Hate The Church, Love Its Buildings

It was high-tension back-and-forth drama for St. Brigid’s Church last week, with details straight out of a movie script:

It was an anxious week for East Villagers who have been fighting to save the turn-of-the-century old P.S. 64 and 158-year-old St. Brigid’s Church from demolition. Some neighbors and activists have been involved in both struggles, and probably could have used a scorecard to keep up with the flurry of emergency press conferences outside the two historic Avenue B buildings — located just a block apart — plus a candlelight vigil and court hearing.

Last Friday, State Supreme Court Judge Barbara Kapnick enjoined further demolition of St. Brigid’s Church until Aug. 24, pending a Board of Standards and Appeals hearing on the validity of the demolition permit.

Last Thursday — just two days after demolition workers started hacking historic terracotta off the old P.S. 64 building on E. Ninth St. — a demolition crew a block to the south pounded an ugly hole through the back wall of St. Brigid’s Church, starting the destruction of the historic East Village famine church. The workers shoved antique wooden pews and delicate wainscoting from inside the church through the hole and into a rear yard. Then — as stunned and angry neighbors and former St. Brigid’s parishioners pleaded with him to stop — one of the workers, smiling, spun his bulldozer over the pile, crushing it all to bits.

. . .

Next morning at 7 a.m., to the anguish of about 20 neighbors, activists and former parishioners who showed up hoping to head off further destruction, the workers — this time wielding long crowbars — knocked out the seven, 25-foot-tall, painted, stained-glass windows on the church’s north side. Again, the neighbors and former parishioners begged them to stop.

“When I saw those crowbars destroying those stained-glass windows this morning, I thought about the Taliban destroying those Buddhas in Afghanistan,” said Matt Metzgar, a former East Village squatter who had been among the protesters shouting for the workers not to break the windows.

“We were all yelling ‘Stop!’ We were screaming,” said Beth Sopkow. “We were all calling 311 and E.P.A, saying that there were hazardous conditions and dust.”

Patti Kelly, who has a stained-glass studio on Avenue C and also had sadly watched as the venerable windows depicting Jesus’ life were smashed, estimated they were worth $100,000 apiece.

“That was heartbreaking, because I know exactly what it takes to do those windows. It took them a year to do them,” she said.

Perhaps you assumed that godless New Yorkers were uninterested in churches. That would be untrue:

At a candlelight vigil outside St. Brigid’s the night before, East Villagers accused the archdiocese of planning to cash in by developing the prime property on the eastern edge of Tompkins Square Park.

A large silver crucifix ring on his finger, poet Barry Allen shouted, “Our Lord Jesus went into the temple and threw out the money changers — goddammit!”

“I love the building and the color, that beautiful yellow, right at the park,” said Susi Schropp. Though she never attended the church, she said, “It’s beyond just being a parishioner — it’s about the community being besieged.”

. . .

Jerome O’Connor, who used to own St. Dymphna’s bar on St. Mark’s Pl., originally had the idea to investigate the demolition permit to check if it was valid — which is the only thing currently standing in the way of the building being razed.

“You don’t tear down a 158-year-old church for anything,” O’Connor said. “I’d like to see all the Catholic churches leveled, because of what they do. But not this one.”