DEMOLITION: CHURCH SELLS TO CONDO DEVELOPER

Harlem Bespoke: News broke out recently that St. James Methodist Church at 45 East 126th Street at the corner of Madison Avenue has had demolition permits filed to make way for a new building.  This appears to be the usual story of a church with a dwindling congregation selling off a historic property to a developer for millions and a position within the new building. We actually received a message from someone in a local community group stating that they have been trying to convince the reverend of the church to work with an adaptive-reuse developer but those request have been ignored seeing that this plan is probably less profitable for all parties involved.  The letter also mentioned that much of East Harlem had been razed in the past to make way for public housing projects so keeping some of architecture that was built in the 1800's preserved was of importance to the neighbors.


Northeast Harlem just above 125th Street has a lot of historic building or brownstones still intact and one of the abandoned churches have been sold and converted into residential housing over the years. In the St. James situation, the insider mentions that the church official allegedly stated that they plan to live in penthouse of the new construction and the maximum buildable FAR will most likely be used by the selected developer.  There are reportedly less than 20 congregants left at house of worship and it is unclear if anyone else had a say in the future of the church.  The letter ends with the following statement:

 It's just altogether very sad that there are many options for saving this building, but the whole process seems to be in control of this one man -- despite the fact that it was built and maintained by hundreds of people, both black and white, over the past hundred years.