must have slept through my first visit to Naugatuck, Connecticut, about ten years ago, but I sure woke up today. I got the impression about 20 years ago from some MM&W picture book that Naugatuck musta been hot stuff in its time, and from some other source that its time had long since past. Didn't The Boys do a high school there, too? Besides which, it's the home of Naugahyde, another fabulous product of the 1960's .An astonishing neo-Christian Science-like Congregationalist Church by McKim, Mead & White, a war memorial by same, a gem-like little library (mutilated in a 1970's replanning), a cool Palm Beach/Regency bank of 1930 (think William Lawrence Bottomley but cubic) and, ka-bang, the astonishing St. Michael's P. E. Church complex.

The church itself is a Mark Twain-like Victorian brick church of 1875 - E. T. Potter? Sounds right nice. Although the interior has been dry shaved I'm afraid to ask what this means, architecturally, but go ahead the exterior - timber and shingles and red brick and black brick and delicious slate - is all there. Sigh. Plus there is an eye-popping investment property to one side, the "Hopson Block", a 4 story office building with panels of deep red brick set in a field of salmon iron-spot, with a fairly good sized return on the side facing the church green. Mmmmmmm. Doughnuts! Plus a neat 1908 parish hall of neo-Tudor influence. Plus a cool (for its period) "contextual" addition at the rear, a curved office expanded under a curving roof, by local guy Earl Lindgren. Breath-taking, particularly because of the high level of integrity of the place, which is well off the beaten path of New York Magazine etc.

Query: the church roofing is clearly original, grey and red slate at a fairly steep pitch. A vestryman [Ralph: that's one of the 12 goyim we need to make what we call a "communion", which is when we get together to put cinnamon on those little wafers and stick them in the toaster oven while wearing Nantucket reds Are Nantucket reds related to DFI liberals, and connected by a bunch [or should I say a fleet?] of ferries? and drinking martinis. I always wondered what happens when a person drinks martinis, and now I know. Does this have anything to do with The Protocols of the Elders of Episcopalion? You don't see the Nation of Islam selling PEE in the subway along with PEZ, though. [And I'm not kidding about the latter; take a look at the scholarly works those guys sell] says that the slate is failing, has to be replaced. They should contact my friend Les Gove at Middlebury Slate in Montgomery Center, VT (802) 326-4036. Slate at a steep pitch is more durable (due to faster shedding of water) than at lower pitch. If the slate is VT slate (which with the mottling you describe, and the location in CT, and use in conjunction with red slate [which comes from NY/VT, and is good stuff], it may well be VT rather than PA slate), it ought to last awhile (maybe 50-100 years?) longer. However, it may be that the nails or flashing is failing, or there's something else wrong that makes it necessary to remove the slate. But if the slate itself isn't failing, and is handled carefully, they should be able to reset most of it with only limited replacement. Although there would be high labor costs for this option, material costs ought to be rather low, and durability and appearance would certainly outlast asphalt shingles and the church and town would have something in which to take great pride, rather than being embarrassed about. They should get somebody who knows his stuff to do an assessment of the roof, rather than the local asphalt shingle salesman; could save them a shitload of money, and even more embarrassment.

Do I recall this correctly, or was it some sort of cruel joke, that slate really does season out and has to be replaced, because it becomes so brittle that even mild weathering will make it fail? Penna slate does this after 50-100 years; the VT is more durable (although I don't know how much more durable, but would guess half again or double that), and this slate sounds like what the Vt Structural Slate people (800) 343-1900 call "heather moor." HM is pretty cheap (hence its use on Chez Ralph several years back as replacement for failing Penna slate which went to hell as soon as the ink dried on our deed) for slate, although the red is expensive as hell. It would be a pity, because the grey slate is dappled and streaked, like a grey sea whipped by a stiff breeze. Like that metaphor, don't you? Exquisite. Sounds that way. Keep us posted. Or potted. We gonna see this in the Real Estate section sometime soon, or do you have more interracial gay architectural commitment ceremonies you feel obligated to cover?

PPS What potentionally awful thing is happening to the interior of the H. H. Richardson's New London train station except that on second thought it probably couldn't get any worse that what happened when it was "saved" in the 1970's. You tell us! And tell it to the nation in that column of yours! Why should you spend all your time picking on me just because a few pieces of limestone and brick were harder to clean than the hands of a NY Times reader on Sunday morning?