Faith-Based Real Estate
Real estate is a major responsibility, and as the value of real estate increases, especially in New York City, faith-based institutions have the difficulty of balancing the responsibility of owning an aging and costly property with (changing) community needs.
In recent faith-based real estate outside of New York City, family burial sites in Wayland, MA are in jeopardy due to a land sale. The Churchyard Memorial Garden used to belong to The Church of the Holy Spirit in Wayland under the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, however the church closed in 2015 due to declining attendance. The property was sold to the Coptic Church, and because the Coptic Church does not believe in cremation, those who were cremated and buried on the land, will have to be relocated.
Meanwhile, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, last week a lottery opened for “deeply affordable housing” for seniors on the site of the former Zion Lutheran Church. The Sunset Ridge Senior Apartments will have 84 units of which 26 will be set aside for formerly homeless seniors.
New York City has had its share of dangerous and uninhabitable housing – from the lack of heat in the Bronx apartments that lead to a deadly space heater fire in 2021, and now a 7-month gas outage affecting public housing tenants in Harlem. For houses of worship that are looking to utilize their building to create housing, it is important to consider resident safety in their building plans.
We see these concerns extend to quality of life issues, where on the Upper East Side, neighbors continue to plead the UES Redeemer Church to adjust their building plans to consider the neighboring residents living in the co-op at 160 East 91st St. Currently, the church’s plans for the 11-story building would block light for co-op residents and would jeopardize fire escape access.
Historic Preservation
In last week’s update we shared that the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund recently announced the 35 winners of the Preserving Black Churches grant. This week we’d like to highlight NYC’s very own Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem and Varick Memorial AME Zion Church in Brooklyn, each a recipient of $200,000 from the fund. Both churches are historically Black churches with a rich history of social activism. Mother AME Zion Church plans to utilize the grant money as an endowment fund, and Varick Memorial plans to use the money to repair the roof, and install cooling and heating systems so they can continue to worship in person in all seasons.
Preserving religious properties is a way to preserve the history of a neighborhood and the people who have been a part of it. Unfortunately, it was recently reported that the Church of St. Benedict the Moor, a historic Hell’s Kitchen church, has been sold for $16 million cash. Church of St. Benedict the Moor, was the first for Black Catholics north of the Mason-Dixon line. Though advocates have been fighting to preserve the church as a historic landmark, it is currently unclear whether the church had been moved towards landmark status.
Another kind of “preservation” milestone occurred last week, this one involving birds! The Cathedral of St. John the Divine threw a party bidding farewell to its “beloved resident peacocks.” The peacocks have been residents on the site for more than 20 years, but due to their advancing age they need further care and assistance and will be transferred to their new retirement home at Animal Nation, an animal sanctuary in South Salem, New York. NYC will miss these icons.
