(African Methodist Episcopal) Zion Church (formerly Holy Trinity Lutheran Church; originally Free Magyar Reform Church)

891 Home Avenue, NE corner of Intervale Avenue

Situated on a triangular street corner directly across from the firehouse made famous by the novel Engine Co. 82, the Mother Walls A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion Church is a modified Gothic building in red and buff brick.  In close proximity to Latkin Square in the Morrisania area, this church has a semicircular apse unusually placed at the narrow corner of Home Street and Intervale Avenue.  The altar is positioned perpendicular to the triangular corner, and the main church entrance is to the right side of Home Street. Previously the main entrance faced Intervale Avenue.

 

Charlotte S. Trowbridge sold the property to the Ebenezer Baptist Church and Congregation (then on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan) in 1909 for $12,500.  By May of the same year, plans were filed for the construction of the current brick church by the architects Thompson & Frohling for $14,000.  

  

The church design features a polygonal cupola that still has its bell.  Cusp arched windows face both the Home Street and Intervale Avenue sides; and a flaring hipped roof has shed dormers.  The architectural firm of Thompson & Frohling were Manhattan-based, but the Swedish-born architect Victor Frohling resided in the surrounding area and may have been a member of the Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church that had at one time been on the same block.

 

The Free Magyar Reform Church occupied the site in 1912 and held it for an indeterminate period of time.  We know that Holy Trinity Lutheran Church used the building from 1926 – 1945 and that it was variously known as the Immanuel Spanish Church and simply Spanish Church from 1934 – 1939.  The custodianship of the church is unclear from 1945-1955.  It is known that a synagogue used the building in the 1950s and that by 1955 the church passed to its present owner, the Mother Walls A.M.E. Zion Church.  The church is named for Bishop W. J. Walls’ mother and the congregation has already celebrated its 50th anniversary at this site.

 

Janet Butler Munch

 

 

Photographs:
Abigail McQuade