We have a few quick notes and updates for readers.
- Anglican Watch editor Eric Bonetti is out of office for the next ten days and unreachable by phone or email. Questions, comments, and tips can be sent via our encrypted online form.
- We note that the St. Paul’s Dayton website has been incorrectly updated to reflect adulterous Dan McClain as rector. He is not; McClain is rector-elect, and is currently suspended in the midst of a Title IV clergy disciplinary case we filed against him.
- We are working on several stories, including additional emerging allegations involving Easton Bishop Santosh Marray. Anyone with tips is encouraged to send them to us via our online form.
- Look for additional coverage of Sean Rowe’s installation as the next presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. We applaud both his commitment to misisonal integrity and his willingness to abandon comically outdated practices, including past installations of the presiding bishop at the Washington National Cathedral. In a day and age when business is done via Zoom and the church bewails its lack of resources, we applaud installing Rowe at the chapel at church headquarters—even as we hope to see the denomination sell off HQ, aka 815, a fusty monument to mid-century modern and the church’s narcissistic notion that it needs to be near UN headquarters because folks actually care what the church thinks.
- Within the next month or so, we should see results from the annual parochial report. Expect another 2-4 percent annual decline in membership in the denomination, as well as further efforts to normalize decline via qualitative data like “what lessons have you learned from the pandemic?”
“We hope to see the denomination sell off HQ, aka 815, a fusty monument to mid-century modern and the church’s narcissistic notion that it needs to be near UN headquarters because folks actually care what the church thinks” (quoted from above). Actually, the situation is a bit more complicated than that.
TEC consolidated its various offices, which were then scattered in NYC, late in the 19th century (long before there was a UN building). In May 1889 a committee had identified a site near Fourth (now Park) Avenue and 22nd Street. The site was selected because it was on a major avenue; it was near 23rd Street, where a crosstown streetcar line operated; it was next to Calvary Church, a major Episcopal church; and Madison Square and Gramercy parks were both nearby. Eventually Church Missions House at 281 Park Avenue was built.
By 1958 TEC had outgrown the building on Park Avenue. In 1960, the Church bought property on Second Avenue and 43rd Street. The church planned a new office building on that site to combine its offices at Church Missions House, the Greenwich estate, and a third structure at 317 East 23rd Street. TEC rejected several alternative office sites, including the then-new Interchurch Center in Morningside Heights, Manhattan (known as the God Box). Thus, 815 Second Avenue came to be.
In the aftermath of 9/11, when building codes were upgraded and this 40 year old building was in need of renovation, Executive Council conducted a thorough review: options included renovate, sell but stay in NYC, or sell and move elsewhere. For better or worse, the renovation option was chosen; I believe that the total cost was around $20 million.
My understanding is that transportation issues, especially for those traveling from overseas, was a major advantage in favor of NYC.
If the building were sold today, it would be torn down and we could say good-bye to that $20 million spent on the renovation. The only value of the property is in the land itself.
Now, some twenty years later, less than half of the building is used by TEC; the rest of it is rented out producing major annual income for the DFMS budget. Many TEC staff persons now work from home.
If another thorough review were to be conducted, I suspect the outcome would be the same: moving elsewhere will cost a lot (and for what benefit in this age of electronic communication) and there will be a long term loss of income (no rentals).
In other words, we may feel good about selling and moving but we will then have to balance the DFMS budget with less income.
Excellent points, as always. Thanks!
We welcome additional views on this — and all — topics.