[Magdalen] Fwd: Re: St Paul's-on-the-Hill, St Paul, MN

[Jim Guthrie]

Yet another church that became a private club for aging members 
worshipping in a museum.

It should be noted that in some states, like New York, a church with a 
Crypt or Colomabium cannot be sold. That's caused som pain for the 
Diocese of Long Island having to do some maintenance on closed parishes. 
The attempt has been made isn some cases, at least to organize new, 
ethnic parishes in those buildings, assuming the "old guard" who led it 
into decrepitude do not speak Span ish or Mandarin or Creole. The good 
news is that some of those plants have been quite successful, which 
proves the value of a parish changing with the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, for those interested in church real estate, it should be 
noted that the Jehovah's Witnesses have put up theirformer Brooklyn 
headquarters up for auction, and it's expected to fetch at least 
$1-Billion-with-a-B; That's in addition to the #25-million they got from 
the earlier sale of a building now known as 1 Brooklyn Bridge Park in 
the trendy Dumbo section of the borough.

They've built a new eco-friendly headquarters near Warwick, NY in the 
fast growing suburbanizing Orange County NY -- about 40 miles from the 
George Washington Bridge. That there's fairly decent bus service from 
Manhattan also means that employees don;t necessarilly need to relocate.

Compare that to the disaster that **is** 815 -- with all the negatives 
of an aging 1950s building that's not very attractive as real estate, 
despite its midtown location (it would likely be a tear down if sold 
with the attendant low-ball proce).

And, of course, the pressure to move has generally been driven not by 
stewardship, but by the hostility toward all those "liberal ideas" that 
come from having a headquarters in NYC. Got news for those folk: The 
JW's have been in NYC for a hundred years, and you don;t get much in the 
way of "liberal ideas" from them <g>.

Cheers,
Jim