Brooklyn, the Physical Context - The 11231 zip-code [1] with a population of 32,974 includes the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Red Hook, and on its northern edge, Cobble Hill. St. Paul's Church is the parish church for most of these two neighborhoods, with Christ Church serving Cobble Hill. Carroll Gardens has been for a long-time a primarily Italian-American working class neighborhood. This has been the context for St. Paul's ministry, but the environment is changing. Today, the neighborhood has gentrified to include a large influx of upwardly mobile young straight and gay couples and hipsters with the resulting trendy shops and restaurants. St. Paul's has realized good growth within the new population and is well suited to meet the interest and needs of both the "old-timers" and the "newcomers."

Red Hook is a very dynamic and diverse neighborhood. There is a psychological as well as physical barrier separating Red Hook from the rest of Brooklyn by way of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. This barrier has done much to keep the more chaotic and negative results of rapid gentrification from being realized, although the neighborhood is changing. Currently, approximately 65% of the population lives in the Red Hook public housing development, commonly known as "The Front." The remaining 35% live in "The Back" and includes many artists and entrepreneur types. Because housing is generally less expensive in Red Hook, there continues to be an influx of younger people into the neighborhood. Nearly twenty years ago, the "Episcopal Church of the Holy Child Jesus" served the faithful in Red Hook until its closing under difficult circumstances (the former Holy Child Jesus building is now owned by a Holiness Pentecostal church). Today, a Roman Catholic parish and several storefront ethnic Evangelical or Fundamentalist churches serve their congregants well, but they are the only religious institutions present. Red Hook has no mainline church presence at this time. There is a religiously under served population in Red Hook including the people of "The Front" and "The Back," not to mention Episcopalians residing in the area.

We believe that Red Hook is primed for the establishment of a new work in the neighborhood and within the new context mentioned above.

1. 2000 Census (http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en)