A recent QNS article about the dismantled St. Saviour’s Church, which has been stored at a Middle Village cemetery for years, prompted the attention of the New York Landmarks Conservancy (NYLC), which conducted its own investigation.
QNS went with the NYLC on Jan. 22 to visit the trailers where much of the dismantled, 19th-century house of worship is stored inside All Faiths Cemetery. Two NYLC board members and a contractor inspected the wood, during which the experts found that the wood would need to be laid out across 0.25 acres to fully assess its condition.
According to a report published to NYLC’s website on Tuesday, the visible wood “appeared to be in good condition.” However, Director of the NYC Historic Properties Fund and NYLC Board Member James Mahoney stated that one of the truck trailers had a leak during the inspection, which cemetery groundkeepers later sealed, and that it “had water coming in.” Some pieces still showed damage from a fire in 1970.
“The only thing I can say is the pieces are still in the trailer, and it’s really going to take a lot of time and community support and community fundraising to get to the point where this building can be reconstructed,” said NYLC Director of Sacred Sites Colleen Heemeyer. “You have enough money, you have enough time, you have the right people involved, anything can be saved. Will the money emerge to do that? I don’t know.”
QNS’ original report in December 2025 documented the state of St. Saviour’s Church after the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA), led by then-president and former Councilmember Bob Holden, spearheaded an effort more than 15 years ago to completely disassemble the church, costing city and state taxpayers $250,000, to be rebuilt at a later date.
However, the 160-year-old church still remains in storage to this day in two truck trailers stored in the back lot of All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village.
Only the church’s original framework was preserved during the dismantling process, and a full reconstruction effort would require “undertaking an extensive assessment of the salvaged wood to identify which pieces could be reused versus what is missing and needs to be newly fabricated.”
The NYLC’s greatest concerns are finding a site for the project, enough funding for the church and its foundation and a large enough non-profit capable of managing the property after its completion.
According to All Faiths Cemetery Treasurer James McClelland, who coordinated the NYLC’s visit to cemetery grounds, Nunziato was informed of date and time of the visit on Jan. 8 and asked to invite Holden and Juniper Berry Editor Christina Wilkinson, both of whom remain as active leaders of the association.
Neither Holden nor Wilkinson, nor JPCA President Tony Nunziato, participated in the NYLC inspection — though they apparently did their own in a video posted to the JPCA’s Facebook account the following day.
Nunziato and Holden, both of whom were instrumental in the initial campaign to acquire and dismantle the church in 2008, both said that the wood and trailers are “both dry” and there were no holes to be found.
The JPCA posted a video featuring Nunziato, recorded by Holden, the following day, in an apparent public effort to disparage QNS’ reporting on the matter.
They also took shots at Paul Pogozelski, president of the Middle Village Residents Association, another civic group in the community, and a former candidate for the City Council seat Holden once held.
Pogozelski’s name was never mentioned in QNS’ December report on St. Saviour’s, and he does not have an official position at All Faiths Cemetery. At a Jan. 14 Community Board 5 meeting, he publicly described the church pieces as being “moldy piles of wood,” citing QNS’ previous report.
In a recent post, the JPCA claimed that the NYLC is “currently drawing up an estimate of how much reconstruction would cost.” But Mahoney said his organization would not be involved in the actual reconstruction.
“We wouldn’t do it. It needs to come from the community… we can’t take on a project that size,” Mahoney said. “I don’t know who was trying to do it before, if it was one of the civic associations, but, it needs to come from them and then they need to start hiring people.”
The NYLC says it is not actively planning to fully inspect the wood. McClelland added that utilizing cemetery grounds for such an inspection would impact the groundskeepers’ operations.
Though the NYLC indicated that it would aid the full rebuilding operation utilizing its original plans, the fate of St. Saviour’s Church remains unknown.
