By Cynthia Koons
The stately Romanesque Revival church on the corner of Roosevelt Avenue and Bowne Street in Flushing has been the source of controversy since 2002, when a Manhattan developer proposed to raze the building and construct a high-rise apartment building in its place.
Opposition forced the developer to drop its plans for the site and prompted a movement to landmark the property.
Church leaders are adamantly against any government-imposed preservation of the church on the basis that it may not be able to afford to maintain the facility forever and that the landmarking would violate the constitutional separation of church and state.
“They are looking to recover their financial strength by unlocking the value of the land,” Liu told a press conference in his office Tuesday. “This is after a great deal of research into what other institutions have done.”
But 30 to 40 demonstrators came out Saturday to demand the landmarking of the entire property – both the church building and the adjacent parking lot. Liu said the city Landmarks Commission has planned a hearing on the preservation of the church building itself. A date for that hearing has not yet been scheduled.
“It's a church that I consider part of the landscape of Flushing and should be kept up forever,” he said.
Church leaders are also concerned that by forcing the preservation of the property, the community could one day find the building in the same disrepair as the Bowne House – the now dilapidated home of the Flushing Remonstrance on Northern Boulevard.
Liu said the protesters politicized the issue on April 24 when they announced they wanted the entire lot preserved.
“They want an immediate landmarking,” Liu said in an interview last week prior to the protest.
“The leaders of the church who are currently in control of the church – I say this because there is some dissent within the church – they are against the landmarking altogether,” he said. “They view it as an interference, something that will restrict their ability to carry out their mission.”
The governing board president, L.D. Clepper, said the church has dismissed any plan to tear down the more than century-old building.
“Everyone is saying that we're in favor of that and that's just not true,” he said during a telephone interview last week.
Rumors about the church's plans to build on the parking lot adjacent to the church are also untrue at this point, a church official said Tuesday.
“I'm optimistic that we can come to a compromise,” Liu said Tuesday. His hope is that the church building will be preserved and the parking lot will be left for the Bowne Street Community Church to sell if it wants to.
“This doesn't create a precedent,” he said. “It follows precedence.”
Reach reporter Cynthia Koons by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 141.
