and the church became an Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church. The church building was restored in the late 1980s/ early 1990s. The church continues to serve this denomination as Light of the World Pentecostal Church ("Iglesia Pentecostal La Luz del Mundo"). The church offers videos of services in Spanish.

Bergdoll, Barry. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. Designation Report, New England Congregational Church, LP-2009. NYC. New York, NY. NYC Government, 1981.

Council of Congregational Churches. Proceedings of a Council of Congregational Churches Relative to the Church of the Puritans, New York. New York, NY. John A. Gray, 1861.

NYC Historic Districts Council. New England Congregational Church, Buildings. January 1st 2022. Accessed March 4th 2022. https://hdc.org/buildings/new-england-congregational-church/.

Offerd, Robert M. Life's Golden Lamp for Daily Devotional Use. New York, NY. New York Observer, 1889.

Stiles, Henry Reed. A History of the City of Brooklyn. Volume 3. Brooklyn, NY. D. William Patterson, 1870.