Historic Harlem Church To Become School After Sale, Plans Show

HARLEM, NY — Harlemites who held their breath when a historic Hamilton Heights church was put up for sale last year can breathe a sigh of relief, as the new owners plan to largely preserve the house of worship as a school, plans show.

St. Luke's Episcopal Church, which has stood imposingly since 1895 on the corner of West 141st Street and Convent Avenue, was listed for sale last December. Church leaders later said in a court filing that the decaying building was empty, with its congregation having moved in 2015 to another church in Central Harlem.

By June, a deal had been reached to sell St. Luke's for $8.8 million to a group identified only as "435 West 141 Millennium LLC." While the church was a protected landmark as part of the Hamilton Heights Historic District, its listing still touted the 15,000-square-foot lot as a prime "redevelopment opportunity" — able to accommodate a new building as large as 60,975 square feet.

Now, the new owners have given a clearer sense of their plans: St. Luke's will be converted into a school building, according to documents filed with the city last month.

It will contain 26 classrooms, plus administrative offices and a recreation space spanning most of the third floor, according to additional plans shared with Patch. It was unclear whether developers plan to construct any additional buildings on the site, which also includes some green space surrounding the church.

The new owners — identified in court filings as Eli Pavel, Joseph Riegler and Moshe Friedman — have worked on similar projects in the past, according to real estate broker Dwane Omar Jones of Marcus & Millichap, who handled the sale.

That included the recent conversion of an abandoned school building in Brownsville, Brooklyn into a medical clinic, and residential projects in Midtown, Williamsburg and Clinton Hill, Jones said.

A charter school or a private school would be the most likely tenants of the new St. Luke's building, Jones said. The building’s sale had not yet been finalized as of Monday, though Jones said it would likely close within weeks.

Jones said the St. Luke's congregation had cared about finding a buyer who would find a suitable use for the grand building.

"That was something that was important to the church in seeing who to move forward with," he said.

As churches across Harlem face declining attendance and mounting bills, many have opted to sell their property to developers — including some, like All Saints Church on East 129th Street, which is also becoming a school.

The new plans ensure that St. Luke's will not meet the same fate as some houses of worship that were demolished as part of development deals.

St. Luke's was designed by the architect Robert H. Robertson, famed for designing grand towers like the Park Row Building and 150 Nassau St. in Lower Manhattan.

In a 2002 "Streetscapes" column in the New York Times, Christopher Gay wrote admiringly of the church's "deep red brownstone," and quoted the historian Andrew Dolkart, who called its steep side elevation on West 141st Street "one of the most powerful architectural statements in New York."

It sits across the street from Hamilton Grange, the former estate of Alexander Hamilton, and the two buildings' histories are wrapped up in one another. When St. Luke's moved up to Harlem from Greenwich Village in the late 1800s, it initially moved into the Grange, then relocated the mansion two blocks south to save it from demolition, as documented by the Curious Uptowner, which first reported on the church listing along with the New York Times.

Photos of the church interior included in the real estate listing show its high, vaulted ceilings and its large, century-old organ — though the images also show chipping paint on the ceilings, hinting at its decay. In recent years, the church has been shrouded in scaffolding, and city records show that neighbors have complained about drug sales and filthy conditions under the dark construction sheds at the apparently abandoned building.

Related coverage:

• Historic Harlem Church To Be Sold, With Redevelopment Possible
• Another Harlem Church Goes Up For Sale: See Inside

Have a Harlem news tip? Email reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.