(RNS) — Two years after suffering a devastating fire, the leaders of Middle Collegiate Church are awaiting the resolution of a dispute over its historic façade.
When the six-alarm fire destroyed most of the historic building in Manhattan’s East Village, the façade remained standing. But church officials, after spending $4.2 million on fencing, steel bracing and other measures to secure the limestone front of the building, have determined it too must be demolished in order for the church to move ahead with plans for a new structure.
“Even though it is still standing, it actually really did burn up,” said the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of the multiethnic congregation, in an interview Monday (Dec. 12). “It just didn’t fall down.”
In a mid-November report, citing investigative work by the church’s architect and engineering and safety experts, the church said maintaining the façade is no longer safe for people, including workers, near the site.
“The remaining structure presents a high risk to safety of the public and workers,” the report reads. “Based upon known visible conditions, the remaining structure is in a state of disrepair and has deteriorated beyond its usable life.”
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire that erupted from the building next to Middle Collegiate Church on Dec. 5, 2020 in New York. The historic 19th-century church in lower Manhattan was gutted by the massive blaze. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Some preservationists, however, disagree, and New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission continued its consideration of the church’s request for a “certificate of appropriateness” at a Tuesday hearing that was livestreamed via YouTube.
“We expected to make the façade a part of our new church design,” Lewis told the commission, “only to come to realize that the façade was a burden, and a barrier.”
She asked that the commission allow the neo-Gothic façade to be demolished because equipment operators have no access to the location otherwise, as they can’t go through the next-door site where the fire began.
“Our face, our façade, is broken, and stands exactly, exactly where it can’t be if we’re to move forward,” Lewis said.
Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation, said in written testimony to the commissioners in November that his historic preservation organization would like to see the church remain at its longtime site but does not agree with Middle Collegiate’s claim about the façade.
“If there were a danger to the public or an inability to maintain this façade safely, the Department of Buildings would make such an evaluation and order the structure down, as we have all too often seen them do,” he said. “They have not done so in this case.”
Examples of damage to Middle Collegiate Church are presented during a virtual meeting of New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, Dec. 13, 2022. Video screen grab
Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, a local not-for-profit group, has argued that the demolition of the façade would hurt the “special character of this very important historic district,” and the group urged a “full and independent analysis.”
