The New York Times-20080128-Once Synagogues- Now Churches- and Ailing Quietly
Return to: The_New_York_Times-20080128
Once Synagogues, Now Churches, and Ailing Quietly
Full Text (1544 words)Jewell Cunningham's year of exodus was 1953.
I left Alabama riding in the back of a Greyhound bus, she recalled. I came to New York to get away from the slavery conditions back home. No good jobs. No possibilities for education.
She found that, and much more, in Queens, where she supported herself at first by baby-sitting for Jewish families. She still remembers her earliest employers, who treated her with decency and respect. Those families have long left the Laurelton neighborhood, but part of their world remains vibrantly alive for Ms. Cunningham. She worships at the Linden Church of Seventh-day Adventists, inside a majestic sanctuary that generations ago was the Laurelton Jewish Center.
She and the other members worship on the Sabbath, filling the church each Saturday, where they are flanked by rich-hued stained glass windows depicting the Israelites' flight from Egypt, the story of Esther and other scenes from the Hebrew Bible.
We once talked about taking out these windows, said Paul Gregory Graham, who was an associate pastor 10 years ago. Talk about cultures changing, many of us are from a West Indian background, so what does this mean to us?
A lot more than people thought. One Saturday, Mr. Graham preached an entire sermon on the history of the Jewish people using the windows as vivid illustrations. There were lessons to be learned, he said, from their respective journeys. These windows are a history of a people and their worship, he said. They give us tradition.
Throughout the city, houses of worship built in the last century for Jewish and Christian immigrants from Europe are now home to congregations with roots in Latin America, the Caribbean or the American South. Some are grand palaces that occupy a regal spot in a neighborhood, while others are modest halls nearly indistinguishable from bland storefronts. They sustain communities by helping slake spiritual and material thirsts.
Many of these buildings are under threat, crumbling from years of neglect and deferred maintenance in the case of impoverished congregations, or becoming targets for acquisition by developers in neighborhoods where choice real estate is scarce.
Preservationists have begun to sound alarms, warning that rich urban traditions of art, religion and community service are imperiled.
You see in these buildings history and continuity, and the influence of new populations and new religions, said Peg Breen, president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy. The face of the city will change and an important part of our history will be lost if these buildings disappear.
Preservationists and urban planners say that city officials have generally been reluctant to landmark religious buildings or to help them with funds for structural repairs and rehabilitation out of concern over separation of church and state. But some advocates have argued that these congregations, which are often community anchors in distressed neighborhoods, deserve a measure of public help.
Julia Vitullo-Martin, director of the Center for Rethinking Development, an urban-policy group, has urged city officials to form a commission dedicated to preserving religious buildings and the role they play in communities. She is the author of a recent paper that suggests city officials could mediate between developers and congregations that wish to strengthen their coffers by selling air rights or unused buildings and parcels.
Ms. Vitullo-Martin said that without a consistent planning approach, cash-poor congregations risk having to demolish their buildings or riling their neighbors by allowing developers to build tall apartment buildings.
If nothing is done, these churches could fall like dominoes, she said. There is something sad about the destruction of something of great beauty. It is the ultimate in using up your capital when you destroy a church or synagogue.
The Landmarks Conservancy, which has surveyed Christian churches, is also concerned about the plight of old synagogues. In recent months, the group has been visiting 500 prewar synagogues in Brooklyn and Queens. The group, which has several programs to assist congregations with landmarking, grants and repair referrals, hopes to identify up to 50 of them for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. If successful, those synagogues could then be eligible for grants to assist with restoration and repair.
The Linden church sought out the conservancy a few weeks ago when it learned about the survey. The congregation, which numbers 1,200 members, would like to see the renovation of a cavernous basement community room, where smoked mirrors flank a huge crystal drop chandelier. The church raises money for a wide variety of activities, from a grammar school and senior program to day care and youth programs. While much of the church's property is immaculate, the community room is frayed.
This could be a sight to behold, said Barbara Hall, the church clerk. This could give us a 'wow' factor. Hopefully we could qualify for some kind of grant, since we're always struggling.
The traces of past Jewish life in Brownsville, Brooklyn, are a little less evident at first glance. A half century has erased pretty much any clue that 375 Bristol Street used to be a synagogue. Remade in yellow brick face on the outside and white drywall on the inside, it is now home to Little Rock Baptist Church. A few days ago a group of men huddled outside after receiving a free lunch from the church's soup kitchen.
That is what we are here to do, said Anthony Fleming, a deacon. There is need in the community. We serve the community as best we can. It would serve no purpose to just be here for ourselves.
Despite the lack of Jewish symbols on some of the old buildings, Ann-Isabel Friedman, who directs the conservancy's sacred sites program, can read them like a book. In one former synagogue, on Chester Street in Brooklyn, she pointed out how the towers flanking the central door encased stairs to the women's balcony. In another, she saw how a plywood-covered recess hid an old skylight.
She stood before one former synagogue in Brownsville and noted how the details were exactly like those found on modest houses of worship on the Lower East Side.
What you see here is the vernacular synagogue style from the 1920s, she said. They took the Lower East Side synagogue and brought it to their new neighborhood in Brooklyn.
She admitted that they would not be able to get much help for those old buildings that had obliterated past architectural details. Nor might they be able to do much for some once grand structures that have fallen into severe disrepair, like St. Timothy Holy Church, which occupies what used to be the Amboy Street Shul in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
Past the marble walls, where the Hebrew script is partly obscured by Caribbean flags from the island homelands of its current occupants, St. Timothy's main sanctuary is a shambles. The worn wooden floor is littered with plaster chunks, pipes, battered pews and the oddly delicate carcasses of pigeons whose bones peek through a parchment-like skin.
What has become a ruin began as the dream of Dr. Mary L. Spann, who sank every penny of her money into St. Timothy, an independent Pentecostal church. For years, it was the only building on the block, said her daughter, Chrysanthius, who has been the church overseer since her mother died in 2000.
Everybody used to come here, she said. We used to feed them. My mother was the type of woman who said there was always room for one more.
Jonathan McDowell, 47, still recalls the day when he marched in a procession from their old church -- a garage -- and into the grand new sanctuary. He was 6 years old, dwarfed by the walls and windows, and moved by the echoes.
The place still moves him -- perhaps more so, since he is now the pastor. Unable to use the main sanctuary, he preaches in a basement room they share with another congregation that helps defray expenses. It was amazing what people who come together can achieve, he said. It still feels like home.
Granted, many of the old faces are gone. Many moved to the suburbs and better jobs and lives. New houses have sprung up, but their owners enter the buildings only for community meetings. He knows he is an incurable optimist, but he believes the church will bounce back.
On a recent Sunday, he preached to a congregation of one, Ms. Spann. Their mere presence underscored the theme of the sermon: commitment.
If you are not committed to something, you will not see it through, he preached. But I am committed.
Amen, Ms. Spann said.
I am committed.
[Illustration]PHOTOS: Jewell Cunningham worships at the Linden Church of Seventh-day Adventists in Laurelton, Queens, a Jewish center years ago. Below, the House of David church in Brooklyn, once a synagogue. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES) (pg. B1); Jonathan McDowell is pastor at St. Timothy Holy Church, which occupies what used to be the Amboy Street Shul in Brownsville, Brooklyn; Chrysanthius Spann has been the overseer at St. Timothy since her mother died in 2000. The sanctuary, above, that was her mother's dream is in such disrepair, the small congregation meets for worship in the basement. Everybody used to come here, Ms. Spann said. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES) (pg. B6)