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Pedigreed Stained Glass Windows Could Yet Sidetrack UWS Church’s Residential Conversion

361 Central Park, a 1903 building that originally housed the First Church of Christ, Scientist. | JACKSON CHEN
361 Central Park, a 1903 building that originally housed the First Church of Christ, Scientist. | JACKSON CHEN

BY JACKSON CHEN | Appearing before the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals, potentially the final hurdle it faces, a project to convert a former church’s interior into luxury residential units faced potential roadblocks in a request for more information as well as from the possibility of new evidence about the historical significance of the building at 361 Central Park West.

If the project wins the zoning exceptions it seeks and is given the green light from the BSA, the developers — Ira Shapiro and Joseph Brunner — will be allowed to gut the church, which was landmarked in 1974, to make room for 39 units of residential condos, while adding numerous windows and a rooftop penthouse to the exterior.

The church has sat across from Central Park at 96th Street since 1903, when it was constructed as the First Church of Christ, Scientist. The building was designed by Carrère and Hastings, a well-known Beaux-Arts architecture firm best remembered for its design of the New York Public Library’s main branch on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street.

As the years passed, the congregation’s membership fell and the building was sold to the Crenshaw Christian Center East. However, the ownership passed hands again in the summer of 2014, this time for $26 million, to Shapiro’s sister Irene, who quickly flipped the property to Brunner for $42 million, according therealdeal.com.

After spurring debate and opposition through three rounds of hearings before the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the developers ultimately won LPC approval for their plans in March of this year and proceeded to a hearing at the BSA on December 1.

As the opposition rallied again to voice their disapproval during the BSA meeting, their main argument centered on a possible discovery about the historical importance of the church’s stained glass windows. That is significant since, according to the developers’ stained glass consultant, their plans envision preserving the windows, but removing religious icons on them as part of the residential conversion.

In an attempt to halt the developers, Michael Hiller, the attorney representing the Central Park West Neighbors Association, explained that there’s evidence that the church’s stained glass artist was Mary Elizabeth Tillinghast, a preeminent female stained glass artist from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

According to Hiller, both the group and Landmark West!, an advocacy group pressing for more historic preservation designations on the Upper West Side, are hoping the LPC will reopen its consideration of the project “in the coming days” based on the evidence regarding Tillinghast’s role in creating the windows.

Hiller also charged that the developers’ argument for the zoning variances they are seeking from the BSA was without merit and “jargon-infused mumbo-jumbo.”

During the board meeting, the developers, represented by zoning consultant Calvin Wong, argued that the building’s current status creates hardships that cause financial burdens in owning the building.

Residents opposing the project, however, contended that the landmark status was granted to help keep the church building a community resource.

“It could be a museum, some sort of community center, a concert hall,” said Susan Simon, a neighbor of the church. “In those cases, it would still be something that’s a resource for the community as opposed to having this once public facility turned into a private facility.”

Simon added that the church structure was enormously significant in its historical value to the Upper West Side and the city.

“It is an absolutely spectacular example of Beaux-Arts architecture,” she said. “It has been what I would call a crown jewel of the Upper West Side for 100 years.”

Hiller, the neighborhood association’s attorney, also argued that the church could be retained as some sort of community resource, like a school, a museum space, or another religious institution.

According to Wong, there were efforts made to locate a tenant that would not require exterior alterations, but all attempts proved fruitless.

For the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, which was interested in the building, a deal was never struck.

According to Andy Ackerman, executive director of the museum, it was interested in purchasing the building, as opposed to renting the space. Despite conversations with the developers, however, he said the breakdown in talks was “primarily an economic issue in terms of proposed purchase price.” He declined to elaborate.

Though most of the public comments at the BSA hearing were in opposition to the project, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, a non-profit preservation advocacy group, expressed approval.

“There’s always a sense of loss when an iconic building like this changes,” said Ann-Isabel Friedman, the director of the conservancy’s Sacred Sites Program. “But on the positive side, it’s still with us and the public view of it is being preserved.”

Friedman said that the building had a lot of maintenance issues that were neglected throughout the years. The Crenshaw Church, during its ownership, focused on maintenance of the interior, but the exterior was never really kept up to par, according to Friedman.

Only the exterior of the church is landmarked, and Friedman said she considered the proposed changes there “relatively modest” and argued that restorative work the project will enable is crucial.

In the end, the BSA concluded that the application for 361 Central Park West required a more realistic valuation of just how lucrative the sale of the new apartments would be as well as clarifications about the scope of the restorative work. In addition, after hearing comments about the possible historical significance of the stained glass, the BSA may give time for the LPC to inquire into that issue.

The board gave the developers until a January 12 hearing to provide the additional information requested.