• Campaign To Save Methodist Church Gains Steam


    by on Mar 30th, 2011

    A rendering of United Methodist Church without steeples, made by Valerie Landriscina.

    When I sat down with the New York Times reporter to discuss the United Methodist Church of Sheepshead Bay (3087 Ocean Avenue) and its soon-to-expire steeples, he asked me one hundred different ways: how come no one is trying to stop it? If this were brownstone Brooklyn the community would be up in arms, he said. Why not here?

    I gave him the long answer, which involved a lot of convoluted sentences and parenthetical statements about community fragmentation, civic decay and media penetration rates. It was an academic answer so unsuitable for quotation that he wrote me an e-mail asking the same question again – in three different ways – just so he could capture one line to push the narrative forward.

    The simple answer? We could blame demographic shifts. Or we could blame weak civic institutions. Or the failure of local media to bridge cultural divides.

    But at the end of the day, there’s one thing missing from the equation that’s needed before we can blame anything else: a leader.

    Of all the media attention the issue got, and all the “Oh, that’s a pity” statements we heard from history buffs and preservationists, not a darn person tried to rally people, raise the money, and save the steeples.

    Until now.

    Valerie Landriscina, a Manhattan Beach resident and project associate at RAND Engineering & Architecture, has been quietly reaching out to local officials and church leaders in an attempt to keep the iconic steeples from being ripped down. She’s secured promises from the New York Landmarks Conservancy to match locally-raised funds, and received some encouragement from local politicians.

    But obstacles abound.

    The church has not been forthcoming with information, and Landriscina is hoping to get a deeper understanding of the church’s assessment.

    “Why is everyone so accepting?” she wrote to us by e-mail. “I won’t believe anyone until I see structural calculations. Why shouldn’t the community request that the engineer or architect share his/her analysis at a community board meeting?”

    Landriscina wants to work with the church, not against it. But she does believe the institution’s officials have a responsibility to the broader community.

    “I really believe that the greater Sheepshead Bay community loves this building and does not want to see it changed.  Regardless of whether we belong to the parish, it belongs to our collective memory of the neighborhood,” she wrote on her blog, The Urbanographer.

    With some of the groundwork done, and a preservation effort finally finding a voice in Landriscina, success is dependent on manpower now. Petition signatures and a corps of volunteers is what she’s shooting for to help secure pledges for funds, get the church to release technical data, and motivate the local elected to take a more vocal stance.

    If you’d like to lend your voice to saving the United Methodist Church, contact Landriscina immediately at vlandriscina@gmail.com.

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    • Faba

      If she gets those steeples fixed they better name those steeples, The Mounds of Valerie, Matriarch of Sheepshead.
      Blessed Be Val!

    • http://twitter.com/Lostinservice Lostinservice

      The artists’ rendering looks more like The Stone-Cutter’s temple than a church.
      (Who makes Steve Gutenberg a star? WEEEE DOOOO, WEEE DOOOO)

    • Anonymous

      from a graphic designers point of view, that looks like a pretty good Cover up. However i am not the right person to suggest anything about this particular situation. All i hope is people do the Right thing… as an opinion i think we should try to Save them, because they have been with us for decades!

      That is all.

    • Guest

      If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life: Don’t stand in the way of a girl on a mission! Grass-roots activism at its finest!

    • Veronika K.

      I will do whatever I can to help stop this from being torn down. It’s a part of my childhood, I never attended, but seeing it there just feels like home. Are we all really going to let our home be torn down? How many generations of people around the area walked past this church on there way to somewhere? While this may be small it is something that is part of our history.
      Imagine someone had allowed to colleseum to be torn down in Rome.. we wouldn’t have had somewhere beautiful to visit.

      Why are we allowing our history to be torn down?!

      • Faba

        If you’d like to lend your voice to saving the United Methodist Church, contact Landriscina immediately at vlandriscina@gmail.com.

        • Veronika K.

