Cornerstone Seventh-Day Adventist Church

138 Pennsylvania Avenue
Builder: Frank Richards
1922

This stately structure was built in 1922 as the Homestead Branch of the National City Bank of New York, an institution founded in 1812 and known since 1976 as Citibank. A Brooklyn Eagle article from January 9, 1922, described it as “a handsome, but not extravagant, structure, with all the up-to-date appointments of a first-class bank.” The same article described some of its interior features: “There are windows on three sides, admitting real daylight into the tellers’ and bookkeepers’ cages. The finish of the cages is Tennessee marble and bronze. Metal desks that have the verisimilitude of mahogany harmonize with real mahogany trim and chairs.” In 1977, the property was sold to the Cornerstone Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which made only minimal changes to the front façade, including the addition of a sign and awning over the entrance and the removal of its original sign band above the grand columns, which read “The National City Bank of New York.” Its conversion to and continued function as a church is an excellent example of successful adaptive reuse.

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