“It should be abundantly clear that the stamp of a landmark designation alone does not keep a building standing. If financial viability and structural integrity are in question, landmarking should be postponed, until a game plan for rehabilitation is fleshed out.”
I am younger than the scaffolding surrounding the landmarked West Park Presbyterian Church. I turned 20 years old last month.
It is among the oldest of the 300 miles of scaffolding lining New York City sidewalks, looming over the sidewalk, steps, and two generations of bus shelters on 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue since 2001. It was originally built to protect pedestrians from the degrading facade and some additional emergency repairs. But like the heads of the Lernaean Hydra, solve one deficiency, two more would take its place.
Two decades, dozens of Department of Building violations and several attempts at restoration have not stopped the church’s mounting repair costs from swelling to almost $50 million. Lacking the resources to make those fixes, the congregation applied for a hardship clause to de-landmark the building. Should the Landmarks Preservation Commission accept this application, the church will sell its building to Alchemy Properties so they can demolish it and build a 19-story condominium building with a 10,000-square-foot facility for the congregation and other programs.
This application met pushback from politicians, community leaders, and preservationists. Opponents of the hardship application contended that the church is too rich with history to be wantonly demolished, with a viable arts center still inhabiting the church. They also insisted that granting the hardship would set a bad precedent for demolition-by-neglect as more property owners would see this scenario and try to apply it to their own properties.
Preservationists have also argued that the church has not done everything in its power to maintain the building, and that the $50 million repair bill is an overestimate to make the sale to Alchemy Properties seem like the most sensible option. Preservation advocacy group Landmark West! called the hardship application, “a proposal to let its owner bury its failure in a pile of rubble.“ They claim that it would only cost $6 million to repair the facade, and the Center at West Park, the art organization that currently occupies the church, asserts that the total figure is only $15-20 million.
However, in their opposition, everyone seems to be ignoring what has brought the church to this point. This predicament was easily avoidable. Red flags have flown since the scaffolding was built. Current arguments for saving the church do little to address them, and they contradict the same arguments made in the push for landmarking in the first place, putting into question our true commitments to historic preservation.
This is not the first time the church faced the wrecking ball. Demolition and redevelopment were proposed a few times between 2004 and 2009, as the congregation struggled to keep the building standing. By 2009, repair costs had already surpassed $10 million. That did not stop advocates and politicians from pushing to landmark the church. If anything, the prospect of demolition emboldened preservationists. The entire way, the congregation opposed designation. Then-Pastor Robert Brashear and many church members insisted that landmarking was not just an honor: it was a responsibility, one they did not want or have the means to uphold. They could barely fund repairs as is. Landmarking would make it more expensive and restrictive, with more penalties for violations.
Still, those qualms did not sway activists and politicians. “We’ve got the political support, we’ve got the passion and the love for this building,” Kate Wood, the then director of Landmark West! told the New York Times in 2010. Then-Councilmember Gale Brewer made similar assertions. Everyone understood that significant community contributions would have to be made for this to work. The designation was eventually granted based on the community convincing the LPC that they could help out. But those significant contributions never materialized.
Twelve years later, Brewer, a councilmember once again, admitted that the condition of the church was much worse than they first thought. Despite the $1,000 check she wrote on the spot at a June 6 town hall, the money she has raised falls short of any estimated repair costs. She also argued that West Park being a religious organization made it difficult to raise funds due to the separation of church and state.
But that is not a valid justification. The separation of church and state would have been as much of a factor 12 years ago as it is now, and should have been known from the beginning. The Center at West Park has also offered to buy the building for about $3 million, arguing that they are a viable arts center and can take on the repairs. Unfortunately, they have only raised $445,000, and admitted as recently as February that they did not have the necessary funds to finance maintenance.
Others have decided to play offense and accuse the church of negligence. On top of the claim of inflating repair costs, some say the church failed to make a legitimate effort to keep the building standing. But this ignores the millions spent and the assets they sold to finance emergency repairs. It also goes against the sentiment that justified landmarking back in 2010, when everyone knew the congregation could not maintain the existing property by themselves. In 2019, the Center at West Park insisted that the church was not willfully neglecting repairs. The premise of landmarking was predicated on the community convincing the LPC that they had the means and determination to assist with the upkeep. To now argue that this is demolition by neglect is asinine. One could also flip this argument the other way: This precedent would not be something to worry about had the community listened to the church’s qualms earlier.
The one area where preservationists are right is in their rationale for landmarking the church, which extends beyond the magnificent 19th-century Romanesque sandstone architecture. Progressive movements integral to the lives of multiple marginalized communities found a home there: It was a cornerstone in fighting the AIDS epidemic, a sanctuary for Occupy Wall Street protestors, and a contributor to the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s. So the lack of urgency and accountability to keep this church afloat becomes that much more insulting.
