By Carol Tannenhauser
For five-and-a-half hours on Tuesday, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission heard testimony in what amounted to a marathon recap of the long-running saga of West-Park Presbyterian Church on West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
The church controversy pits the Presbyterians — who own the 133-year-old landmarked building, and want to replace it with a new, 19-story condominium — against a community of passionate pro-preservationists, who say they want to raise the money to buy the church and restore its crumbling structure, inside and out.
From about 1:30 to 7 p.m., each side elucidated its arguments, in great detail and with strong emotion. First, the church presented its case through lawyers, engineers, and the developer, whose plans for the new condo include providing space for the West-Park congregation.
Next came dozens of community members, arguing for and against the church’s position. What emerged was an argument between those thinking primarily with their heads, and those directed mainly by their hearts.
The Presbyterians say the church is too broken to be worth fixing — which is measured by a formula in the city’s landmarks law, which says a 6% return on investment must be attained from the property after the renovation. That’s head thinking, and it’s money-centric.
The Preservationists see the church as an important building and more: a community anchor, a repository of history and art, an antidote to the beige boxes mostly for the well-to-do that surround it — barring the also-landmarked Belnord, which it faces — making this an extraordinary intersection. One person arguing for preservation said that Presbyterian churches were always built on corners, to welcome everyone, including the poor and starving artists. That’s heart thinking.
Those who stayed tuned all the way to the final minutes of the meeting were awakened from their slumber by the sudden appearance and testimony of well-known film director, playwright, and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan, who made some sweeping promises of bringing his works and those of his A-list friends to the church in coming months “to bring people in.”
“The money is there, being collected from the cracks in the sidewalks surrounding the church, as we speak,” said Lonergan. But although fundraising to save the church has been discussed for years, Lonergan gave no details of a fundraising plan or how much might have already been raised.
When the session ended, the landmarks commissioners gave no timetable for when they would meet or render a final decision on a case that has been before them for over a year. The Rag will keep you posted.
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Both sides have validity, for me though, I feel it would be a shame to plug in another characterless highrise.
I think new UWS buildings generally look great, and whatever is built will look better than the scaffolding surrounding the church. More housing means more people in our neighborhood to support local businesses and more property tax revenue to pay teachers and the city budget.
It’s absurd that this is still being discussed. This is a structure that has no use now and cannot be repaired without spending tens of millions. It should never have been landmarked. Let it be sold to a developer that will tear it down and build some much needed apartments.
And NY will get much-needed property tax and income tax. Unlike now (church is exempt).
Much needed apartments? Let them eat cake! Needed for whom? The developer?? Or a foreign multi-millionaire investor looking for another place to plunk his money.? And not live in. I guess the recent construction of 5 or 6 of those same luxury condo buildings in a 10 block radius is not enough for you. This neighborhood does not need to mow down a landmarked 130 year old Romanesque Revival church/cultural center for that purpose!
Bravo Susan! Most people who purchase these expensive apartments give nothing to the local economy, as they often don’t even use them. They don’t go to the hardware store, the cleaners, the food stores, etc. It’s just so unethical to plant yet another ugly high rise to please the developers. The people working to save this church really love NYC and its history; they ( we) care about the architecture of the past and want to preserve it to serve the real people of the neighborhood. Keep your bloody hands off this church!!
Barbara, this is truly a backwards and unrealistic way of viewing the world. True, people who own but don’t live in those apartments likely wouldn’t be much benefit to local businesses. That said, foreign investors (or whomever) pay taxes, while not using city infrastructure. Said another way, they pay for our public schools without using them! For a city with a massive deficit, it would seem we should welcome those people with open arms.
You want to save the Church? Pitch in and raise the money – stop talking about it and actually do it! Right now that building is an accident waiting to happen…
In general one finds those who make such statements moved into a RS apartment and or bought many years ago.
As such they’ve done alright for themselves but want UWS frozen in time keeping everyone else out.
