First Congregational Church

Beach 94th Street, near Beach Channel Drive
Rockaway Beach (Queens), N.Y. 11693

Organ Specifications:
Beach 94th Street, near Beach Channel Drives (since 1941)
• unknown
Rockaway Beach Blvd. at Academy Avenue (1899-1941)
► II/11 Estey Organ Company, Op. 1883 (1921)
• Estey Reed Organ – Model T 61
92-13 Rockaway Beach Blvd. (1887-1899) – building moved
• unknown


The First Congregational Society of Rockaway Beach began as a Sunday School, organized by John Bond and Alfred Bedell on December 25, 1881 at the Rockaway Beach School House. Classes were held in the home of Fannie Holland, who owned the Holland Hotel. In 1885 the Sunday School was organized as a Congregational society, and on February 22, 1886, it was admitted to the Congregational Conference. During the next year, a frame edifice with steeple was erected on land donated by Mrs. Holland, a Methodist who owned 65 acres from Beach 90 to Beach 94 Street. Designed in the Carpenter's Gothic style by Alfred Curtis Bedell, the completed church was dedicated in 1888. This building was moved in 1911 to the southwest corner of the Boulevard and Academy Avenue, on a site given to the church by John Jamieson. A parsonage was built next to the church.

In the late 1930s, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses announced an $11 million beach front improvement program that would result in a 100-foot-wide boulevard with a landscaped parkway and recreation facilities at various points along the beach front. This program necessitated the demolition of about 800 buildings along a 200-wide strip of ocean front property from Beach 73rd Street in Arverne, to Beach 109th Street in Rockaway Beach. The Congregational church and parsonage were razed in 1938.

Plans were made for a new church facility that would occupy a plot on Beach 94th Street, near Beach Channel Drive. Designed by Albert Humble and Clyton Shirkey, the Georgian-style church and adjoining Sunday School building cost a reported $60,000. The cornerstone was laid on June 22, 1941, and the completed facilities were dedicated in a series of ceremonies beginning on Sunday, October 21, 1941.
           
Estey Organ Company
Brattleboro, Vt. – Opus 1883 (1921)
Tubular-pneumatic action
2 manuals, 11 stops, 11 ranks


               
Great Organ (Manual I) – 61 notes
8
   Open Diapason
61
8
   Melodia
61
8
   Dulciana
61
4
   Flute d'Amour
61
               
Swell Organ (Manual II) – 61 notes, enclosed
8
   Salicional
61
4
   Flute Harmonic
61
8
   Voix Celeste [TC]
49
8
   Oboe [TC?]
49
8
   Aeoline
61
  Tremolo
8
   Stopped Diapason
61
        
               
Pedal Organ – 32 notes
16
   Bourdon
32
        
               
Couplers
    Great to Pedal   Swell to Great
    Swell to Pedal   Swell to Great Octaves
           
Sources:
     Carter, Vivian Rattay. Images of America: Rockaway Beach. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2012.
     The Estey Organ Museum Archives. Correspondence and Specification of Estey Organ, Op. 1883 (1921). Courtesy Larry Trupiano.
     "Lay Cornerstone at Rockaway Today," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 22, 1941).
     "Moving a Church," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Oct. 19, 1899).
     "Rockaway Beach Church Observes 60th Anniversary," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Feb. 25, 1946).
     "Rockaway Beach Section Has Promising Outlook," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Sept. 28, 1907).
     "Series of Ceremonies Planned to Dedicate New Queens Church," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Oct. 12, 1941).
     "Start Rockaway Beach Demolition," The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (June 14, 1938).