Location: 734 East 225th Street .Block: 4838, Lot:68.
Status: Never landmarked. Heard on 07/08/1980; 09/09/1980 and 11/18/1980 under LP-1191. It languished under the “calendared” status for 35 years until it made it into the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission’s backlog initiative. It was heard on October 8, 2015. The research file for the property included the description below and Google Streetview images.
Out of all the properties on the backlog, it was one of the few with very scant documentation. On February 23, 2016, under the Public Meeting backlog for Bronx buildings, it was removed from the calendar, with no action. Currently the two structures (church and rectory) have no preservation protection.
Description from the Bronx Survey: The First Presbyterian Church of Williamsbridge and its adjacent rectory located on East 225th Street were designed in 1902 by local Williamsbridge architect John Davidson. The shingled church building is a vernacular structure making use of an eclectic mix of stylistic devices. The main body of the church, with its round-arched openings, is late Romanesque Revival in style, but the entrance porch is a Colonial Revival detail and the jigsaw roof ridges have an oriental flavor.
The square belfry at the right of the front facade is capped by a particularly unusual ogival roof. The rectory is a more conservative building, designed in a Free Colonial style. The house makes use of such colonial architectural forms as shingle siding, a columnar porch and an oval window, but these forms are combined in a free manner to create a house more reminiscent of nineteenth-century architectural taste than of genuine eighteenth-century buildings. Together these two buildings create a charming enclave in this area of the northeast Bronx.
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