Fiction: The building is "falling down".Fact: When the congregation requested designation in the State and National Registers of Historic Places, one of the criteria for designation was structural integrity. Had the Church not been structurally sound, it would not have been eligible for designation.
And if the Church was structurally sound in 1999, it is presumably still sound today, as evidenced by the photo of the sanctuary to the right (for more photos of the Church's pristine and beautiful sanctuary, see Violetta's Lough's Flickr photoset, linked to an earlier post on this blog.)
The church is of brick construction. The facing stone is attached to the brick walls, like brownstone. Some of the facing stone needs to be repaired.
Fiction: "An engineer" has determined that the building is not worth saving.
Fact: According to the sources available to the Committee, the structure has never been evaluated by a professional engineer (PE). The only evidence the congregation has produced in support of its assertion that the Church is "not worth saving" is a letter dated May 24, 2005 from architect Martin R. Nystrom, hired by the congregation, for a fee of $375,000, to design a new church on the footprint of the demolished parsonage.
If, as Nystrom's letter asserts, the Church "poses a potential danger to the public and the occupants", why has the congregation continued to use the Church and to lease the adjoining Sunday School to the Heartshare Human Services pre-school program for more than two-and-a-half years since Nystrom made this dire statement?
Fiction: The cost of repairing the Church would be prohibitive.
Fact: The Committee is aware of at least two other churches clad in the same Serpentine stone that have been repaired at very reasonable cost: the Methodist Church in Kingston, New York, and the French Hugenout Church in Staten Island.
Because the Green Church has been designated in the State and National Registers, it is eligible for matching grants of up to half of the costs of restoration.
Number 6, Logan Circle, in Washington, D.C., is faced with Serpentine stone. Its facade was restored at a cost of approximately $233,000.
Fiction: The Church is "private property".
Fact: The Church is not a private entity. It is a public institution governed by the New York Not-for-Profit Corporations Law and the Religious Corporations Law and regulated by the State Attorney General and the State Supreme Court.
Fiction: The Church has no other option.
Fact: The Church had many options, including a proposal presented by Councilmember Gentile, in partnership with Con Edison and the group that later formed the Committee, that would have provided Bay Ridge with below-market rate senior housing, would have generated over $300,000 in annual income for the congregation, would have left the Church building intact, and would have left all of the property in the hands of the congregation. That plan was rejected.
Fiction: The sale will benefit the congregation and the Bay Ridge community.
Fact: The sale will leave the congregation with nothing but the footprint of the demolished parsonage and an uncertain financial future. The planned demolition of the parsonage threatens to destabilize not only the adjoining rowhouse owned by David and Dorcas Kimball, but the entire row of houses on the south side of Ovington between 3rd and 4th.
An engineer who has inspected the site reports that there is a serious risk of major structural damage to the neighboring houses if the parsonage comes down.
The congregation has entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Abe Betesh, who, according to local media sources, is a "slumlord" with a long list of Housing Code violations. Why would Betesh be a more responsible developer than he is a landlord?
