Church collapse shows need to preserve historic houses of worship, advocates say
“Let’s use this tragedy as an excuse to get this conversation going. It’s serious and it’s not going away and it’s going to get worse.”
Historian and preservationist Bill Hosley
The pile of stone that was once a seemingly indelible landmark in New London should wake state residents to the urgent need to save Connecticut’s historic houses of worship, preservationists say.
“Let’s use this tragedy as an excuse to get this conversation going,” historian and preservationist Bill Hosley said of the collapse on Jan. 25 of the Engaging Heaven Church. “It’s serious and it’s not going away and it’s going to get worse.”
The cause of the cavein of the church’s granite steeple and much of the roof is under investigation as demolition of the entire structure is completed. Roof repairs on the circa 1850 building, designed by the same architect who planned “Iranistan,” P.T. Barnum’s Moorish Revival mansion in Bridgeport, were done five or six years ago and no problems were noted then, a city building official said.
Whatever the cause, however, the church’s destruction has animated conversations among historians, municipal officials, and faith leaders about deferred maintenance and the expense of preserving towering structures meant to symbolize a heavenly bond. The steeples of Congregational churches, in particular, have defined Connecticut’s landscape for centuries.
At Faith Congregational Church in Hartford, the Rev. Cleo Graham and her core flock of 50 to 60 worshipers face a $500,000 expense to reroof the Main Street church, which was built in 1871 and is perhaps the city’s oldest Black congregation. The church building, which the city assessor lists at 24,648 square feet of finished space, also needs work on the exterior brick walls.
The New London church collapse, Graham said, “is a very frightening situation.”
“But at the same time,” she said, “when I accepted this call three years ago, I knew that we needed to pay attention to the building.”
Her husband, Melvin Graham, is vice chairman of the church’s board of trustees and has done extensive research on the building where Harriet Beecher Stowe once attended services.
Melvin Graham said structural engineers have assessed the building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and some repairs have been done, but maintenance is a constant concern.
The church recently received a $100,000 grant for the roof work from the National Fund for Sacred Places, a program of Partners for Sacred Places in collaboration with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Through the partnership, at least 100 houses of worship were to be awarded $20 million over eight years beginning in 2016.
But grants for houses of worship are relatively sparse in the U.S., the Rev. Rochelle Stackhouse, senior director of programs for Partners for Sacred Places, said. To avoid any appearance of partiality to one faith, many charitable organizations and employers that offer matching grants avoid giving to religious organizations, Stackhouse said.
At the same time, she noted, many congregations in Connecticut are shrinking, filling only a few pews in often cavernous buildings that are “ridiculously expensive” to maintain. Stackhouse was pastor of Center Church in Hartford when potentially catastrophic rot threatened the iconic 1807 building at Main and Gold streets opposite Tower Square.
“The steeple was literally going to fall into the Travelers Tower,” she said.
The church is integral to Hartford and state history as the oldest and still active Christian community in the city, founded by the Rev. Thomas Hooker after he and his followers arrived here in 1636. Repairs in 2018 cost about $2 million. Funds were raised from the congregation, the state Office of Historic Preservation and private organizations, including Partners for Sacred Places, Stackhouse said.
The collapse of the New London church, she said, could provide a turning point in awareness for the need to preserve older churches and other houses of worship.
“We would love to see this raise the consciousness of granting organizations to say, ‘Hey, this is our heritage,’ ” Stackhouse said.
She and Hosley noted the many services churches provide to communities, including aid to the hungry and homeless.
“These buildings have civic value,” Stackhouse said. “It’s not just a pretty building that’s used on Sunday. They’re really critical to the health of our communities, and that’s the message that needs to get out there.”
One answer, preservationists say, is for faith leaders to partner with other organizations to expand uses in church buildings and share costs. Hosley said interfaith alliances, between Christians and Hindus, for instance, are one possibility.
Hosley is former curator at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and former director of Connecticut Landmarks, which maintains historic properties throughout the state. For years, he has been sounding off on the importance of preserving historic houses of worship, which, he wrote in text accompanying a presentation, represent “the pinnacle in artistic achievement, monumental expression and praise.”
“This got a lot of people’s attention,” Hosley said of the New London church collapse. “I think this will turn out to be the preservation story of the decade.”