Wednesday, March 29, 2017
St. Saviour's still waits for funding
From CBS 2:
A part of the city’s past has been languishing in a pair of sealed trailers in Queens for almost a decade.
CBS2’s Lou Young was there Tuesday when they were opened for the first time since 2008. Luckily, the pieces of history are right where they were left.
The trailers contain the pieces of St. Savior’s Church which originally stood in Maspeth, Queens for 160 years before it faced demolition in the face of 21st century progress.
Preservationists would like to put St. Savior’s back together on a plot of land owned by All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village. All they need is money — which the city was not interested in providing eight years ago.
“Every preservationist said it was a noted building that should be saved,” Robert Holden from the Juniper Park Civic Association said. “Unfortunately the Bloomberg administration didn’t agree.”
Now it’s the de Blasio administration’s turn to consider the $2 million project on a tight city budget that won’t be finalized until later this Spring.
Galasso Trucking has stored the church pieces for free since 2008. The company has pledged to donate the use of their trailers until the restoration is complete.
9 comments:
Was this nuts or what? Saving the wooden bones of the church in trucks. Nine years. Welcome to Queens' historic preservation efforts.
No more nuts than saving the facade of a historic church and letting the rest crumble (St. Monica's) or allowing a landmarked building to be hemmed in by warehouses (Steinway Mansion) or letting a crazed developer destroy a majestic theater in the heart of a community you want to build up (RKO Keith's) or...
TWO MILLION DOLLARS to assemble an old wooden building!
This is a clear example of the inefficiencies and uselessness of government.
No one ever speaks of the never ending costs of maintaining this white elephant.
Leave it in the trailers, and post some pictures on a website and you are done!
Use the TWO MILLION DOLLARS to ship some homeless to another State in this Union...
Let us take a moment and pause to thank Dizzy Lizzy for this predicament. Without her help the church could still be standing on its original spot, in one piece.
At least its not surrounded by warehouses.
What is wrong with Queens? This borough is the laughing stock of NYC.
We should dissolve it and divide it by the old towns - Newtown to Manhattan, Flushing to the Bronx, and Jamaica to Brooklyn.
Landmark these storage trucks. Visitors can see the historic church wood behind plexiglass. No need to reconstruct the building.
$2 million to put that together ? are these people joking ?
This is why the city wont give them the money.
$200K should do more then do job with plenty left over to dress it up.
Fire all the contractors, go over ALL the books and get some legitimate numbers.
Last don't call it a Christian church because that sure to get funding shot down.
It was a sad day in the city when Bloomberg wouldn't come to the rescue of St. Savior's and totally refused the pleas of local residents. Not only was the church and the grounds a big part of the history of Maspeth it would have made a great park with all the large mature trees. A park would have also fit into Bloomberg's plan to make a park within walking distance of everyone. I am a senior and have lived my whole life in Maspeth and that area always caught my eye and I liked to walk around the whole block admiring the greenery. Shame on those who could have saved St. Savior's.
Sticks and stones will break my bones but will these sticks in storage ever get reassembled before the termites feast upon them?
Doubtful in the De Blasio era.
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