"Alexander Avenue, east side, north from East 140th Street. At the south east corner of East 141st Street is the Alexander Avenue Baptist Church, circa 1937." The original Alexander Avenue Baptist Church was a wooden chapel built in 1876 in this same corner at 141st Street and Alexander Avenue. The congregation had been organized four years earlier in 1872. The chapel was torn down in 1900 in preparation for a new building.The current building was dedicated in 1902 and became the Tercera Iglesia Bautista (Third Spanish Baptist Church) in 1962.

Although one of the churches on this walk dates to early Dutch settlers of the Bronx (St. Ann’s built circa 1841), most are churches which were built by and serviced the immigrant communities of Mott Haven and the larger area of the South Bronx. As the Bronx’s population grew in the late 19th and early 20th century it swelled with the influx of German, Irish, and Italian communities. Most remain in service today, ministering to the Spanish-speaking, African American, and African immigrant populations of the South Bronx.

A collection of churches across New York City from the New York Public Library.