This city, in particular Manhattan, has a huge shortage of housing. Huge swaths of UWS are landmarked, part of historical districts or otherwise off limits for development which suits some people’s agendas.
I love the way people use this property as an answer to the kind of housing shortage we have. Trust me, this developer has no plans to house those making $50,000 and less! THAT’S where the housing shortage is, not in luxury apts. Are you serious!? A wealthy friend of mine took exactly two weeks to find a place in this housing shortage, and had his choice of many. The kind of buildings going up are not what we actually need, so please stop hiding behind this very false mantra.
Let’s be real. It does not make financial sense to expect new construction to house those who will pay below market rates. That is what the many, older, existing units are for. A higher tax base driven by luxury housing is what enables city leaders to afford programs that benefit households of lower means. Meanwhile, the church adds nothing to the local tax base. Remove it and let the market work – or you could buy it yourself!
Remember when the building was designated 10 years ago? It was designated because the church was planning on building a mix of market and low income restricted units over a portion of their property (the Parish house), and use those funds to help maintain the rest of the property. Neighbors didn’t want the facade to change, so they rushed through the landmarking, with a promise to raise funds to replace that … in the future. 10 years later, the future is here, and the Center has raised basically nothing for the maintenance or restoration of the building. Time to go…
Oh really. Most of the people I know fighting for the church own their own apartments including me. Really hard to understand that people on the UWS and all over NYC value the history and character of New York and love the landmarked neighborhoods which make it a special place people want to live in and visit.
They arent creating LOW INCOME apartment housing which is what is ACTUALLY needed and in dire short supply! they plan multi million dollar CONDOS there for rich people!
luxury condo towers don’t create enough units. At the same time, they raise the neighborhood’s tax assessment. The result is not a win for affordable housing.
This is backwards. Increasing the housing supply increases the number of assessed units which increases the total tax base.
How many homes does the site have today?
Housing: “needed”by oligarchs living in other countries.
86th Street is not Billionaires Row. The occupancy rate in the city is 95%+. The vast majority of expensive apartments, whether in a new condo or an old brownstone, have people living in them.
There are real costs to the community from declaring 71%(!) of the Upper West Side a historic district. https://citylimits.org/2016/06/01/new-research-on-how-historic-districts-affect-affordable-housing/ We are in the middle of a historic housing crisis. Even if you decide that preserving this building is worth it, we need to be honest about the real lost opportunity for housing that would impose on the community.
Much needed apartments for who? 5-percenters? We have plenty of those as it is. Developers are not building regular non-luxury buildings that would benefit middle class housing shortage.
The building should be sold to a developer who would do that. But City couldn’t care less.
Gale Brewer should be advocating for this in stead of resorting to her regular theatrics or concern.
Totally agree! Let the owner have their way with their property. Enough already.
LPC should make its decision one way or another. We all know the next stop is the court system. In the meantime shouldn’t those who promised to raise money to save the church get to it? The lawsuit and appeals process can always be abandoned if the money is raised. No one wants to see the church demolished but we have to be realists as to how much this is going to cost. I don’t think anyone can reasonably dispute we are talking an eight figure number for the repair, and a large endowment for ongoing maintenance is also required.
Also, I listened in to the testimony for about 90 minutes, and I heard many references to a June 2022 offer to buy made by “The Center at West-Park,” but I did not hear any dollars quoted. Does anyone know what that number was? I note the group’s 2022 tax return on file with the NYS Attorney General’s Office reflected a negative income of $186,176 so I wonder how much was offered in light of its self reported deficit?
Here’s a money-centric opinion from the heart: If the community really can raise $50 million, maybe the UWS would be better off using that money to help the dozens of people living on our streets, instead of saving a church with a congregation of one dozen.
Everyone wants to save the church. To the preservationists “the church” means the building. For the people who worship there “the church” means the congregation and everything they’ve done and will do for the community.
