LPC Calendaring Considering Adventist Complex
We wrote a post up last night reporting that the Landmarks Preservation Committee was planning to hold a hearing tonight to calender the Hebron Seventh Day Adventist School complex (originally the Methodist Home, built in 1899). Unfortunately, we got word this morning that it has been postponed. But it’s still worth discussing. Although this complex,…
We wrote a post up last night reporting that the Landmarks Preservation Committee was planning to hold a hearing tonight to calender the Hebron Seventh Day Adventist School complex (originally the Methodist Home, built in 1899). Unfortunately, we got word this morning that it has been postponed. But it’s still worth discussing. Although this complex, which is almost an entire square block in size, is in the proposed Crown Heights North Historic District, it is in Phase 2 and therefore potentially still vulnerable to a developer who would care more about the huge plot of land than the building’s architectural significance. The building, which the AIA Guide notes “has the look of an asylum,” sat abandoned for many years until the church acquired the property less than a decade ago. For all the critics who say that preservationists only re-act, this is an example of a community group trying to be proactive to save an important part of its history.
Hebron Seventh Day Adventist School [Brownstoner] GMAP
i love this building. i can look out of my kitchen window and marvel at it. i was excited to them working on roof. hopefully it will remain one of the marvelous pieces of architecture that continues to exist in crown heights.
Also good time to mention that the Crown Heights North Association will be sponsoring our first Walking Tour in late spring. We are in the process of choosing the route, and we hope to have as many of the really unique and interesting buildings that people may have been curious about on the tour. It will be lead by one of our members who is an architect.
This will be followed by the first House Tour in October. Our House Tour Committee is working very hard to make it a memorable one, and the first of many looks into our interesting and worthy neighborhood.
Brenda, I always wanted to have a similar kind of school there myself. I also wanted to turn the chapel into a killer restaurant/performance space. I’ve always loved this complex, and discovered it on a walk years ago too. I’d love to get inside, myself.
It is, however, emphatically not for sale. CHNA is doing all we can to make sure it is protected from the forces of commerce, as well as to aid Hebron SDA any way we can. Brownstoner and Bx2Bklyn are correct in that community groups, like CHNA, need to be as pro-active as possible, not just reactive when the building is actually threatened. We are fortunate that it doesn’t take much convincing for LPC to be on the same page, as this is an obvious landmark worthy site.
What a slacker ass city we live in LPC is always postponing or calendering things 🙁
I would put on cape and fight crime from my secret basement hideout if that was my castle.
I’m gonna buy this, anyone wanna jump aboard?
OMIGOD, this is the MYSTERY MARVEL building that I once stumbled across during a walk in Crown Heights and always wondered about!!! It appears to have a stained-glass-glorious chapel at one end, and gives off a fantastic vibe of being haunted, even with the Adventists taking up a little chunk of it! Marvelous, gorgeous; it triggered in me an hours-long reverie of having Trump/Gates-scale $$$ and turning it into a gorgeous residential academy for promising kids who need shelter from bad families and neighborhoods…ha, like that’d happen! Agree, condos better than a tear-down–say it couldn’t happen, please! (PS Does anyone have a way to get in and tour the inside,like that chapel? BCUE used to do tours like that, of ‘forbidden spaces’, or maybe the annual ‘Insiders’ tour??)
It’s also worth mentioning that the organization behind the drive to landmark the Crown Heights North neighborhood is the Crown heights North Association. they are the ones who began the process and have been getting it through the LPC. In addition they have been helping the school as well. Not only are preservationists being proactive about saving history, but helping to make the building safe and viable.
Do not even whisper that someone would tear down this beautiful building… If it had to be turned into condos to save it, that wouldn’t be so bad… I’d buy one
The photo above shows the roof in its previous state of disrepair. The new roof is either done or almost done as of now. The tree growing from the tower has been removed, and workers are apparently working up there to further protect it from the elements. Recent developements are heartening indeed.