First Reformed Church This is the sixth building occupied by the First Reformed Church in Schenectady since 1682. The first two were located in the middle of the intersection of South Church, State, and Water Streets. The third church was dedicated in 1734 and located in the middle of the intersection of Church and Union Streets. In 1814 a new church was completed on the lot at the northeast corner of Union and Church Streets that had been occupied by the church’s parsonage. This fourth structure was destroyed by the fire that started in the Otis Smith Broom Factory in August 1861, providing the congregation with an opportunity to rebuild.
The consistory selected architect Edward Tuckerman Potter of New York City to design the new (fifth) building, which was completed by 1862. Potter, a Schenectady native, known for his design of the Nott Memorial for Union College and the Mark Twain House in West Hartford, CT, designed the new church building in High Victorian Gothic Revival style, setting the building back from the street fronts in a picturesque composition that encloses the bell tower in a corner formed by the church fronting on Union Street and the consistory room facing Church Street. Exterior materials include purple-grey sandstone for walls with Connecticut brownstone for trim. The tracery of the rose window above the entrance is surrounded with Caen stone, a tan-colored limestone from northern France, and the entrance is flanked by columns of red granite with bases and capitals of Nova Scotia sandstone. Capitals are carved with representations of products of the Mohawk Valley, such as oats, broom corn, and hops.
In 1948, the church was severely damaged by fire to the extent that only the stone walls remained standing. The congregation chose to retain the stone walls and rebuild the church (the sixth) in its 1862 form: from the exterior, it remains virtually unchanged. Church Street took its name from the presence of this Congregation’s buildings along its length for more than three hundred years.
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