Cold War Neighbors

It doesn't have to be this way, but it has been this way before and it feels like we are there again. They want what they want and it legally belongs to them, not to us.  But we want something too.  We are tired of seeing our neighborhood eroded.  Contrary to what some people believe...what you see around where you live is important and as a society we mostly agree that property rights do not trump all other rights.  That is how we got laws like zoning laws that limit, to some degree, what you can do with your own property.  It's why you can't mow your lawn at midnight, or throw your trash out into the alley or let sewage spill onto your neighbor's property.   I'm not saying this current disagreement that the neighborhood, and others are having with St. Mary's and the Lafayette Diocese are the same as any of that, but I am pointing out that not wanting your sight line spoiled or changed is a valid feeling to have. The feelings of those who don't want the house destroyed are as valid as the feelings the Church has about wanting to remove the house.

In a prior post I described some societal and demographic changes as part of why church and the neighborhood association (and others)  seem to be in a sort of "cold war" now and for the last 20 or 30 years.  I think there is more to the story, something more personal and I think there is blame enough to go around.

It might have started about the time St. Mary's was doing some major restoration work an also planning to add a large fellowship hall to the west side of the Cathedral.  The building committee hired an architectural firm for the building project and they came up with a design that appeared to all of us to be horribly wrong...it tried to meld a sort of modern feel to the front of the church.  It looked like (on the drawings and plans that two opposite styles were fighting for control of the facade of the building.

There was an uproar from those who did not like the proposal...enough so that a  new facade design was adopted that everyone mostly agreed on.  Of course that resulted in some delays and probably additional design costs for St. Mary's.  I'm certain some folks thought of the plan change as a "victory" over the big, pushy church, while others thought of it as a loss to a random bunch stuck up nosey neighbors in other words that whole episode amounted to a zero-sum game that set the tone for the next quarter century.

 The next big skirmish in our ongoing cold war happened when the  Munger house and the Walgamuth house were slated to be town down. Just as soon as the notices were tacked to the fronts of the houses neighbors went into action trying to find a solution, other than demolition. Those two houses were important historic lynchpins for that part of the neighborhood.  Both highly visible and in good solid condition.  This time no one from the church had bothered to talk to the neighborhood before they applied for demolition permits What the leadership at St. Mary's church were telling was that they needed to remove those houses in order to give the children at St. Mary's school a "real" playground.  It was being done "for the children" because playing on the large asphalt parking lot just wasn't any fun, although students there had been playing on that lot for at least a couple of generations. The Walgamuth home had been one of the two oldest homes built in the neighborhood, possibly even predating the erection of the church. 

The whole disagreement could not have come at a worse time.  Bishop Doherty had been appointed to the Lafayette Diocese and arrived in town during the thick of  the debates.  On the day of his Ordination when there were hundreds of parishioners and clergy from many parts of the country in attendance.  Some neighbors made large signs promoting the preservation of the two houses.  I don't recall what any of the signs said, but they had been posted in a very public location near the church.  I heard, but can't confirm, that flyers were placed on many of the cars parked in their parking lots or parked near the Church on Columbia and South Streets.

I have no trouble understanding why Bishop Doherty would have been sore at the people of St. Mary's neighborhood. Is he still sore at us?  We lost that skirmish and lost two fine old homes and many of us were angry also.  For a long time that anger was renewed each time we drove or walked past those now vacant lots.  But, there was more disappointment and anger to come after it became known that the REAL REASON the church wanted to vacate those lots was for future school expansion and had nothing to do with a "playground".  We had been lied to and today those lots remain vacant.

About two years ago St. Mary's neighborhood did get invited to the unveiling of the master plan St. Mary's hopes to carry out over the next few years.  They pointed proudly at 1014 South and announced that they would be restoring that one as the new rectory after the old rectory was torn down....two years passed, the old rectory was torn down and all of a sudden we see the "intent to demolish" legal notice on the front of the building that they had promised would be turned into the new rectory.  From our point of view we have been lied to,  twice,  by the same people.  At what point do you consider something to be a habit? I would note that when the historic rectory was demolished last year there was no pushback from the neighborhood because we knew they would be moving to the house on South Street.

