About that architectural renaissance; now Buffalo’s church buildings are leaving town
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When Buffalo made the cut as one of seven cities that are primed for an architectural renaissance, it was understood that isolated instances of demolition would inevitably play a role in its rebirth. Abandoned homes, obsolete institutional and commercial buildings, that sort of thing. But it was not anticipated that rebirth would happen due to addition by subtraction - by de-constructing the east side’s St. Gerard’s Roman Catholic Church (pictured), shipping the pieces to Norcross, Georgia, and re-building it as Mary Our Queen.
St. Gerard’s was built in 1911 as a one-third scale derivative of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. Unlike, say, Buffalo’s crumbling German Roman Catholic Orphanage, St. Gerard’s was an active parish until recently (2008) and has only minor structural issues caused by a leaky roof. That and the quality of its construction would seem to council against removal and hint at a viable future use with minimal investment. But the parish’s neighborhood is in no position to support its continued life as a church and the Buffalo diocese alone has 22 other unused properties.
Naturally, preservationists in Buffalo are fractured over whether St. Gerard’s departure is a good thing (since it may be good for the building in the long term, but bad for Buffalo in the short term). All things considered, I suspect that if the move actually happens, it will be tough to tell if it is a net positive development. It certainly will be for Georgia and Mary Our Queen parishioners, since a move will allow it to avert the construction of what would surely be a sorry echo of St. Gerard’s (moving St. Gerard’s would cost twice and much as a simpler, new building and one third as much as a similarly opulent, new building). But for Buffalo, whatever benefits accrue will be indirect and harder to quantify (e.g., one less at-risk building to worry about, to the marginal benefit of hundreds of other aging buildings within Buffalo’s city limits), while disadvantages are quite concrete (e.g., loss of an excellent, early 20th-Century building in a neighborhood that needs all the help it can get).
Interestingly, the Georgia congregation was actively looking for old, unused church buildings in the Northeast (since the region has plenty) to house a growing membership. St. Gerard’s was not the first candidate, but it turned out to be ideal since it resembled a design the congregation commissioned for a new building.
Moving buildings is hardly unprecedented; but moving a building 900 miles south is nothing if not unusual (it is always controversial, as a historic preservation strategy), particularly since the move is not being forced by a private development or public infrastructure project.
In any event, I still like Buffalo’s chances for a renaissance in the coming decade.
Read the USA Today article here and Mary Our Queen’s website on the move here.
Related Posts: (1) Are “Architect Barbie” dolls really the best way to get girls into architecture?, (2) Seven cities primed for an architectural renaissance - Buffalo, and (3) Manhattan misadventures in historic preservation.
Image courtesy of tmanbuffalo.
I like the idea of churches being used for their original purpose, albeit 900 miles away from their original home. Here in Baltimore, an old church would be turned into $450,000 condos and would only serve one narrow demographic. At least in Georgia, this old church will continue to serve a community in the way it was intended.
Thanks for the comment, Carol. On top of those reasons, keeping it intact as a church would also serve it architecturally, since its opulent interior wouldn’t be partitioned into smaller spaces. And if I were a Georgian, I’d much rather go to church in an old, transplanted building than a cheap, new derivative!
…make that “…rather than an expensive new derivative”. New construction is not “cheap”.
This solution is perfect; the building is saved and Buffalo funds may be focused on a smaller number of cathedrals. It is unlikely that an architecturally gifted town can raise the money to properly maintain all of the old buildings. It is criminal to see these buildings demolished.
Quite right, Kathleen. By “cheap” I was referring to quality and durability of materials often used in modern constructions of this style church building - not the price tag. Similarly, you may very well be right that moving the church is the perfect solution for all. It is simply difficult to demonstrate as much by pointing to the pros and cons in this case. When the comparison is between (1) diffuse benefits in Buffalo (in the form of less-stretched financial and political resources) and (2) concrete negatives in Buffalo (the loss of a nice building in a struggling neighborhood), people often make the error of assuming that the concrete negatives outweigh the diffuse positives. Not because the negatives really do outweigh the positives, but because the negatives are easy to quantify and the positives are not.