Locals Fight To Save Brooklyn Church From Becoming Luxury Housing

BROOKLYN, NY — The future of a historic Brooklyn church hangs in the balance as locals make a last-ditch effort to save the beloved community space from developers with luxury housing plans.

Park Church on Russell Street near Nassau Avenue was the subject Thursday of a New York County hearing where locals, advocates and electeds pleaded for a seat at the table when the historic space is sold.

Owners Metropolitan New York Synod Council petitioned the Attorney General's office in June to sell the church to developer GW Equities LLC for $4.7 million, a deal residents hope to quash.

"This sale… is simply wrong," testified Jamie Hook, an organizer who has lived in Greenpoint for 15 years. Added Lauren Balliet, "I couldn't look [at] my kids if I didn't try."

State law mandates church property sales be approved by the Attorney General or, in some circumstances, a county judge. While Letitia James' office said in its petition it does not object to the legality of the sale, a 5,000-signature petition objecting to the sale spurred them to request a hearing. Now it's in the judge's hands whether or not to okay the deal.

To save the church, locals are hedging their bets by lodging complaints in court, finding a buyer willing to preserve the church and petitioning the city's Landmark Preservation Committee to provide it historic status.

Preservations are also organizing online, launching a website to make their case.

"Increasingly we find our common places enclosed, commercialized, privatized and sold off," the online plea reads. " The problem is especially acute in today’s Greenpoint, where the fevered pitch of development runs rampant, mutating our waterfront, overcrowding crowding our blocks, and devouring once common spaces in the name of urban renewal."

But Metropolitan New York Synod Council argues the sale is necessary as attendance drops and the Park Church building crumbles, and it will bring cash to areas that need it.

"This decision was made due to declining worship attendance and safety concerns with the building's structure," a representative said.

"The sale proceeds will support the growth of viable congregations, particularly those serving marginalized communities, in alignment with the synod's commitment to anti-racism."

But Hook is keeping his eye on his neighborhood, which he argues shouldn't be excluded from decision-making.

“There is a distinct [feeling] that the public is being denied agency,” Hook said.

Hook entered Thursday's hearing considering it a eulogy to the community space, but left encouraged it was instead a call to arms, he said.

Among supporters is state Assembly Member Emily Gallagher, who testified Thursday Greenpoint needs a community space.

“A church’s core value is bringing people together across differences to really create community" said Gallagher. "While the church may not have been doing that in an official capacity, it has definitely been doing that in a community capacity.

"I will be at a loss once this space is gone.”

Organizers, electeds and locals said the owners have “demonstrated disregard for community impact.” They celebrated the church as the nostalgic site of children's dance parties, political gatherings, library programming, concerts, housing for unhoused locals, parties for retiring teachers and more.

The current iteration of the church was built in 1908 and by 2008, its congregation was dwindling.

The space soon opened up to non-religious community uses and by 2013, thanks to regular use by local organizations like the Brooklyn Children's Theater and Brooklyn Public Library, the building became known as the Park Church Co-Op.

"As the pace of gentrification gathered steam and rent spiralled upwards across the neighborhood, the Park Church Co-op became a refuge for all manner of commercial and non-commercial uses," advocates wrote on a website to save the church.

The community fought to save the church once before in 2018, but still saw the church close in 2022 and, to their dismay, saw the property listed on Compass.

The site of a major oil spill in 1978, the church also holds significant environmental meaning to the community.

Said Katie Denny Horowitz, Executive Director of North Brooklyn Parks Alliance, “This sale would leave a scar on an open wound we’ve been desperately trying to heal."