Arun Venugopal, Gothamist.com, May 6, 2022
Members of Manhattan Community Board 7’s Preservation Committee took a stand against the proposed demolition of West Park Presbyterian Church last night, voting against the 132-year-old Upper West Side church’s application to be relieved of its landmark designation.
The committee’s 8-1 vote (with one abstention) is advisory and came at the end of a four and a half-hour meeting that included many impassioned pleas from community residents to save the crumbling red sandstone building, once described as “one of the best examples of a Romanesque Revival style religious structure in New York City.”
The issue now moves to the entire community board, which in turn will issue its recommendation to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission that, only 12 years ago, designated the property as worthy of preservation.