Worse still, the church’s already dwindling congregation would be at risk of disbanding if the structure is prioritized. One would think their voices would be the most important, but they have been fought, ignored, and vilified throughout this process. We have been treating the building as more important than the congregation, when they made this church as valuable as it is. We failed to listen to them when they were crying for help. When what they predicted came to pass, we once again pushed them aside. We cannot call ourselves champions of history while treating the purveyors of history in such a reprehensible way.
Accepting the church’s application to de-landmark the building is the most sensible option. The only way that rejecting its hardship claim would be fair is if the LPC were to include a deadline to raise funds, and revisit the application at the deadline. There were no such timelines or contractual agreements the first time, just empty promises that inevitably fell through. Without accountability, this church will wind up in the same predicament.
Beyond that, we must address other red flags if we do not want this to happen again. It should be abundantly clear that the stamp of a landmark designation alone does not keep a building standing. If financial viability and structural integrity are in question, landmarking should be postponed, until a game plan for rehabilitation is fleshed out. The increased costs of repairs for historic properties must also be remedied, especially for religious sites, whose revenue streams are often minimal and inconsistent. The relief systems we have in place are woefully inadequate.
There are also more holistic fixes that could be implemented to benefit landmarks and do far more. One example would be to give these sites flexibility to sell development rights further away, something the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew is considering. This proposal would provide two additional layers of protection: Providing additional funds to assist with upkeep and operations while discouraging developers from looking to redevelop the site under any circumstances. At the same time, this could boost the production of desperately needed housing in the neighborhood, and be structured so that any development that takes advantage of these extended transfers would have to include affordable units through the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Program.
This debacle should be a wake-up call for the Upper West Side and the entire city. We urgently need to reexamine our relationship with landmarking. A commitment to preservation necessitates more than showing support when a landmark hangs by a thread. Community members and activists usually are not obligated to help finance the upkeep of landmarks. That decision is made of our own volition, which is what we did here. But should we choose to intervene, we need to make tangible, long-term, consistent commitments to these sites, rather than lip service and empty promises.
A devotion to history does not necessitate freezing a neighborhood in amber. Minimal (if not net negative) housing production and economically exclusive, less diverse communities are tradeoffs that we cannot accept in the name of preservation. The Upper West Side is only one culprit of this. Landmarking must go beyond aesthetic pleasures and neighborhood character. Our most treasured landmarks tell rich stories and enliven our already iconic urban landscape. We should cherish these parts of our city. We should also want as many people as possible to live amongst them. These buildings might be relics from the past, but our attitudes towards them don’t have to be.
Austin Celestin is a junior at New York University studying urban design and journalism, a member of Open New York, and a resident of Community Board 7.
8 thoughts on “Opinion: West Park Presbyterian and Rethinking Our Relationship with Landmarking”
Austin Celestin also was an intern at the Real Estate Board of New York during the summer of 2022. He is entitled to his opinion but readers should be aware of his affiliations.
It is always both interesting and disheartening to read the sad musings of someone , young or old, who views everything as a transaction and makes assumptions that are simply wrong. Preservation doesn’t block economic growth or the provision of housing. Preservation is a people focused process. In fact preservation, in many instances if not all, preserves housing, often affordable housing, and is good for the environment. Preservation doesn’t seek to freeze neighborhoods or buildings in Amber rather it encourages rehab and good solid maintenance both of which support employment and serve to protect the environment and decrease waste of precious resources. When neighborhoods are preserved people flourish and benefit from the social networks they have come to rely on for support and continuity. The demolition of human scale buildings, landmarked or not, displaces residents and provides little to people who have built this City and raises rents and housing costs among other things. In many instances if not all this displacement makes neighborhoods less diverse as the resultant projects are more often than not luxury condos or market rental units!
Demolition will provide money making opportunities for developers and owners., e.g. the Presbytery will receive a $30 million windfall when the church is destroyed. The church has enjoyed many years of tax free existence. ( This is true about every religious entity.). But now it wants to cash in and views the public as an obstacle. Tax exemptions are not free; someone pays for them. The public does!
As to the desire of the author and the Presbytery to shake of the process of demolition by neglect that has left West Park in its sad state, it is a tried and true strategy used by owners to avoid doing the right thing…maintaining their property. If you or I allowed our building …condo, coop or single family dwelling to deteriorate to the extent that the Presbytery, by its own admission, has done we would not get away with it! Why should the they be able to profit from it? Why don’t the rules apply to them?
The author buys or is trying to sell the argument that West Park Church received no support from the community. That is absolutely false. Sadly I’m not sure he cares about the facts because they don’t fit his bias against preservation. His work with REBNY has clearly colored his views on everything from preservation to zoning. He, of course, has the right to his own opinion but not to his own facts.
Preservation is a public good. It serves all communities in NYC. Of course developers don’t care about the public good and they would argue that isn’t their job even while many work hard to obtain all sorts of public support for their money making projects. Communities must speak up and guard their own integrity and history. We know that the City won’t do it. We have seen too many neighborhoods trashed in the name of progress and money. Communities, more often than not, losing and particularly minority communities losing the most.
