Historic façade should go, Center Collegiate Church tells New York landmarks fee

(RNS) — Two years after struggling a devastating hearth, the leaders of Center Collegiate Church are awaiting the decision of a dispute over its historic façade.

When the six-alarm fire destroyed many of the historic constructing in Manhattan’s East Village, the façade remained standing. However church officers, after spending $4.2 million on fencing, metal bracing and different measures to safe the limestone entrance of the constructing, have decided it too should be demolished to ensure that the church to maneuver forward with plans for a brand new construction.

“Regardless that it’s nonetheless standing, it really actually did fritter away,” mentioned the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of the multiethnic congregation, in an interview Monday (Dec. 12). “It simply didn’t fall down.”

In a mid-November report, citing investigative work by the church’s architect and engineering and security specialists, the church mentioned sustaining the façade is not secure for folks, together with employees, close to the location.

“The remaining construction presents a excessive threat to security of the general public and employees,” the report reads. “Primarily based upon identified seen circumstances, the remaining construction is in a state of disrepair and has deteriorated past its usable life.”

Some preservationists, nonetheless, disagree, and New York Metropolis’s Landmarks Preservation Fee continued its consideration of the church’s request for a “certificates of appropriateness” at a Tuesday listening to that was livestreamed by way of YouTube.

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“We anticipated to make the façade part of our new church design,” Lewis advised the fee, “solely to come back to understand that the façade was a burden, and a barrier.”

She requested that the fee permit the neo-Gothic façade to be demolished as a result of tools operators haven’t any entry to the situation in any other case, as they’ll’t undergo the next-door website the place the hearth started.  

“Our face, our façade, is damaged, and stands precisely, precisely the place it could possibly’t be if we’re to maneuver ahead,” Lewis mentioned.

Andrew Berman, govt director of Village Preservation, mentioned in written testimony to the commissioners in November that his historic preservation group want to see the church stay at its longtime website however doesn’t agree with Center Collegiate’s declare in regards to the façade.

“If there have been a hazard to the general public or an lack of ability to take care of this façade safely, the Division of Buildings would make such an analysis and order the construction down, as we’ve all too usually seen them do,” he mentioned. “They haven’t executed so on this case.”

Examples of injury to Center Collegiate Church are introduced throughout a digital assembly of New York Metropolis’s Landmarks Preservation Fee, Dec. 13, 2022. Video display screen seize

Decrease East Aspect Preservation Initiative, an area not-for-profit group, has argued that the demolition of the façade would damage the “particular character of this essential historic district,” and the group urged a “full and impartial evaluation.”

Lewis mentioned church officers have expended enough funds to attempt to hold the façade.

After spending a fifth of the $21 million the church acquired in insurance coverage cash, she mentioned, Center Collegiate want to use the remaining cash for the longer term constructing and upcoming applications. The church is within the midst of a $15 million fundraising marketing campaign that has gained $3 million since its July kickoff.

Lewis mentioned the church additionally has determined it doesn’t wish to promote the location or transfer in with one other church.

“The way in which to be in our neighborhood is to take down the façade and construct one thing else,” she mentioned, including that it’s the church group that may proceed to reside out the historical past began centuries in the past.

“What’s historic about that area is us,” she mentioned. “And the brick and mortar will not be us.”

Previous to Tuesday’s listening to, an impartial engineering agency advised the fee that the church “didn’t but present sufficient data to assist the conclusion that the remaining construction is simply too broken to research extra totally.” Its consultant added: “It’s attainable the investigation could show the remaining construction can’t be repaired fairly.”

Constructing specialists employed by the church supplied extra data throughout the fee listening to and in a written report introduced to the fee.

“Additional testing will not be required to evaluate the extent to which authentic materials is already demonstrated as needing elimination,” the supplemental assertion concludes. “With entry restricted to the Second Avenue facet, and prevented by the broken gable, exterior demolition is warranted and acceptable.”

Ken Fisher, the lawyer representing the church, mentioned the engineer employed by the fee to think about the applying famous that the restricted entry to the location means use of apparatus to do extra investigatory work would require {that a} portion of the façade be eliminated.

“The take a look at for this software will not be whether or not or not the remnants are going to be able to standing on their very own indefinitely,” Fisher advised the fee Tuesday. “The take a look at is whether or not or not it’s acceptable to go away them standing there and forestall the church from with the ability to rebuild.”

The Center Collegiate Church façade is mentioned throughout a digital assembly of New York Metropolis’s Landmarks Preservation Fee, Dec. 13, 2022. Video display screen seize

The a method Lewis mentioned the church sees the façade remaining could be if the location had been bought and a corporation with more cash selected to revive the façade.

“That’s nonetheless an possibility,” she mentioned in an interview. Noting that she’s an African American girl activist, she added, “I don’t need my spot, my legacy to be the place that was once my church that now could be luxurious condos. I don’t need that.”

Supporters of the church’s resolution have written to the fee and different preservationist entities, together with one who listed “nearly innumerable” companies the church has supplied and may once more.

“The specialists have already weighed in,” mentioned Jorge Fontanez in a letter to the Decrease East Aspect preservation group, noting that the façade was featured in his and his husband’s 2013 marriage ceremony images. “The façade will not be secure. What’s extra essential, the façade or an area for our congregation? An area for the congregation and the assist it gives the group.”

New York Assemblyman Harvey Epstein additionally supplied written testimony to the fee in assist of the church in the neighborhood he represents.

Fee Chair Sarah Carroll mentioned Tuesday she and the opposite commissioners would think about the brand new data they acquired and focus on it at a gathering in January.

Within the meantime, some Center Collegiate congregants have been gathering at East End Temple, a Manhattan Reform synagogue 10 brief blocks away from the location of the hearth. As many as 130 have attended in individual and a whole bunch extra watch on-line.

After her Sunday sermon at their momentary dwelling within the synagogue, Lewis and members walked to the location a day earlier than the two-year anniversary of the hearth. They prayed and joined in a brand new model of an anthem from the civil rights motion.

“We sang, “Ain’t gonna let no person flip us round,” she mentioned. “Ain’t gonna let no hearth flip us round. We ain’t gonna let injustice flip us round. We’re gonna carry on strolling, carry on speaking, marching as much as freedom land.”

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