By Gus Saltonstall
After nearly seven hours of meetings over the past month, hundreds of testimonies from members of the public, dueling presentations, re-written resolutions, and multiple votes, the Upper West Side Community Board 7 voted on Wednesday night to recommend that the city reject a hardship application from the West-Park Presbyterian Church on the corner of West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
The church’s application asks the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to strip the building of its landmark designation, which would clear the way for the sale of the building to Alchemy Properties, who plan to demolish the structure and turn it into a condominium building.
Specifically, the full board voted in support of a resolution written by CB7’s Preservation Committee that stated the church had not met all the criteria needed for the city to grant a hardship application. The resolution is CB7’s official recommendation to the commission, which is only advisory; the Landmarks Preservation Commission will be the final decider on the church’s future. Only 11 such hardship applications have been granted by the city since 1965.
Community Board 7 approved the resolution on a vote of 25-15.
The debate around the church revolved around the usual talking points, with the side in favor of preservation speaking to the importance of saving the more than century-old house of worship and its current ability to operate as a community and religious facility, while the side in favor of granting the hardship application centered its argument on the physical condition of the church and the amount of money it would cost to restore the building, including the removal of the more than 20-year-old sidewalk shed.
The date for the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s first hearing on the Upper West Side church is on December 9, but that does not mean the vote will take place on that day. West Side Rag will continue to monitor any developments.
You can watch the full West-Park Presbyterian Church discussion by CB7 from Wednesday night, and the eventual vote, below. The conversation starts around the one hour and 50-minute mark.
Read More:
- Process Begins to Determine Fate of Upper West Side Landmark Church
- UWS Community Board Committee Votes Not to Support Hardship Application for West-Park Church
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I wonder whether the LPC or CB7 realize that, as this farce continues, the building CONTINUES to deteriorate. This needs to end. I hope LPC grants the application.
They are well aware of the farce perpetrated by the hardship application and international negligence in running the congregation and building into the ground. For years the neighborhood has tried to preserve the building but the church has refused. Shame!
You are regurgitating the talking points of the opposition, some of which are hopelessly inaccurate.
The Presbytery did NOT allow the building to deteriorate deliberately. That is just stupid. You clearly don’t realize the extraordinary hardships that landmarking puts on a building and its owner(s). And LPC is notoriously slow in responding to ANY applications, including those for NECESSARY repairs in order to MAINTAIN the landmark. I am not even in a landmarked building – but on a block in a historic district – and it took my landlord over a year to get LPC approval to make VERY minor repairs to the facade of the building.
LPC are NOT the “angels” you think they are. Yes, they do good and important work – sometimes. But they are can also be, and often are, an impediment to the maintenance of the very buildings they landmark (or that are part of historic districts). This is such a case.
Why do you think the sidewalk shed has been up for so long? Do you think the church WANTED it to be? No, it’s been up because the LPC has REFUSED TO ALLOW the owners to make the original repairs they requested – repairs that MIGHT (if the LPC had allowed them to be made in a timely manner) have avoided this entire situation.
So in a VERY real sense, the continued deterioration of the building is the fault of LPC, NOT the building’s owners. Yet now the LPC wants to DOUBLY “punish” the owners by not granting the Hardship Application.
This is madness. And the farce belongs to LPC, NOT the church’s owners.
International negliggence? I’m guessing you meant intentional negligence and got auto corrected.
The bottom line is this: How can a congregation of 12 keep a multi million dollar building from deteriorating?
Any ideas you have would be most welcome.
seek a benefactor like David Geffen
to save the Church snd make it into
a working music venue
You could do that.
Why don’t you?
There are only 5 now.
There are synagogues that could take it over.
How about a mosque? Christian Scientists? Mormons?
Where are they? The synagogues have had many years to come forward with a plan, show the money and make proposals.
No one has come forward.
This is all noise. Everyone seems to have a solution but not one proposal, WITH CONFIRMED FUNDING, has been presented.
There is a synagogue 20 blocks north that shares a church, but……..that is no solution. The money needed to purchase the church, stabilize the structure, redo the roof and tge shell, renovate and turn into a synagogue would be insane. Not simple, not going to happen.
The UWS will continue to have a derelict and dangerous building surrounded by scaffolding for another couple of decades.
Awesome!
We should have razed GCT back in the 1960s, useless and bankrupt.
completely different
What is GCT?
Grand Central Terminal.
Realistically, if the hardship application is not approved what happens? The chirvhbsays they can’t afford to fix the building, thr Landmarks Preservation Commission says they can’t knock it down. Do we watch the chirch cromble over the next 50 years while we all grow old and die never knowing that corner to not have a sidewalk shed?
Obviously that is the result.
It will then be on to New York Supreme Court with an Article 78 proceeding and the start up through the NYS court system. It’s near certain the evicted arts center will try to insert itself into the matter, as well. There is also a possibility the church moves into federal court with a claim of various 1st Amendment violations. There is far too much money involved to leave the final determination to a collection of political appointees at LPC.
