Episcopal Press and News

St. Bartholomew Loses Appeal of Landmark Status

Episcopal News Service. March 21, 1991 [91079A]

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider the appeal of St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, thereby bringing to a close the midManhattan church's decade-long constitutional challenge to its landmark designation. [See ENS 90265, Oct. 10, 1990.] The landmark status specifically prohibits property development, and, as a consequence, St. Bartholomew's must abandon plans to erect a revenue-generating office tower on the site of its Community House. The church's senior warden and chairman of its vestry, Fletcher Hodges III, said that St. Bartholomew's "next step will be looking into long-term fund-raising programs to support church activities." The Supreme Court upheld without comment a lower court ruling that St. Bartholomew's landmark designation did not unduly limit the church's religious freedom and property rights. The structures of the Byzantine-style church were designated as landmarks in 1967 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and cited for their "historical and aesthetic interest and value as part of the development, heritage, and cultural characteristics of New York City."