I think thats a placeholder, the church hasn't been designed yet.
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church
Great photo: thanks. Given 'the (modern) belly' next door. If that building - or something similarly modern is going to be right on top of the Church - a 'contemporary' architectural style would be far more contextual. I have been looking for some more graphics/news on the the Church design; being that the 'Architectural Design' has not been finalized there is a least the possibility of seeing a 'modern greek orthodox' church built on that site.Originally Posted by antinimby
Last edited by infoshare; January 11th, 2009 at 11:41 AM. Reason: Add links to Graphic
Church Destroyed at Ground Zero Is Still at Square One
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: March 18, 2009
The tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is once again at the forefront of the myriad disputes that plague the rebuilding effort at ground zero.
The fate of the church, a narrow whitewashed building that was crushed in the attack on the World Trade Center, was supposed to have been settled eight months ago, with a tentative agreement in which the church would swap its land for a grander church building on a larger parcel nearby, with a $20 million subsidy from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This would have allowed work to begin at the south end of the site.
But the two sides never came to final terms. After months of negotiations, the Port Authority, which is overseeing reconstruction at ground zero, ended its talks with the church on Monday, saying that the church had sought increasingly costly concessions.
Complaints, of course, abound on both sides.
The authority now says that St. Nicholas is free to rebuild the church on its own parcel at 155 Cedar Street, just east of West Street. The authority will, in turn, use eminent domain to get control of the land beneath that parcel so it can move ahead with building foundation walls and a bomb-screening center for trucks, buses and cars entering the area.
“We made an extraordinarily generous offer to resolve this issue and spent eight months trying to finalize that offer, and the church wanted even more on top of that,” said Stephen Sigmund, a spokesman for the Port Authority. “They have now given us no choice but to move on to ensure the site is not delayed. The church continues to have the right to rebuild at their original site, and we will pay fair market value for the underground space beneath that building.”
Last July, the Port Authority and the Greek Orthodox Church announced a tentative plan to rebuild the church just east of its original site, at Liberty and Greenwich Streets. The authority agreed to provide the church with land for a 24,000-square-foot house of worship, far larger than the original, and $20 million. Since the church would be built in a park over the bomb-screening center, the authority also agreed to pay up to $40 million for a blast-proof platform and foundation.
In recent negotiations, the authority cut the size of the church slightly and told church officials that its dome could not rise higher than the trade center memorial. The church, in turn, wanted the right to review plans for both the garage with the bomb-screening center and the park, something the authority was unwilling to provide. More important, authority officials said, the church wanted the $20 million up front, rather than in stages. Officials said they feared that the church, which has raised about $2 million for its new building, would come back to the authority for more.
The termination of negotiations is a major setback for the little church, a parish of 70 families that is nearly 90 years old. St. Nicholas officials had hoped to build an impressive structure, with a traditional Greek Orthodox dome, and a nondenominational center for visitors to ground zero. That will not be possible on the church’s original 1,200-square-foot lot, although church officials say they hope for reconciliation.
“We consider the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Church a sacred obligation to the victims of 9/11, to the city of New York, to the people of America and in fact to the international community,” said Stavros H. Papagermanos, a spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. “We will continue to discuss in good faith and we believe that all parties involved are well-intended, and ultimately we will overcome any obstacles that have arisen.”
One person who was involved in the negotiations on behalf of the church, and who insisted on anonymity so as not to inflame the situation, criticized the Port Authority, saying it had made constantly shifting demands on St. Nicholas. Still, he said, the remaining issues were relatively small.
But it does not appear that the Port Authority is posturing. And while the Bloomberg administration expressed regrets about the impasse, officials said it was far more important to proceed apace with building a memorial, a transit center and other projects at ground zero.
St. Nicholas, a four-story church, became a symbol of resilience after it was destroyed, with George E. Pataki, then the governor, and Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, vowing that it would rise again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/ny...l?ref=nyregion
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Look for a quick resolution.
The Cordoba House controversy is being picked up by the "Rebuild St. Nicholas Church" coalition.
The previous deal between the Port Authority and the Church fell apart last year (see Post 48, above) ...
George Demos Appears on Fox News –
Calls on Port Authority Director Chris Ward to
Stop Blocking the Rebuilding of
St. Nicholas Church at Ground Zero
The Suffolk County Republican
August 2, 2010
George Demos, the Conservative Republican Candidate for Congress in the First District of New York, appeared on Fox News today and called on the Executive Director of the Port Authority Chris Ward to immediately stop his bureaucratic roadblocks and to make the rebuilding of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at Ground Zero a top priority.
Demos stated that it was disgraceful that the Port Authority of New York/ New Jersey reneged on a deal with Church officials and for over a year has refused to meet with the leaders of the only house of worship actually destroyed on September 11, 2001. Demos noted that our government is spending billions of dollars to rebuild the infrastructure of Ground Zero, yet no plan exists for rebuilding the Church. Demos reiterated that our Judeo-Christian values are under attack in our nation and that rebuilding the Church transcends any particular denomination.