The landmarking of this church has turned a congregation from a group focused on serving the needs of its members and the community into a full time real estate manager. It cannot survive in the existing building. Let them sell the building, move into the new community space that the new building will provide, and get back to what they do best.
To me this isn’t about head vs heart, it’s about whether the soul of a church is in its people or it’s building. If the building remains landmarked and the congregation deteriorates even further than it has, we’re going to look back on city’s destruction of this congregation with the same regret that we have for other lost treasures of our past.
The Church stopped maintains the church building a long time ago. They had no sense of responsibility to the community or the architectural treasure that their co-religious ancestors created. They took advantage. Of their nonprofit perks and never paid a dime in property taxes. Now they say give us the windfall, reward us for our neglect.
It’s demolition by neglect and it’s wrong. The LPC should have have taken steps to punish them years ago but their status as a church protected them.
This is about MONEY. The church wants its money and the developers want their millions. We live in the city of the Mayor of Swag. He doesn’t care for the law or the separation of church and state. None of it matters to him.
I hope the LPC does the right thing but that would require and LPC that sees it’s function as Preservation and I doubt that the Mayor’s new appointees care about preservation, shared culture, neighborhoods and sense of place.
We live in greedy and self destructive times where Churches are just a ravenous as corporations.
By all accounts the church has only a handful of members. If it had a large and thriving congregation it would have been able to properly (or at least better) maintain the building.
What are you talking about? The church spent down all its savings, fired all its staff, sold its two other condos in the community … they’re out of money, what else could they do? When it was designated against the wishes of the congregation, the Center promised to raise funds and pay rent to help maintain and restore the building – that hasn’t happened in 10 years. Too long, let it so.
Thank you for covering this issue, however the article left out some important facts that were revealed during the public hearing. When one of the commissioners asked if there were any prospective buyers other than Alchemy Properties, the property owner stated that there were not. But in fact there were several others including the Center at West Park that currently rents space in the building, and has spent a significant amount of money on repairs although they are only renters. The Center’s Executive Director has an excellent fundraising record, and there are well-connected wealthy donors who are eager to contribute. The Center had submitted an application to purchase the building and received a response stating that their application was rejected because the owner had received a more lucrative offer.
In addition, an independent engineering report by WJE Engineering found that the building is in better structural condition than was portrayed by the owner’s engineers, would cost much less to repair than the amount stated by the owner, and that repairs could be done over time instead of all at once. The church has good options that do not require demolishing a landmark building. It seems to me that a non-profit’s priority should not be to make as much profit as possible.
“In addition, an independent engineering report by WJE Engineering found that the building is in better structural condition than was portrayed by the owner’s engineers, would cost much less to repair than the amount stated by the owner, and that repairs could be done over time instead of all at once. The church has good options that do not require demolishing a landmark building. It seems to me that a non-profit’s priority should not be to make as much profit as possible.”
Absolutely right, this reminds me of a church on the lower east side- 9th st Ave B whose owner claimed the wall was in imminent danger of collapse and shut the congregation out, and they stripped all the valuables out and got a demolition permit. It went thru court battles, the congregation tried to buy the building, the church wanted no part of that, the demolition crew came and DELIBERATELY destroyed 9 huge stained glass windows while people on the street screamed for them to STOP! A stained glass artist estimated each one of those windows that the church officials claimed were just “cheap colored glass” on this 1850 building built by Irish imigrants- would cost over $100,000 to replace! That’s $900,000 worth of stained glass destroyed.
The crew also punched out a huge hole in that “imminently in danger of collapse” brick wall to get a small bulldozer inside, and then pushed the wood pews out the hole into the alley in the back where a dozer operator deliberately RAN OVER them to make sure they were totally destroyed!
At the last possible minute a donor came forth with the money, demolition was halted, restorations begun and now it’s been fully restored
There is no easy analogy. St. Brigid’s was not landmarked and the Archdiocese of NY was free to demo it if it wished. Had a donor not stepped up the church would have been demolished in short order. It is widely suspected the “secret donor” was Mike Bloomberg. So far he has not stepped up here, nor has anyone else with sufficient funds; as we all know it has been more than a decade of waiting.
