The struggle between preservation and extinction played out at a meeting of the Jersey City Historic Preservation Commission on Monday night.
The object of the struggle: St. John’s Episcopal Church at 120 Summit Ave., a few blocks from the old Jersey City Medical Center.
Earlier this year, a historic preservation group called the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy had filed an application with the Preservation Commission, hoping the structure could get municipal landmark designation. The distinction would protect the building from demolition.
The Conservancy is concerned that the church will be eventually demolished by the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, which currently owns the building.
The Episcopal Diocese closed the church in 1994 after it had served the community for more than 100 years, complaining of a declining congregation and unnecessary costs to maintain it.
At Monday’s meeting, guests heard from a representative for the Landmarks Conservancy and a representative for the Episcopal Diocese.
After two and half hours, the meeting ended with no decision. Instead, the case will continue to be heard at a special meeting of the commission this coming Monday.
The Episcopal representative argues that the building is not worth preserving in it’s current condition–but it’s current condition is due to none other than John Shelby Spong, who shut down the parish and then sold it’s beautiful collection of Tiffany windows to a private collector in Japan. One of the hallmarks of his tenure was his ruthless attitude towards houses of worship in poorer neighborhoods. In a diocesan newspaper interview, he once admitted quite frankly that he was more favorably disposed towards wealthy parishes,which gave him “more bang for my buck” in the form of greater financial contributions to the diocese.