Probably the most hurtful of all is that all of this negative activity in our neighborhood happens without so much as a second thought about any of us who live here, and then they seem surprised and hurt that we are not happy.  As the cartoon says...it needn't be this way.  Talking is always more productive than silence and right now all I'm hearing is a lot of silence. Was the timing their latest "intent to demolish" random, or did they choose holiday time on purpose, knowing it will be difficult for any opposition to get much traction during the Christmas Holiday season?

Can the clock be reset on this relationship between a church and those of us who live around the church?  That remains to be seen but it is my Christmas wish...that St. Mary's would become a part of our neighborhood, instead of apart from the neighborhood.  Wouldn't it be really great if St. Mary's church became a partner with and an advocate for the neighborhood?  Just a daydream?

What they don't get.

Lafayette, Indiana 

St. Mary's Historic District

Why is it that I  feel like my neighborhood is always "at war" with the good people at St. Mary's Catholic Church and the Lafayette Diocese?  Good question because it's happening again so I'm taking a guess about the causes of the problem.   

Once upon a time, when the church on the hillside was new,  a neighborhood built up around the church.  A number of parishioners built homes in that neighborhood.  In the days before automobiles churches served a fairly small geographic area and people walked to church or used some form of horsepower.  That is part of the reason why there were so many little rural churches...people did not want to make long trips to church.  

In the beginning, the neighborhood around the church was full of parishioners.  The leadership of the church, both clerical and lay were neighbors.  There was a real connection to the place and to the people of that place.   The automobile changed everything including the relationship between churches and their neighbors. A neighborhood church became something different.  The automobile gave us the suburb.  People could now live miles from their church building and yet make the trip in the same amount of time...or maybe less time.  No longer were clergy looking at the same faces on Sunday that they could see every other day of the week while shopping at the neighborhood grocery store...   I believe the problems we have now between the church and the neighbors of the church are the result, at least in part, of that shift in dynamics resulting from changes in transportation.  I guess what I am saying in summary, is that the church is visited once or twice a week by strangers to the neighborhood.

The loss of a single building in a neighborhood might be something to regret, but in the big picture one building, with some exceptions,  is not particularly dramatic or meaningful or even harmful to a neighborhood. What they don't get, what has been lost sight of,  by the leaders of the church is that a neighborhood is the sum of its parts. Each tree, each stone wall, each fence,  house, doorway, and garden and each person living there are parts of a bigger picture.  Hacking away at one, and then another, and another individual part can only result in a less colorful,  less rich whole.

The Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception under the guidance of the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette now hold a permit to remove one more element from my neighborhood. In a mere 56 days the waiting period will expire and they will have the legal right to bulldoze 1014 South Street into a pile of dust. That will be the 5th period home they have removed.   The neighborhood will again get a little less colorful.  I fear my neighborhood is facing a drab, monotone existence if the church continues these attacks one at a time.

My Christmas wish is that St. Mary's Church and the leaders there would become a part of my neighborhood, and not remain apart from us.  

#save1014southstreet
#findanotherway
#stopthedestruction
#myChristmaswish

When Neighborhoods Go Awry

     Lafayette, Indiana

Saint Mary's Cathedral

It is a beautiful building, grand in both style and setting. Perched halfway up the hillside east of downtown the spire can be seen for a long distance.  When I moved to this neighborhood almost 30 years ago I thought of that cathedral as a positive feature.  Most of the homes in our neighborhood date from the period in which the church was built in the 1860's up to about 1900.  A number of the homes were built by parishioners of that church. 

Like most of the older neighborhoods near the city center,  many of the homes here had been converted to multiple unit apartments.  Big old houses cut up into anywhere from 2 to 7 or 8 smaller apartments,  but there were still some outstanding examples of homes that were single-family, and owner-occupied.  

