Sorry this has taken so long for me to chime in...
LZA conducted the most recent investigation of the structures, 2-years ago.
We worked through an owners representative the church had hired. Even
though we asked and tried, we had no direct contact with Rev. Brashear and
extremely little contact with the elders. The last contact I had with the
church was about 15-months ago.
Because of our conditions report, I received a call from "Landmarks West", a
nonprofit preservation group on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Landmarks
West has been engaged in trying to work with the Church and save the
buildings for, I think, close to 1-year. They were trying to figure out if
preservation was feasible and what might be needed to get this done.
Starting a few months ago they started gathering experts together in behind
the scenes meetings then organizing the panel that presented the issues to
an open community meeting on the future of West Park Presbyterian Church
Sanctuary and Church House. Members of the panel included Rev Brashear, a
member of the Presbytery, a Council Woman, a local historian, Peg Breen of
the Landmarks Conservancy (a nonprofit group that advocates and helps fund
preservation efforts), and myself. I limited my comments to the nuts and
bolts of the condition of the structures and what it might take to restore
and preserve. There certainly were audience members who did not want to
"lose their view" or "lose a pretty building to an ugly new one". This will
always be a part of preservation and it should be - aesthetics are an
important part of quality of life and these are beautiful buildings that
anchor the corner of Amsterdam Ave and 86th St.
Landmarks West is now trying to put together a committee to continue this
work. It appears that the committee will be made up of architects,
construction managers, experts in space usage/planning/leasing experienced
with successful leasing of religious spaces on the upper west side
(really!). Based on this, I would not say the struggle to preserve the
buildings is a bunch of "Johnny Come Lately."
Like I mentioned, we had little direct contact with Rev. Brashear or the
elders. We were never sure of what "they" wanted. I learned more about the
church in Rev. Brashear 15-minute presentation at the meeting last Monday
than before. Based on his presentation, I am not convinced that the
congregation "really" cares about the structures. They provide an incredible
amount of services including starting of "In God's Love We Deliver" but
never spent any money on maintaining the structures. Fantastically laudable
programs but the facades are hazardous. For example: they brought in a 20-lb
piece of brownstone that had fallen from above the sanctuary entrance onto
the sidewalk bridge that we begged them to install about 2-years ago. On top
of this, they now only have about 100 congregation members.
The congregation is now entertaining all options but simple economics
appears to be pushing them toward the most extreme of options including
selling off air rights, a portion of the site or the entire site. I think
they believe that they would be able to provide the same inspired service
from a skyscraper basement instead of below a 50-ft high laylight ceiling
and Tiffany windows. No matter how weak the humanities are in the United
States, subconsciously the inspiration would be diminished.
I also strongly agree with Ralph that we are preservationists and it is our
job to try to preserve and be building advocates. In our free, democratic
and competitive society, the "other side" will be fighting to tear things
down. As the old adage goes, "May the best man win". (forgive the sexism,
man as in hu-man).
Finally, I have a bone to pick. I grew up in a religious Presbyterian
household with strong connections with the neighborhood church. As in this
current scenario, all parties freely use the work "Church" when talking
about the sanctuary building. Then as soon as it works in their favor, they
point out the distinction that church really means a group of likeminded
people NOT the building and try to paint the "outsiders" as insensitive.
Chris, please don't get me wrong I am not singling you out, but you should
have heard how often this distinction was made but then a few sentences
later, everyone (both sides) fell back into the usual speech phrasing using
Church to mean the building.
My $0.02
Eric Hammarberg
Interim Director of Preservation
Associate
LZA Technology
641 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10011-2014
Telephone: 917.661.8160 (Direct)
Mobile: 917.439.3537
Fax: 917.661.8161 (Direct)
email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Met History [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 10:31 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "Sieving" a building....
In a message dated 4/29/03 10:19:34 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:
It's messy. Our job is to save the buildings, and to advocate saving the
buildings.
Dear Tsar: The original post, from Yours Very Truly, a) remarked on the
terminology of "Save the Church" and b) remarked on the failure of
preservation/neighborhood organizations to develop an advanced, more
constructive strategy for "saving" the Presbyterian church in question, no
matter what "the church" means. (Did you know Presbyterians don't kneel?
I think they're Jewish.)
Signed, Bread and Wine
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--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
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