Update (Thursday Doors)

All over the city at multiple locations
buildings scaffolded due to renovations–
protection for pedestrians to avoid litigations.
So many different kinds of alterations–
some structural, invisible, correcting violations–
(many of questionable durations)–
Old facades emerge as revelations–
new life, new stories, new iterations,

A little over a year ago I photographed this church which was clearly undergoing a complete renovation, inside and out. This week I decided to check out the progress–still no real doors, but the scaffolding is off. It looks good.

The interior is still being worked on, but the top (photographed from my window) with its strangely altered roof and pyramid structures also looks near completion.

I did not investigate last year to find out exactly what was going on. It turns out the 130-year-old building, Mt Pleasant Baptist Church, was in such bad repair in 2013 that its congregation had to relocate. A plan was subsequently approved by Landmarks to save the facade and basic structure of the church by adding luxury condos (hence those pyramids…). Space would be allocated both for worship and community based education.

The apartments are actually quite tasteful and nice–if a bit pricey. You can see the plans here.

There is a running current of dissatisfaction about the proliferation of building scaffoldings, some of which remain up for years, all over the city. Our local city council member even had a contest for worst/longest standing scaffold in the neighborhood recently. Part of the problem is Local Law 11 which requires that building facades be inspected and repaired every five years. Sometimes this process takes almost the entire five years. And then it has to be done again.

The City Council keeps trying to reform and simplify the law, but there is a lot of opposition. As you can imagine, scaffolding companies and contractors have a lot of money invested in the way things are.

I think this project will be finished soon though. I’m very interested to see what the final doors look like, And I’m glad they saved and refurbished the windows.

My poem is a monorhyme quadrille for Muri’s Scavenger Hunt, and for dVerse, where the quadrille word this week, provided by Punam, is alter.

And be sure to check out all the doors at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.