10. Some of the neighborhood’s historic churches cater to the neighborhood’s West Indian population
Clinton Hill has a high African American population of about 15,000, or about 42% of the neighborhood’s population. Many within this demographic are West Indian, some opening up Caribbean restaurants in the neighborhood or in neighboring Bedford-Stuyvesant. Parishioners at St. Mary’s Episcopal Chuch, a Gothic Revival-style building built in 1858 on Classon Avenue, are largely of West Indian descent. The Church was added to the NRHP in 1983 and features the 1892 Johnson Memorial Parish House.
Other historic churches in the area include Emmanuel Baptist Church, located on the northwest corner of Lafayette Avenue and St. James Place, built in 1881 in the Gothic Revival style by Francis H. Kimball. Kimball was known for the Empire Building and Manhattan Life Insurance Building in the Financial District. Clinton Avenue houses the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, built in 1888-1891 by John Welch in the Romanesque Revival style. Most of the windows in the nave were created by Tiffany, and the 1,500-seat church was erected on the grounds of the former Trinity Church built in 1835.
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