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Volunteers to Lend a Helping Hand to Historic Upper West Side Church

By Leslie Albrecht | December 2, 2010 7:25am

By Leslie Albrecht

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

UPPER WEST SIDE —  When Rev. Robert Brashear sweeps the front steps at West-Park Presbyterian Church every morning, he's not just cleaning.

The sweeping is a symbolic act to show that Brashear and his congregation are taking back the 121-year-old church, which was landmarked earlier this year against the wishes of Brashear and his flock.

"I felt that by (sweeping) every day it would symbolize that we're present, that we take responsibility for our home, and that we're going to be here again," Brashear said.

But to make that happen, Brashear has to raise $100,000 for basic repairs so he can hold services there again. The congregation has been meeting at the nearby Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew.

First on the list of needed upgrades are heat and bathrooms. To pay for those, the church will need community support, and two events this week could help spark more neighborhood interest in the church's future.

On Thursday night, the church hosts a 7 p.m. talk by an architect about "ritual space" and a photo exhibit to welcome the community and congregation members back to the sanctuary.

On Saturday, volunteers who are alumni of Columbia University's historic preservation graduate program will help clean out the sanctuary. Anyone is welcome to join; the work starts at 10 a.m.

The clean-up will be an important step toward bringing the neighborhood and church together.

Three years ago, a bitter debate erupted after church leaders said they wanted to convert part of the church building at West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue into apartments and use the income to restore the sanctuary.

Local residents and preservationists who didn't want the church's sandstone exterior to change blocked that plan by having the church made into an official landmark. The landmark status means the church can't develop the property as it once hoped.

The battle grew so heated that a church official was arrested for writing graffiti criticizing City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's attempts to landmark the church.

Now the two sides have formed an alliance, with Brashear focusing on raising money to restore the church's water-damaged interior, and preservation groups such as Landmark West! and the New York Landmarks Conservancy pitching in to help with the exterior restoration.

Bringing both the inside and outside of the historic church back to its former glory could cost more than $20 million, Brashear said.

The church kicked off that fundraising effort with a bake sale in August. Since then a little over $12,000 in donations have been collected in an account that the New York Landmarks Conservancy holds for the church, said the Conservancy's Ann Friedman.

Eventually Brashear wants to create a center for "spiritual and social transformation" at the church, where people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines can exchange ideas, he said.

"We're a Presbyterian church, but we'll invite spiritual collaboration of all kinds," Brashear said. "We live in a neighborhood where there are people of all faiths and people in the process of spiritual exploration without any particular faith. We want to be a place where those conversations can take place."

For more information on what's happening at West-Park Presbyterian, check out the church's blog.