This is Trinity Baptist Church on New York Avenue in Crown Heights. It was founded in 1922 with the mergers of Sumner Avenue and Bedford Heights Baptist Church. The newly combined congregation met in a townhouse located at this location. That would be replaced by the current building in 1927, designed by the firm of Tillion & Million. At the time, the church was completely white, which would begin to change in the 1950s with the changing demographics in the neighborhood. In 1968, they would hire their first Black Pastor, Rev. Richard Boddie.

It would be in 1976 that Trinity hired the Reverend Osborne Scott to be its pastor. Rev. Scott was an army chaplain who helped in the rebuilding of multiple countries following the Second World War. He was also the first Black minister to be appointed to the US Army Chaplain School in 1946. If that weren’t an impressive enough resume, Rev. Scott was also a professor at City College beginning in 1969, where he organized their urban and ethnic studies department. He would pioneer courses in Black, Puerto Rican, and Jewish studies while he was there. Rev. Scott would continue to lead Trinity Baptist Church for over 30 years when he passed away in 1997. The church is still very active in the community, providing HIV-Aids Education, Domestic & Gun Violence awareness, Computer Literacy courses and the Women’s Benevolent Circle. It was landmarked as part of the Crown Heights North Historic District on June 28th, 2011.