The money needed by St. Brigid’s (which is smaller than West Park) was less than what is needed by West Park. The donation to St. B’s was $10m for the restoration and a $2m endowment for upkeep/maintenance, then additional money for its adjacent grade school was provided by the anonymous donor..
It is important to emphasize all the wonderful things West Park has accomplished over the years was accomplished by its congregation and pastor, NOT by the red stone and mortar. The good works of the congregation can hopefully start back up in its new space, with parish staff and a new pastor. The congregation of West Park cannot continue as a vanguard of social progressiveness if whatever funds it is able to raise is spent on the rental expenses for a sidewalk shed and otherwise keeping the old building standing.
How much did the Center at West Park offer to pay?
How much have donors pledged for repairs?
If the church’s estimates for the cost of repairs are too high, what is the correct cost?
The church’s opponents, including our city council member, have floated these vague talking points for years now without offering any specifics. Can the Rag get some answers? This is one of the most controversial issues in our neighborhood during CM Brewer’s term, she’s about to be re-elected unopposed, and I don’t think she’s had to provide a single direct answer about her position.
Maybe you should have attended the meeting on Saturday. Rather than sounding so indignant that you don’t know the answers.
Wish all the parties here could think beyond either/or and imagine a way towards “both”… wouldn’t it be great if the church HQ folks could partner with some real estate development group to arrive at something like the Hearst Building on 8th Ave, with a base that preserves something of the current structure and many new stories above that:
1. create space for the community activities the congregation claims are vital to its church and the neighborhood, and also
2. provide perhaps mixed-income housing with some chunk dedicated to the unneeded but profitable luxury units that make the space so valuable?
Isn’t there a compromise that will allow everyone to get something of what they want? Would it be a perfect restoration of the crumbling building? Of course not, but it might offer a way to address the “heart” while satisfying the “head”.
This was actually reviewed at the last LPC meeting on this subject last year. It wasn’t deemed very viable.
It’s not viable, because it would require all involved parties to give something in order to get something.
This is ridiculous. The city has a desperate shortage of housing, the building is falling down, and the congregation is at the brink of collapse if it cannot monetize its one asset – its sanctuary. Let them redevelop, and the community will have a vibrant church, new mixed-income housing, and a revitalized corner. Ignore the NIMBYs who want to keep the rotting eyesore because the new building might block some of their fancy views.
No affordable housing will be built on this site if the church is demolished and everyone knows that. Stop pretending that the Presbytery is interested in anything but a windfall! They have enjoyed all the perks of being a non profit…no property taxes for one and now it wants to be treated as if this property was an investment. If this building is demolish and sold, the Church should have to refund all of that property taxes that it avoided.
Exactly. Who is the big winner if it is demolished and sold to the highest bidder? The Presbyterian church. Shouldn’t their mission as a religious organization be to help people? So how about they take a little less and build a building with more affordable housing. I think that is the true win-win. It seems like the church is being selfish here.
There need to be some time limits in place here. A deadline for a decision. A deadline to raise funds (if that is the option). For those who want to keep the church in place, this is a classic case of stalling – the status quo means it stays up so they don’t want a decision. Until the building collapses on their heads.
10 years ago this building was landmarked BECAUSE the congregation was trying to use part of the property for affordable housing and use the modest proceeds to help shore up the remaining part of the building. It was landmarked to prevent any changes in the facade. As a result, and as predicted, no money was found either by Brewer or other neighbors, and the congregation spent its last nickel. Nature took care of the rest.
This is really not about heads or hearts. It’s about whether a landmarked building can be sold to a private real estate developer and be demolished on a less than credible claim of hardship. It’s about the facts and the law.