What happens? Out of its vast $2bn construction budget of a powerful, completely not-impotent, and highly efficient organization, the LPC will quickly and completely un-bureaucratically put aside $70mm to repair and renovate the Church to all its original glory using the exact same techniques and materials as originally used, following its own highly logical rules and regulations.
After all, we’re not dealing with some lame-duck organization with no power and budget here who “regulates” what private owners can and cannot do, but can’t actually help them in any way…
I’m pretty sure you’re being sarcastic, but with LPC, it can be really really hard sometimes.
Is there anything to do here but be sarcastic? The entire thing is a joke (on us) at this point.
The church can sell to who ever they want. A 100 story super tall would be great for the area
Chris,
But whoever can’t knock the building down or alter its exterior.
Who is going to buy the building if landmark certification is not revoked? Maybe an arts center? Not a developer who wants to put up a tower; the developer won’t get the required permits and variances.
While this individual church might not have money, the Presbytery certainly does, and allowing this deterioration was unethical, to say the least.
This is an absurd take. The Presbytery gets money to further goals related to religious and human services. People haven’t donated to it for the purpose of spending millions on a church for 4 – 12 people, literally over a million dollar expenditure per congregant.
Ethics aside, money for sure is driving this.
The Presbytery has made clear it believes its limited financial circumstances should be directed at pursuing its charitable mission in the City of New York. Spending literally tens of millions of dollars to repair and maintain a crumbling sandstone pile is not what it believes its commission should be.
As the old saying goes: a church is not a building, but a people. If this simple (and true) adage was followed, the LPC would grant the application, the church would be old to the developer and demolished, and a new 14-16-story residential building would be built, with enough sq ft for the church to continue its services an programs.
I also find it “funny” that no one has considered that it may well be that the church CANNOT grow its congregation (even if they want to and can) because people are not going to join a church in which they have to sit in a dangerous building in order to attend services. In this regard, West-Park is the ONLY specifically Presbyterian Church on the entire UWS, so my guess is that there ARE MANY Presbyterians who would join and increase the congregation if the building were fully safe.
The community board has absolutely no standing, power or vote on anything so their resolution is irrelevant.
Thank you Westside Rag for covering this momentous victory for the Upper Westside community. Thank you to all the Upper Westside residents who rallied to save this historic, landmark building from the wrecking ball, raised the money necessary to buy the building, and are dedicated to preserving and restoring this glorious, crown jewel of historic architecture, and preserving the historic legacy of this great neighborhood landmark. The Upper Westside community remains vigilant in its effort to work with Landmark’s Preservation Commission!
Genuine question, how exactly will the restoration be paid for? The arts group will buy the building from the congregation and pay for the restoration?
Pigeon poop crusted sidewalks, homeless encampments, sidewalk shed! These are things we need to preserve!
I worry that something “bad” will happen there, a fire or other accident that forces the issue and so that nobody has to take accountability for the end result. Beyond their control. I just hope innocent people aren’t harmed. Sad.
Three years ago I discussed this with Gale Brewer, noting to her that she has promised to come up with a fix for this building for over 10 years and nothing has happened.
She acknowledged that she hadn’t done that but promised to front burn this.
THREE YEARS LATER AND WHAT HAS SHE DONE?
We need to move on from an unsustainable property on a prime location.
We need to move on from Gale Brewer.
The church has been surrounded by scaffolding since 2001. For all the years that Gale Brewer held elective office during this period she has done NOTHING to fix this eyesore.
My guess is this church will continue to be a rundown and useless building for the next quarter century.
Either rehabilitate this church or tear it down. It’s that simple.
Gale likes to grandstand, not solve issues.
What do you mean Gale has done nothing? She said, mere short four years ago, that “we’re buying a church.” Saying something is doing something, no?
These things take time. Especially things that never happen.
Gale Brewer is very busy being unproductive.
To foster goodwill in the community and provide remuneration for the church congregation, the city should exercise eminent domain and take ownership of the building and repair the structure and maintain it as a community cultural center.
It’s not so easy. First, the courts have held that a government agency can only take property for public purposes such as building roads, bridges, etc. Over the years, the definition of public use has been expanded by the courts to include projects that consist of “economic development” – think a new sports stadium. I am not sure taking the church and making it an arts center would qualify.
Second, the owner is entitle to “just compensation.” As you can imagine just compensation will be highly debated. In general, the courts have interpreted “just compensation” to mean that property owners must be paid for damages to the “highest and best use” of the land seized. This refers to the most economically beneficial, legally permissible, and physically possible use of the property, even if it is different from its current use. What is the just compensation in this case? At a minimum, an argument can be made that the offer the church received to sell the property is the just compensation.
Where is this money going to come from out of the City coffers? Plus, where will the city get the money to make the necessary repairs?
Unless someone with deep pockets comes forward with the money to restore the building, it does not make sense to allow it to stand in deteriorating condition if indeed that is the case. Living across the street from the church, I’d prefer it to be restored and be used for theater, arts and community events. These spaces are all too rare. Hi rise luxury apartments are not as contributory to the community as a community space.