I suppose you might say I was naive in my initial assessment of neighborhood dynamics. There were perfectly obvious examples of neighborhoods that proved my belief that this church was going to be a positive influence in our neighborhood was a Pollyanna daydream. 

I had grown up on a White County farm but most of my adult life has been spent in Lafayette. I had already been a beat cop in Lafayette for 12 years when we opted to purchase the old Shambaugh home on Columbia.  Had I only thought about other neighborhoods in my own town where large well-funded institutions sit at the heart of a neighborhood I would have realized my views were excessively optimistic.  The two local hospitals were perfect examples. Where those institutions once occupied perhaps a square block they eventually expanded to large multi-block campuses and neighborhoods lost dozens of homes as a result of that growth. It is a bit of sad irony that both hospitals eventually left the neighborhoods they had hollowed out.   Purdue University has devoured blocks of residential stock in West Lafayette through it's history.  Other downtown churches had expanded their footprints within their neighborhoods.  I had seen all of that. 

If I was looking for a long lasting stable neighborhood why had I ignored all the signs?  Why did I think the neighborhood around St. Mary's Cathedral was exempt from growth or change?  I simply can not answer that question. We loved the house and the location was excellent for a busy family, convenient to schools, work, shopping and to Purdue. The risk seemed outweighed by the advantages.  

Not long after we settled in and got to know some of our new neighbors I thought it might be a good idea if we had a neighborhood association like some of the other neighborhoods we were hearing about.  Ninth Street Hill and Perrine neighborhoods had formed groups and had tackled issues in an effort to make positive improvements to their respective neighborhoods.  They had some successes which encouraged us.   I remember walking from door to door meeting all the property owners who still lived in their homes and many of those who rented apartments too.  I remember approaching St. Mary's in an effort to get them involved in our new group.  A few of our very first meetings were actually hosted in a basement meeting room in St. Mary's school.  I say "hosted", they opened the room for us but did not attend any of the meetings we had there, neither priests, nor officers, nor any members made any effort to join our group although for the first year or so we tried to interest them in doing that.  Eventually, we decided it was more fun to take turns meeting in one another's homes for our monthly meetings. It seemed that St. Mary's wasn't really interested in getting to know their neighbors.  

When we arrived in the neighborhood there were 33 owner-occupied homes in our neighborhood.  The original boundaries of our district were from the old Wabash RR tracks to Five Points and from Main street to South Street.   Today there are a dozen fewer owner-occupied homes.  St. Mary's church has taken down two fine historic homes that were owner-occupied when we arrived, besides two other houses and one small business building.  Today they again want to tear down one of the true jewels of the neighborhood and one that retains its original exterior appearance including the original wrought iron fence, the original porch trim, & original carriage house. Unlike many old structures, this one looks just like it did in the 1880's when it was built. 

Those of us who own these old homes and value the neighborhoods understand that sometimes it just makes no practical sense to attempt to rehab and reuse a building.  A building uncared for many years eventually reaches a certain point of decay that makes preservation impossibly expensive to repair. The house at 1014 South Street now cleared for destruction after the waiting period ends does not appear to be one of those impossible cases.   From all appearances, this house is far from that point.  When the church bought the property several years ago neighbors were given the idea that their intention was to use the house as a Rectory.  Now we learn that what they want to do is wreck it and build a new Rectory from scratch on the lot.  

I can only speak for myself but what I've learned about living near St. Mary's that it is something like living in the near vicinity to a supermassive black hole and you never know what's going to be swallowed up next.  I might also use the analogy that the church is killing the neighborhood, not in a single dramatic fashion but...death by a thousand cuts. It's a slow way, but ultimately effective. Most frustrating of all is that church leaders refuse to talk to neighbors....not just now, but every time they have taken this sort of destructive action...there was never any talking until it was much too late to find alternate solutions. Clearly, the relationship between the Church and the neighborhood is broken, if it were a marriage it would qualify for a divorce.  Maybe it can be repaired, but it has taken 30 years to reach this state so I don't have a lot of hope.  #stopthedestruction #save1014southstreet #findanotherway