Several of Brooklyn’s historic churches and synagogues will be featured in the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s annual citywide Sacred Sites Open House Weekend on Saturday and Sunday, May 19 and 20, when they will open their doors to residents and tourists to explore “their extraordinary art and architecture.”
 

The weekend will also provide religious institutions the opportunity to highlight their histories, cultural programming and social services that benefit the wider community.
 

“Religious art and architecture is perhaps our greatest creative achievement,” said Peg Breen, Conservancy president. “Nowhere in the United States is this better demonstrated than right here in New York with its rich diversity of religions and ecclesiastical buildings. The Open House Weekend is a wonderful opportunity to truly be a tourist in your own town,” 
 

Sacred Sites is the only statewide program in the country providing financial and technical assistance for the restoration of culturally significant religious properties. EverGreene Architectural Arts is the event sponsor.

 

 

• Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Catholic Cathedral, 113 Remsen St. Designed by Richard Upjohn and one of the earliest Romanesque Revival buildings in America, this church was originally constructed in 1844 to house the Church of the Pilgrims. The Church of the Pilgrims merged with Plymouth Church in the 1930s, and Our Lady of Lebanon purchased this building in 1944.
 

• St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 348 S. Fifth St. Designed by J.C. Cady & Company, it was constructed in 1884-1885 in the Romanesque Revival style.
 

• Old First Reformed Church of Park Slope, 729 Carroll St. An excellent example of the late Gothic Revival or neo-Gothic style, it was designed by George L. Morse and built in 1888-91.
 

• Temple Beth Emeth, 83 Marlborough Road. Designed in Classical Revival-style by S. B. Eisendrath and B. Horowitz, it was constructed in 1913 of red brick with cast-stone trim, by a congregation founded in 1906. 

• Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, 75 Hicks St., erected in 1849-50. Fiery abolitionist preacher Henry Ward Beecher preached here from 1847 until 1887. Among the thousands of worshippers who came to hear him were Mark Twain and Walt Whitman.