The Landmarks Law may be inconvenient here for the church and their very motivated real estate developers. But it is nonetheless the law. A law if disregarded will lead to many other landmarks in this city being destroyed.
As Roberta Brandes Gratz who was the force behind the complete restoration of the landmarked Eldridge Street Synagogue said-Eldridge Street Synagogue was a derelict empty shell which West Park is certainly not. And yet with the right leadership it was restored beautifully and is an amazing public space which remains a beacon for this city and its history. The same can be done for West Park where it can remain the landmark that it is and a spiritual and cultural center for New York.
The Eldridge Street Synagogue was restored almost entirely thru private donations.
No major benefactor has come forward to save the church.
Once some rich donor pledges to provide $30 million or so to restore the church we can discuss saving it. Until this person arrives the church will continue to be a rotting structure surrounded by scaffolding.
St John the Devine, Temple Emanuel and St Patricks are spiritual landmarks, the dozens of Museums Theaters and Galleries that come and go are the Cultural Centers of New York, sadly, this Church is neither. Let it go in Peace having served its purpose. This conversation has gone on for 20 years without a better solution than to demolish the church and develop the site. There is no Ms Gratz and there is no community money.
You will be surprised Ira. There is a Ms. Gratz who has spoken at length on maintaining this landmark. And there is money too! Every single historic preservation organization in the NY area have spoken against the plan to de-landmark this church. There is a seasoned fund-raiser who was not part of this particular church leadership who has raised almost a billion bucks for another UWS not for profit! She’s already raising money.
I apologize-that is “raised a 100 million bucks for another UWS not for profit”. I Phone spell check.
Love the building and heart feels good, but as as an outsider, it seems unrealistic that enough money is ever going to be raised to renovate the building (where is it now?), and then further unrealistic that future income will be enough to support ongoing maintenance. It would be a silly endeavor leaving us back where we currently stand.
The proposal of 2010 included a projection for affordable housing. That was rejected by the Landmarks folks. I’m sad to think that this bastion of good works and progressive thought will now be the site of more apartments for the well off. This will end in court, and one hopes that whatever appears on the corner will support the spiritual community and the arts in a structure not projected to fall down in the next couple of decades.
Listening to the hearing yesterday, I was really struck by three things.
First, a number of speakers spoke about the historical role of the church in advancing racial and later social justice. But the building was only a vessel. It was the congregation that took these historic stands and funded community improvement. It is this same congregation, now numbering no more than a dozen and financially exhausted, which now seeks to exercise its faith by spending their meagre capital on charitable work rather than upkeep of a falling-down building. This was so blithely ignored. Do we care more about people or a building?
Second, the certainty from so many speakers that they were articulating the wishes of the community. But are they? What about those priced out of the neighborhood because housing costs are stratospheric? We heard few comments about the need for increased housing supply and I don’t think that constituency was at all represented.
Those against demolition (many of whom, it should be noted, own multi-million dollar UWS residences and have a direct financial interest in blocking new apartments) were certainly the loudest voices and it would be tragic if this decision was made in deference to a heckler’s veto.
Last, it’s been 30 years since the 2nd circuit denied St Bartholomew’s attempt to demolish its community house to build a tower. Given changes in the law and above all the composition of the judiciary, as well as the fact that West Park is a more sympathetic party, I can’t help but wonder if this would be an attractive test case for a conservative challenge to landmark preservation. Especially given how easily the community speakers dismissed the religious/philanthropic dimension. I’d love to hear a 1st or 5th amendment lawyer chime in.
“it is this same congregation, now numbering no more than a dozen and financially exhausted, which now seeks to exercise its faith by spending their meagre capital on charitable work rather than upkeep of a falling-down building. ”
Theyve enjoyed 133 YEARS 100% tax exempt, if they are in such dire condition now trying to keep the building then they should GIFT it to those who can restore it and make better use of it and thereby get out from under that huge burdon
St. Bartholomew failed same as Penn Central before it largely because courts found NYC landmarks laws did not prevent the church from use and monetizing their property.