Contact The National Historic Preservation
Society in WA, DC
One has only to look at Symphony Space to see what a restored place can contribute to the coumunity. The church could become that with sufficient funding to restore and renovate. A good campaign could produce the money form well heeled UWS residents.
Symphony Space got saved by selling its air rights and having a luxury condo built literally above it. A small congregation on 93rd just east of Broadway did the same, selling its building and taking space on the ground floor of the condo built on the site.
You are objecting to doing precisely what was done in those cases to save the preexisting uses.
And the ‘good campaign’ is now years old with some high profile headliners lending a hand, and it’s not getting anywhere.
Meantime, a couple of blocks west, there’s St. Paul and St. Andrew, another church perfectly capable of hosting art and cultural events.
Which it does.
Ugh, another deteriorating building for another decade., Tear it down and build a high rise apartment.
Does no one acknowledge that this is the ugliest structure of any religious organization. Let’s get rid of while we can.
No, the West Park Presbyterian Church did not pay taxes because it was a church and therefore had a tax-exempt status for its property. It has not paid taxes on its property for over a century.
The best thing to do at this point is dismantle the building very carefully, design and build new, tall, affordable housing units that includes affordable commercial space and affordable to rent community space, and utilize elements of the Church, such as the bricks and the steeple and columns, arches, tower, etc. in the design and execution of the modern building. A really good architectural firm could do that. It would be a win-win for everyone and be beautiful at the same time. But this crumbling mess is not worth saving at this point, not at the cost, which would be better spent on a different kind of “restoration.”
If I am not mistaken, the agreement with the developer was that some portion of the new building was to be set aside for the church and community programming.
A really good, and really careful, and really well designed, and really tall, and really new, and really modern…and really really affordable. A total win-win.
I’d bet that there’s precisely zero people who want to invest their time and talents into that project at those parameters.
This is bureaucracy at its worst.
Thanks to CB7 for the insight, good taste, vision for the future, and respect for the past on keeping the church intact. Now, someone has to find the funds to take it off the Presbytery’s hands and turn it into a cultural institution, as well as an essential architectural monument.
The acoustics in the main room are
incredible. Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center should should be so lucky after spending millions to accomplish same
THIS should be preserved and made available
for speciality music concerts. Our UWS
residents would be so grateful.
A gem like this must be saved.
You’ve got to be kidding me I guess we should save this decrepit structure because as we all know there are no theatres, music venues and other community/ religious spaces in nyc. Over the last year or two I can’t count the number of theatre, opera, musiccals I’ve attended between 68th and 96th streets- none of which were at 86th/amsterdam.
I’d speak to local churches to see if their interested in overtaking the property for sale
No one is stopping you.
Maybe thus is a perfect problem for the
new mayor?
Stupid government restrictions on what you can do with your own property like this is why the city doesn’t have enough housing.
Many people here focus on the fact that the congregational continues to decrease, from ~24 (when this all started) to about half a dozen. But what no one seems to consider is that this is the ONLY specifically Presbyterian Church on the UWS, and there are likely at least dozens of Presbyters on the UWS who would join and increase the congregation if they didn’t have to sit in an unsafe building in order to attend services and programs. Instead, these people are “forced” to travel to other Presbyterian churches around Manhattan.
So it is a Catch-22/vicious cycle. The congregation is dwindling at least partly, if not largely, because local Presbyters don’t want to attend services in an unsafe building. Yet it is the LPC that is keeping it unsafe at this point – and the building CONTINUES to deteriorate further the longer LPC withholds approval of the Application.
This farce belongs entirely to the LPC and the “opposition,” and NOT to the Presbytery or the congregation. This is further proven by the fact that the reason we are in this farce in the first place is that LPC dragged its feet (which it is notoriously known for doing) with regard to allowing the church to make the ORIGINAL, INITIAL repairs (which would have cost FAR less than they have mounted to now) when they first applied for LPC approval of the work permit.
So the opposition can blame the Presbytery and the church all it wants for the current condition of the building – including the absurd notion that the Presbytery DELIBERATELY allowed the church to deteriorate – when quite the opposite is true: the church WANTED to make the ORIGINAL repairs that would have at least stabilized the building and allowed safer usage, but the LPC dragged its feet. Do people REALLY think that the church WANTED a sidewalk shed and other scaffolding on its building for two decades? That is patently absurd.
The problem with your argument is that the church was landmarked in 2010, but it was deteriorating for many years before that. The cause of the current situation is not the Landmarks Commission dragging its feet and preventing the church making “original, initial” repairs. Although I realize that the declining church membership (and therefore income) is the underlying problem for decades, the LPC cannot be blamed for the building’s current decrepit condition
Mistake not to take this opportunity to rid the community of this unsaveable eyesore.
Why is no one suggesting that the purchasers restore & keep just the facade as part of the new building? Seems the easiest compromise. There are lots of similar examples around the city.
Leaving the city because of the election of MONDANI, and removing children from independent schools is the craziest thing I ever ever heard. Friends have been writing from out of state congratulating me on our new Mair. This is stoking, fear and encouraging conflict. I am surprised to read this in WSR.