Demos also renewed his call to investigate the sources of funding for the newly proposed Mosque near Ground Zero given the serious questions about the background of the Mosque proponents.
Demos concluded that we owe it to the memory of the 3,000 victims of September 11, 2001, including the 168 from Suffolk County, many of whom prayed at St. Nicholas, to rebuild the Church.
*
The authority will, in turn, use eminent domain to get control of the land beneath that parcel so it can move ahead with building foundation walls and a bomb-screening center for trucks, buses and cars entering the area.
the little church, a parish of 70 families
The Port Authority agreed to provide the church with land for a 24,000-square-foot house of worship, far larger than the original, and a $20 million subsidy
Since the church would be built in a park over the bomb-screening center, the authority also agreed to pay up to $40 million for a blast-proof platform and foundation.
$20 million subsidy for a church with only 70 families? that's $285,000 per family, plus I guess the up to $40 million they agreed to pay for a blast proof platform and foundation. Suddenly this little hole in the wall church with barely 70 families is somehow worth 24,000 sq ft plus $285,000 per family, plus up to $571,000 per family for the pro rated platform/foundation cost.
I'm wondering where the church's INSURANCE was, and why the Port Authority should be paying a dime of money let alone land and $20 to $60 million on top!
The Port Authority I don't see has eminant domain, that is for a court to decide.
As far as the design of the facade, what's wrong with replicating what was there before, it was a unique facade, and nothing about it would even be the slightest bit difficult or above normal masonry construction costs to build. It didn't have carvings, cornices or anything like that.
At the least, the above should not be one sentence.Demos reiterated that our Judeo-Christian values are under attack in our nation and that rebuilding the Church transcends any particular denomination.
Somehow this issue got caught up with the whole GZ mosque thing. Whatever one thinks of that, the two issues are wholly unrelated. The church existed pre-9/11, was destroyed as a result of Port Authority incompetence, and the PA has since kept the parishioners from rebuilding for the past nine years, by seizing their land and using it to build an underground garage which did not exist pre-9/11. (There was an underground garage, but it was somewhere else.) The PA originally promised a land swap, so the Church could be rebuilt, but then quietly (so quietly, even the Church did not know about it) backed out of the deal when the Governor in favor of the deal left office. Now, the PA is saying, sorry, you will have to wait another decade or so until we finish the garage (as with everything else the PA does, it is in no particular hurry to finish), after which, if you have any parishioners left, and still want to rebuild on your original site (which will now abut a truck ramp), we will cut you a small check -- not for the value of the church our buildings fell upon and destroyed, nor for decades-long expropriation and use of your plot of land, but only for the "value" of the space underneath. In short, this is a story of state-sponsored malevolence.
Last edited by BPC; August 22nd, 2010 at 04:54 PM.
What
Nothing new under the Sun here. The WTC was a well-known terrorist target since at least 1993. Even before the terrorist era, there were appreciable concerns that the towers could be felled by an accidental airline collision. The PA promised everyone that the towers would hold up. Turns out, they screwed up the tests, they inadequately fireproofed the steel beams, etc. While foremost blame for 9/11 goes to the terrorists, and secondary blame belongs to that band of idiots known as the federal government's intelligence, law enforcement and immigration authorities, much if not most of the tragedy (principally loss of life, the Church being, at the end of the day, only a building) could have been prevented had the PA taken proper precautions. Anyway, this is a little off point here, and will properly be the subject of numerous lawsuits heading for trial in the years ahead. My only point being, if you don't properly fire-proof your building, and then it falls over and crushes the building next door, you at least should properly compensate the next door building owner, even if you are a huge government agency.
I think the issue of the mosque and that of the church are exactly the same - NYC real estate.
The church owned the land that was located in the parking lot; the rest of the parking lot [West, Liberty, Washington, Cedar Sts] was owned by the Millstein family. An office or mixed-use tower was planned for the site. That's why the South Pedestrian Bridge from the WFC was built with a stub end; it was to connect to the second floor of a building.
I don't remember the dollar amount, but the church was offered several times the value of its land by Millstein; they refused to sell.
For their part of the land swap with the LMDC/PA, Millstein did quite well. They got the rights to build at 2 sites in BPC.
Maybe Governor Paterson can work out a deal to allow St. Nick's and Cordoba House together to construct a joint building on the site.
In theory, how great would that would be: Christians and Muslims come together on Liberty Street!
On the other hand: The site is directly above the Vehicle Security Center. That might cause some supposedly reasonable folks to bust a gut.
Seems like the church should be getting rental on anything built below the surface of their land.
No doubt giving up that "rental" income was part of the proposed deal whereby they could re-build larger than what was there before, plus gain the additional cash.
Whoa. Interesting info about the surviving pedestrian bridge. And I thought I knew all there was to know about the site.
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