St. Bart’s was not dilapidated and in danger of falling down (as neither was GCT), but wanted to allow an office tower to be built on community house land to shore up funds. It’s worth nothing at time of LPC process St. Bart’s like Penn Central and now WP opposed landmark status. That however is common enough however as good number of properties actively oppose landmark status.
https://casetext.com/case/st-bartholomews-church-v-city-of-new-york
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew%27s_Episcopal_Church_%28Manhattan%29#Landmark_status
WP OTOH was already falling into rot and ruin before and during LL status hearings. City did not listen and spurred on by outside activists, residents of two buildings on either side of lot line, and most of all Gail Brewer pushed landmark of WP through.
Ms. Brewer then and still now maintains city would provide funding to maintain and restore WP. That bit of fiction continues.
Landmark preservation is important and I’m not opposed to preserving this church as it is, but there has to be an understanding that decisions the UWS makes has implications on other communities. It means that area workers cannot afford the UWS and you have to provide parking for them because our transit system doesn’t meet everyone’s needs etc.
When is enough enough?
How many so-called ‘affordable housing’ units i.e. the cleverly devised REBNY rationale to take over communities-to build sanitized soulless towers to displace the character and context of a neighborhood will be one skyscraper too far?
How much are New Yorkers required to to put up with in order to pay obeisance to enrich the bottom line of already over-fed predatory exploiters of our city?
How much more will the sketchy Landmarks Preservation Commission feel it can justify and manipulate after giving away the Historic Seaport District…the BAM historic District and so much more?
Is this to be one more demolition in the dismantling of the ever scarcer remains of our unique city’s historic patrimony to accommodate the Big Real Estate puppet masters ?
When is enough enough?
Reminds me of how the city destroyed a landmarked Public School in the Bronx, it was demo by neglect but it weathered a major storm even in it’s condition than nearby buildings did!
Then we learned the city itself is EXEMPT from the landmarks law! they demolished the school
These predatory explorers will continue to be predatory explorers. If they can’t feed their need for more development on the UWS, they’ll feed their need on Long Island where they want to push people displaced by NYC gentrification to. They’ll feed their need by making Manhattan even more exclusive through other means and they’ll find a way to get the majority of Manhattanites to go along with them. UWS residents must stick with those in other neighborhoods, outer boroughs and suburbs in order to stop certain predatory actors.
Here is my problem with the preservationists and Gale Brewer. It’s like deja vu all over again. They said the same thing a decade or 2 ago and nothing has come of it. They were going to raise the money to fix that church and nothing has happened as far as raising money. Instead the sidewalk shed is still there. They are talk and no action. Are we going to do the same thing yet again? That corner will just fall more into disrepair. I hope the LPC is smart enough to see this is the same argument all over again by the preservationists.
They want to raise it get the commitments and let us see the donors.
Gail Brewer and others are now saying they couldn’t raise money for WP because it is a *church*. Apparently their deep pocketed donors won’t touch a house of worship and laws bar city and or state from providing much if any in way of funding.
What Ms. Brewer at al now want is to force WP congregation to sell up their church at well below market rates to a private entity (that so called arts group). Then magically tons of funding will pour in.
Magical thinking still doesn’t equal cash. Show us the commitments to donate if it was not a church. Actual commitments and not pie in the sky wishful thinking donations from amorphous donors.
The Parthenon is a crumbling temple whose congregants could no longer financially support it. Yet Athens is far better that the Acropolis has the Parthenon rather than some condo buildings. I think I have proven my point.
One of the very best ways to end fossil fuel usage is to allow lots of new homes in sustainable neighborhoods like the Upper West Side where people can walk or take public transit. NYC residents generate 6 tons of carbon annually vs the national average of 16. Every new home we build here instead of the suburbs saves 10 tons of carbon, every year, forever.