Very well said Pedestrian. The author is a member of the pro-development quasi-real estate lobbying group Open New York which professes to want to build “affordable housing” by rezoning every neighborhood in New York including historic districts. Only thing is like everywhere else the bulk of what gets built will be luxury housing as is the case (Soho rezoning anyone?) in the development imagined if West Park turns to red dust as those promoting this development hope. And the Presbytery sees a cool $33 million at the cost of another lost historic treasure of this city and this community.
Should the Landmarks Preservation Commission be reformed? Sure. But not by the Real Estate Board of New York and their minions.
“As to the desire of the author and the Presbytery to shake off the process of demolition by neglect that has left West Park in its sad state, it is a tried and true strategy used by owners to avoid doing the right thing…maintaining their property. If you or I allowed our building …condo, coop or single family dwelling to deteriorate to the extent that the Presbytery, by its own admission, has done we would not get away with it! Why should the they be able to profit from it? Why don’t the rules apply to them?
The author buys or is trying to sell the argument that West Park Church received no support from the community. That is absolutely false. Sadly I’m not sure he cares about the facts because they don’t fit his bias against preservation. His work with REBNY has clearly colored his views on everything from preservation to zoning. He, of course, has the right to his own opinion but not to his own facts”.
What help has the community provided? L
Targeting churches for development projects have a long history, usually with a new facility joining the buy-out windfall, say, like CitiCorp’s megaplex. Some proceed, others don’t (yet) like St Bartholomew’s. Pretty common in all cases are packing the church’s board with members sympathetic to development, along with similarly-minded in community boards.
Churches in NYC and elsewhere are prominent property owners and investors, Trinity Church downtown a leader but hardly alone. A contributor to this practice are the tax benefits of donating property to a tax-free institution.
Churches are often the most distinguished architecture in neighborhoods. There are host of them surrounding West Park, many landmarked but not all. It is curious that those most likely to be targeted for buy-out are in dire-straits and poorly maintained, as if being prepared for welcomed attack while others appear to be doing quite well, properly cared for, amply attended.
The jokes about “the church building fund” as a destination for the unscrupulous is not misplaced. Same goes for most non-profit institutions, universities, hospitals, museums, schools, clubs, missionaries. Giant multi-buildings enterprises have arisen using this mantra, as well a minuscule storefronts.
West Park might well become a permanent storefront for a variety of public service organizations. That would continue its previous role in that kind of social benefits. Down West 86th Street, St Patricks has evolved into a top supplier to the needy after it too tried get de-landmarked for development.
What UWS needs, like other stressed parts of the city, are more public services for the needy and less of the high-priced condos proliferating like a pandemic. Saving West Park would be a far superior as a center for aid than as a prostituted emblem of devilish us-too shenanigans.
Totally agree with pedestrian’s comments above. Religious entities benefit from their tax-free status, and all the city’s infrastructure for many, many years. Some of the biggest land owners in the city are religious organizations. The citizenry have supported this church for many years. Trying to demolishing it by neglect was how they repaid the debt. And now they want to cash in?
I agree with the ex-REBNY intern, we do need to re-examine our relationship with landmarking. We need to improve how LPC protects our city, its buildings, and our heritage. LPC allowed the demolition of the Dangler mansion to move ahead. They are also complicit in allowing HHC build an out-of-context tower in the South Street Seaport historic district. Shame on LPC and shame on the Presbytery
Seriously? If it weren’t for the tax free status, the property would have been sold 5 decades ago and turned into craptasic architecture in the 1970s when (all) church attendance in the city fell off a cliff.
Austin, you weaken your case and reveal what looks like pro-REB bias when you lapse into the straw-man argument that historic preservation [might?] freeze a neighborhood in amber. Clearly, no one is advocating NO building. And like apologists for the REB, you extol the vision of as many people as possible living among historic monuments … while at the same time you promote a luxury tower to replace the church you want demolished– a tower that will provide no affordable housing. We have too many examples even of smaller apartment buildings being demolished to make way for a tower that vastly exceeds the previous building/s in square footage but contains FEWER dwelling units. Please drop the rhetoric of “affordable housing” when in fact the desideratum is yet another luxury tower.
You are right that in religious groups w/ falling attendance, upkeep of buildings is a challenge. I’m sure you know how hard it is to maintain the historic cathedrals of England.
https://evangelicalfocus.com/europe/14631/english-cathedrals-need-140-million-to-be-sustained-over-the-next-5-years
Still, is St. Albans Cathedral, where I had to pay maybe 10 quid to get in (I forget how much now), better off knocked down to make way for (luxury) condo towers? Or imagine Troia in Puglia demolishing its Romanesque cathedral to put up… I say no more.
West Park Pres, if it is bought by the Center, has a shot at a stronger fund-raising basis.
Finally, please consider more deeply the notion of a human-scale city.