Designated: June 20, 2000
Erected in 1891-92 to the designs of Edgar K. Bourne, the Bedford Park Congregational Church survives as a rare example in New York City of a small rustic late-nineteenth-century suburban church. Bedford Park Congregational exemplifies such churches in its asymmetrical massing accentuated by a picturesque tower and other projections and in its incorporation of architectural forms and features associated with Queen Anne and Shingle style buildings. It is constructed of rough-dressed fieldstone and features a shingled Richardsonian Romanesque style tower, squat buttresses, round-arched windows with voussoirs, and a timber-framed Queen Anne style porch. The plan of the building, which includes a vestibule, Sunday school meeting room, and auditorium plan worship space, is typical of Congregational churches from the period and is expressed in the exterior design of the building. Bedford Park was a planned suburban community for middle-class families developed in the 1880s after the model of the renowned London suburb of the same name. Founded in 1889 by the prominent Congregational minister, Shearjashub Bourne, who was the architect’s father, the Bedford Park Congregational Church was the first major social institution in the neighborhood and has remained a vital part of the community.
