Built in 1941-42, this was originally Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church, whose membership comprised hundreds of Danish immigrants. The congregation dwindled as the demographics of the area changed, and, to serve a growing number of Arab Lutherans in Bay Ridge, the church was handed over to a Palestinian pastor in the mid-1990s and rechristened Salam Arabic Lutheran Church, making it the first such church in the US. But this congregation, too, was cash-strapped, and, in late 2010, the synod decided to sell the church to a developer who plans to tear it down and build an apartment building in its place. Sound familiar?
Day 76
Awaiting the wrecking ball
March 15th, 2012
The same thing happened in my old neighborhood. There was a Catholic church over a hundred years old, huge and a beautiful work of art. Then it was sold to put up a low income housing unit that is rife with Marijuana use, and is even where a tenant died from smoking a PCP laced joint.