St. John's Episcopal Church

St. John's was built in the year 1870 in Jersey City, NJ and was designed by John Remson Onderdonk. The facade of this church was meant to replicate a section of the Chartres Cathedral in Southern France. Referred to as the "Millionaire's Church", it soon became the largest Episcopal congregation in the state of New Jersey. A fire ripped through the church in 1914 but the architecture was able to be restored. During the 1960's the church became a hub for the Civil Rights act as we as protesting for the anti-Vietnam war movement. The building fell abandoned in 1994. It was eligible to be added to the NJ Historic Register and the National Historic Register but never actually became listed on either. Since 2004, there has been a large effort to preserve this historic structure. In 2013, Jersey City obtained permits to begin abatement work to demolish the building after the city declared it an unsafe structure.