116-Year-Old West-Park Church May Get Landmark Status

There was some alarm last last week when preservation group Landmark West sent out an e-mail speculating that the beautiful 116-year-old West-Park Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side was being readied for demolition. Not so, said church officials; they've just been doing some work to repair a broken water pipe. But that doesn't mean the historic sandstone building is safe from meddling; the church has been trying to figure out some way to add a profit-generating residential development, which could alter the structure. So preservationists have been leaning on the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which voted today to hold a hearing on the church. Curbed predicts a contentious debate at the LPC, quoting Chairman Robert Tierney's general acknowledgment that many owners "lack the resources to make repairs to these large and grand buildings." In the opposing corner, Commissioner Stephen Byrns calls the church "one of the top five ... buildings in the city."