Why Wendell Pierce and Mark Ruffalo Are Fighting for a Fading Church
Why Wendell Pierce and Mark Ruffalo Are Fighting for a Fading Church
The debate over whether to demolish a 19th-century Romanesque Revival edifice on the Upper West Side, one of New York City’s historic churches, has been framed in grand terms as a confrontation between little business and the powerful.
But in this situation, an increasing number of New York celebrities are among those who regard themselves as standing up for the underdogs.
Big business, too? It would be a real estate company working with the small congregation of the West Park Presbyterian Church, which claims it cannot afford to repair the dilapidated structure and intends to sell it to a developer so that new luxurious apartments may be constructed on the property.
What has followed is a puzzling struggle for moral superiority against the backdrop of an ongoing dispute over who should have authority over the destiny of the city.
At a public meeting this month, actor and church neighbour Mark Ruffalo said, “It’s about the people versus the corporations in this city.” He was advocating for the preservation of the church structure, which has stood at the intersection of West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue since the 1880s.
The congregation of about a dozen people wants to stop its financial bleeding and use the proceeds from the real estate deal for better causes, such as helping needy people throughout the city, according to Roger Leaf, the chairman of the West Park Administrative Commission, which was established by the Presbytery of New York in 2020 to assist the church manage the space and find a buyer.
He said that it was odd that the wealthy people next door to the church, who live in multimillion dollar flats and have windows looking out upon this area, were claiming to be the underdogs.
The whole tale is lengthy, convoluted, and acrimonious; it involves a lawsuit that is still pending, numerous divergent engineering opinions, and allegations of bad faith on both sides.
It is another illustration of how places of worship have used private development to revitalise themselves in the face of falling membership.
And, more broadly, it symbolises New York City’s many difficult attempts to strike a balance between growth and preservation, a discussion that has gained importance as the city battles a housing crunch and officials look for locations to build new, even luxurious, residences.
But the addition of Mr. Ruffalo and a number of famous people, like Wendell Pierce, Amy Schumer, Common, and others, to the church dispute, more than two decades after it initially started, has given it a unique twist.
Even Mayor Eric Adams was approached by Mr. Ruffalo to make his case this month at the Tribeca Film Festival. The discussion was followed by a more formal one on Thursday with representatives of City Hall, including Maria Torres-Springer, the deputy mayor for housing, economic development and the workforce, and church leaders who are perplexed that their attempt to demolish the building has devolved into a high-profile political melodrama.
Regarding the church’s colourful past and architectural significance, all parties concur. The landmarks commission complimented the structure’s “extraordinarily deep colour of its red sandstone cladding” and its “monumental and distinguished presence,” calling it “one of the Upper West Side’s most important buildings.” According to Mr. Leaf, West Park gained notoriety in the 1970s and 1980s as an early supporter of the antiwar movement and L.G.B.T.Q. community.
The church, however, turned into a hotspot in the city’s real estate disputes about the same period.
West Park fought against preservationist rules that would have restricted how it might utilise its property as early as the 1980s, arguing that it deserved to be excluded from a neighbourhood historic district.According to Marsha Flowers, a presiding elder of West Park who has been a member of the congregation for 30 years, churchgoers have been searching for developers to create a new future for their dilapidated facility since 2001.
Preservationists were successful in having the church classified as a city landmark in 2010, just as the church was about to sign a contract to allow the construction of houses on the property. Owners are often prohibited from making significant, even modest improvements that modify the appearance of their buildings by landmarks, which are rigorously monitored.
The building’s circumstances, according to Mr. Leaf, kept growing worse. Its overall renovation cost is estimated to be around $50 million, which includes $14 million to address the building’s deteriorating façade and $4 million to address any violations of the building and fire codes.
The church submitted a fresh application to the Landmarks Preservation Commission in June of last year, essentially stating that the crumbling building’s landmark status and its impact on the church made it difficult for the church to maintain it. They requested permission from the commission to renovate it.
However, the committee has only approved such requests 13 times since it was founded in the 1960s, indicating that the preservationists have a better chance of success.
Mr. Leaf seems upbeat despite this. He claimed that if the application was approved, a developer named Alchemy Partners had already agreed to pay the church more than $30 million to demolish the structure and replace it with upscale flats.
He explained, “That would support food pantries, soup kitchens, warming centres, early childhood education centres, homeless shelters, and other similar programmes.”
In addition, Alchemy would pay the church $8 million to furnish a new area in the structure.
Many of the church’s descriptions of its situation are disputed by preservationists, who claim that the church is misrepresenting the amount of money required. The Centre at West Park, a nonprofit tenant that hosts art exhibitions and other activities in the church, is affiliated with them.
(A different church, the Lighthouse Chapel, has services there once a week; the West Park congregation itself went virtual during the pandemic.)
Some claim that the church allowed the structure to deteriorate on purpose.
According to Michael Hiller, an attorney for the centre, “if the commission were to grant this application, it would provide a road map to every owner of a landmarked property in the City of New York of how to get your building destroyed.”The neighbourhood “breathed a sigh of relief” when the church was named a landmark, Mr. Ruffalo claimed in an interview.
He claimed that he frequently attended their events and that, prior to learning about the church’s application, he had been considering hosting one of his own.
He said, “Man, this is what I do. “I use my platform to speak for people who are being mistreated by a system that has shut them out, that denies them a voice, and from whom we never hear from.”
He denied that the scenario was an instance of affluent New Yorkers exploiting their influence and claimed that he enlisted the help of other friends and celebrities.
To fund the building, Mr Ruffalo and others are launching their own campaign. With a $1,000 donation from Mr. Ruffalo, one crowdsourcing fundraiser has raised nearly $16,000 of their $250,000 goal.Mr. Ruffalo claimed, “Without spaces like that, I would have never succeeded as an actor. There wouldn’t be any theatre in New York City without these locations.
The center’s new executive director, Debby Hirshman, claimed that unknown donors are prepared to contribute up to $50 million towards the necessary renovations to end the hardship. The church, though, claimed it hasn’t been given any specific details regarding the idea.
It’s unclear when the commission might make a decision or what will happen to the church’s application after that.
