The church's 225-foot (69 m) steeple, a replacement for a taller but similar original that collapsed, makes it the tallest building in Kingston and a symbol of the city.

Moller pipe organ After a few early renovations, and the collapse of the higher original steeple, it has remained largely intact since 1892, although there have been continuing issues with one of the walls.

It consists of a main sanctuary building oriented north–south with an east–west lecture hall wing on the north end and attached multi-stage bell tower at the northwest corner.

[2] Fenestration on both side profiles consists of five large round-arched stained glass windows framed by molded limestone casings with bracketed sills.

Two bluestone steps with iron railings lead up to a pair of slightly recessed paneled wooden doors topped by a fanlight with tracery.

[2] In the narthex a small display case contains items of significance from the church's history: the first communicants' tablet, and a letter from George Washington thanking the congregation for its hospitality to him on a 1782 visit (This is reportedly his only writing during the entire eight years of the Revolutionary War that mentions any religious institution.

[2] The sanctuary itself is painted off-white, with the stained glass windows, red carpeting, gilding and mahogany trim of the pews providing a contrast.

[2] A raised wooden platform supports the pulpit, carved with some classical motifs such as rectangular, rounded lozenges and foliation, some of it gilded, echoing the wall behind it.

On the wall above the pulpit is a Palladian Tiffany stained glass window depicting the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple framed by gilded moldings and flanked by pairs of fluted Corinthian pilasters.

[2] The Old Dutch Church was one of Lafever's last commissions, and considered his most fully developed application of the Renaissance Revival style.

Architectural historian W. Barksdale Maynard says it "reveals an experienced architect at the height of his powers, broadening his approach beyond the Greek Revival he had done so much to popularize."

The projecting front pavilion on the Main Street side creates the appearance of superimposed gables, much like those on the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice.

The battered piers at the corners give the main block and front pavilion a slight Egyptian Revival feel, as well as adding mass.

[7] Calvert Vaux, when declining a commission for a new pulpit at the church three decades later, called its forms and symmetry, "ideally perfect".

[2] The First Protestant Dutch Reformed Church of Kingston has held worship services for 350 years, making it one of the oldest continuously existing congregations in the U.S.

Its birth, marriage and death records are complete to 1660, making it one of the oldest such collections in the country and an important resource for genealogists.

Jacob Stoll, a local settler, led services for 11 others in his house in the absence of an ordained minister or actual building.

A later history notes that it was extravagantly furnished for the time and place with stained glass windows bearing coats of arms.

On the Sabbath day, liquor consumption, discharge of firearms and beating of drums were forbidden, with steadily escalating penalties starting at one Flemish pound.

[2] In October 1777, the church, like many other buildings in the city, was damaged by fires set by British forces retaliating against the recently proclaimed capital of the independent state of New York after the Battle of Saratoga.

How they chose Lafever is not known, but in 1852 they began construction of his church, grounding the building in trenches instead of excavating a full cellar, so as not to disturb the graves in the area.

[2] Two years later, its original steeple, at 239 feet (73 m)[9] the tallest in the state at that time,[7] crashed to the ground when the roof collapsed during a Christmas Eve windstorm.

The cause was traced to the 50 tons (46 tonnes) of slate roofing the church elders had substituted for Lafever's tin, creating a load greater than the structure was intended to support.

When the Civil War started, the church, long active in the abolitionist movement,[7] became the center of parishioner George H. Sharpe's efforts to organize the 120th New York Infantry.

[7] The following year a small stone building at the corner of Washington Avenue and Joys Lane, known as Bethany Chapel, was sold to the church.

In 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt, then governor and himself a Dutch American native of the Hudson Valley, spoke at ceremonies commemorating the 150th anniversary of Washington's visit.

Five years later, when the church needed to expand its facilities again, the small chapel on the north that had been created in 1883 was enlarged to include a second story, with choir room, classroom and kitchen as well.

On the evening of September 11, 2001, it was opened to all members of the community for impromptu services in the wake of that day's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

[19] The church and its congregation are "committed to providing worship, education, evangelism, social action, and fellowship", according to their mission statement.

Its major move was to replace the Wicks choir division, which had never integrated well with the rest of the organ due to a difference in powering methods.