          Already contacted, but thank you

    • Faba

      OK folks it’s time to put up or shut up!
      I strongly encourage you to contact Valerie Landriscina she needs help and you can provide it. Look, you can seat there and do nothing and we will lose the steeples or you can invest few hours of your life and we will get to keep them. So next time you will walk by that building with your friends or date, or relative you can say: “hey thanks to me those hundred year old steeples are still here.”
      But what if you are don’t have friends, dates or relatives? Then when you will be laying on your deathbed and asking yourself a question “Have I done one good thing in my life?” Then answer will be “Yes!”
      Email her.

      • Faba

        grrr “sit” need edit button.

    • SandraK

      Here and there we see efforts to save one church or another. Preservation of the architecture, fine. Yet many people who want to save the churches, if asked about Christianity or God, would say, “oh, no, I don’t believe in that (or, Him)!”

      Just sayin’ that I think God is more important than church steeples or churches. Many movements in this nation are gearing toward eliminating God from our lives. I hope we can bring God and Christianity back into the equation of our lives.

      And, yes, I lean toward preservation in architecture.

    • Brooklyn K

      Okay, this is an old, old story, but someone wanting to preserve these steeples must be prepared to support them financially for the rest of their lives. Just to say we want them because we love them and would miss them isn’t enough. Someone must pay for their restoration and their upkeep FOREVER. Winning the effort to keep the steeples and then fleeing the scene isn’t really loving them that much.

      The parishioners here cannot afford them. The steeples are undoubtedly costly. I have seen many times, outsiders who say, well the people in the church ought to pay for them. Yet, many times the churches have few members left, and the ones left are often poor.

      So if this new committee can BUY this nostalgia forever, then go ahead. I really respect the ones who say they love the steeples. Many of these people, though, drive by them few times, hurriedly on their way someplace, and/or are used them in their hood.

      They will say “someone” ought to support these. Okay, so that is where the buck will have to stop. The “someone” isn’t out there somewhere, unless you can find “them” (some type of D. Trump), or unless “they” are YOU and YOU or WE have the extra cash. And yes, it would be sad to see them gone, but life goes on and things change. In this case, the architecture is less significant than in the “green church” that was lost some time ago. The nostalgia and the love is significant, yet let’s face it, our economics isn’t strong these days, and there isn’t relief yet on the economic horizon.

      • Chknmstr264

        The church is absolutely poor,if it were not for the Korean population i dont believe it would be there as a church it would have been converted to another “”CONDO EYESORE”long ago.The HISTORY of the Church is quite rich.The back extension was added and paid for by Fredrick Lundy as a Gift to his mother who SO lOVED that Church, they are very active in the community as well there are quite a nomber of GROUPS that meet there and have been meeting there for in excess of 50 years. To allow itto be defaced without ant effort to preserve its GRAND presence would be a shame. I for one would rather try to do SOMETHING and fail in the end than to sit by and do NOTHING at all. I AM RESPONSIBLE for the EFFORT NOT the outcome. Vinnie Mazzone Chicken Masters

    • http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanne001 Lisanne!

      Well, the impossible has happened. The steeples have been saved. Much thanks to Valerie Landriscina.

      http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2011/04/04/brooklyn/courier-yn_brooklyn_front_page-bn_steeplessaved_2011_4_4_bk.txt

      • Barkingspider7

        I’m very happy to hear that. Where did they get the money to do the structural work to support them? Does anyone know?

        • http://www.nedberke.com Ned Berke

          They do not yet have the money to do the structural work, and the reason for holding back on demolition is believed to be more complicated that a “change of heart.” We’re working on getting the full story. Stay tuned.

          • Barkingspider7

            Oh, OK – thanks! I’ve contacted Valerie to ask what I can do to help out, and if there is any type of plan. I know it is early in the process, but I am curious.

      • Barkingspider7

        FOR VALERIE – HIP HIP HOORAY, HIP HIP HOORAY, HIP HIP HOORAY