But our policymakers are bent on upzoning the suburbs while making commutes worse! Make it harder to drive in NYC, including taking parking on the UWS while making commutes from outside Manhattan worse. You can’t slice it all 3 ways where you don’t care about car drivers, don’t care about transit users and not have enough housing so workers like myself can afford to live here.
If 75% of Athens was designated for landmark status 2500 years ago, Athens would be a barren waste land of ruins like Aphrodisias, not the capital of a thriving country with a population of 3+ million people living in the City. I know where I’d rather live today between those two cities.
The analysts who explained the extent of deterioration and cost of repairs PLUS the promise of a replacement West-Park Church inside the new building got my support.. I would not be pleased at hearing one of you/us got injured by a big, flying sandstone shard, ever!
“The Presbyterians say the church is too broken to be worth fixing…preservationists want to buy and restore it.” if that were the sum and substance of it – “The money is there, being collected from the cracks in the sidewalks surrounding the church, as we speak” – that might change the calculus – a little.
But the money ISN’T there, and is not likely to be. Even if the church were exaggerating the figure needed to restore the church ($50 million) by 100%, this means that the preservationists would still need $20-$25 million to buy the church – which they are not even CLOSE to having. Should the crumbling, increasingly dangerous status of the building continue indefinitely until they can raise that $25 million? What if it takes several years?
They are fooling themselves. Even if they are correct about the figure they need (and that is debatable; the figure is probably somewhere north of $25 million but somewhat south of $50 million), they are NEVER going to have the money to buy the building. Period. Not even if Ruffalo gives his entire next film salary as the Hulk to the effort. (And he won’t.)
The building needs to go. The church needs to do whatever it needs to do to survive. And as the owners (landlord) of the building, they have that exclusive right.
It would be interesting to know what percentage of units have been sold at the 5-6 new high rises in our neighborhood. Many businesses seem to be moving south, not north, and one has to wonder if our area is deteriorating. If this is true, why build additional expensive apartments?
Linda, real estate sales are public record. More fundamentally, developers price apartments to meet the demand, and the prices you see are prima facie evidence of a housing shortage.
Bear in mind, large swaths of the upper west side, including the census district that includes West Park, actually LOST available dwellings between 2010-2020. In other words, demolitions and combinations exceeded the construction of new housing. If that doesn’t tell you we need to build more housing , then I’m not sure what evidence would.
Linda, rents in NYC keep hitting all time highs & the UWS is (imho) the best neighborhood in the city so let’s not pretend no one wants to live here
I’m wondering why the two sides can’t come to an agreement on sharing ownership and responsibilities for the building. On the Presbyterian side, all I can see is the Presbytery making 20, 000,000 dollars, will prevaricate to get it, and no affordable housing. On the preservationists’ side, I see the possibility to renovate the building but at the same time too much ambiguity regarding its future use and value to the community. Instead of fighting over money, why don’t the two sides sit down together? Money is the rabbit hole here – the root of all evil. The question: How can the UPW be served with the building standing? Franky, for me, luxury apartments destroy neighborhoods. But maybe some would disagree.
I am all for protecting and preserving landmarks, but mere age – in the case of this church – is not a sufficient reason to landmark it. In my view, this is a singularly ugly edifice with no redeeming characteristics. Architecturally it’s an eyesore and the red limestone is depressing, mostly found on many fin-de-ciecle churches…heavy and unforgiving. The cost of performing the needed repairs ($20M, as I understand) is far beyond the means of the 12 or so members of the congregation. There are many buildings on the UWS deserving of landmark status, but in my opinion the West Side Presbyterian Church is not, one of them.
One other point worth mentioning is the conflict of interest at play here. Two members of the Center at West Park board who spoke against at the landmarks hearing own apartments in an adjacent building and would have their views obstructed if the church were demolished and the tower were constructed. One of these speakers spoke about the “windfall” for the presbytery while not disclosing her own financial conflict.
Such galling hypocrisy as these people pull up the proverbial ladder.