The Appraisal: Mormon Church?s Plans for Land Upset Harlem

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

A garden in Harlem owned by the Mormon Church, whose Utah officials decided to sell the property to a developer. An adjacent building housed Harlem's first Mormon congregation, which moved around the corner to a new church in 2005.

The wider world does not often glimpse the internal disputes of the Mormon Church. Formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the fast-growing religion is expanding in places as far-flung as Africa and Latin America, but most big decisions are still made centrally by a church hierarchy in Salt Lake City.

Recently, though, a debate over a ramshackle church property in Harlem has spilled into public view. And perhaps it is no surprise what subject could raise passions strong enough to override Mormons? aversion to airing differences outside the church: Manhattan real estate.

What is at stake is, at first glance, extraordinarily modest: a crumbling, windowless, one-story building on 129th Street between Lenox Avenue/Malcolm X Boulevard and Fifth Avenue, and the grassy vacant lot beside it. Harlem?s first Mormon congregation met in the building before moving in 2005 to a larger, newly built church around the corner at 128th Street and Lenox. The congregation and some of its non-Mormon neighbors still use the windblown lot to grow vegetables, train Cub Scouts and host family barbecues.

Now, though, church officials in Utah have decided to sell the property to a residential developer. They rejected two proposals that would have kept the garden and housed community services next door ? one proposal from a neighborhood nonprofit organization and another from members of the Harlem congregation.

Suddenly, the unprepossessing property represents much more.

The Mormons find themselves torn between two charitable missions ? the global social welfare projects that go hand in hand with its energetic proselytizing, which proceeds from the sale will support; and the needs of Harlem, where the mixed-race congregation has achieved a hard-won measure of acceptance despite the church?s fraught history with African-Americans, who were barred from the church?s ministry until 1978.

Neighbors who enjoy good relations with the church fear a rare chunk of open space will be lost to the gentrification that has washed across Harlem over the past decade, improving community life in some ways and threatening it in others.

?It?s a disappointment,? said Rachel Tew, who has lived on the block for decades and is a member of a Harlem land trust that tried to persuade the church to give it the land or sell at a discount. ?The more condos you build, the more expensive it becomes for the little guy like me.?

Ms. Tew, who is not a church member, holds a key to the church garden and coordinates with members to open it for neighbors? parties. Such events, she says, bring back former residents who fled poverty and drug dealing and show them how things have improved. She also grows vegetables there.

?Tomatoes, cucumbers, red, yellow and green peppers, thyme,? she said, a little wistfully. ?Rosemary. Lettuce. I grew a lot of herbs, purple basil. Different things.?

All this comes at a time of increased attention to Mormons. Mitt Romney, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is a Mormon. And New York subways are plastered with ?I?m a Mormon? advertisements featuring Mormons of color ? some from the Harlem congregation ? that display the religion?s growing diversity.

So church officials were eager to emphasize that the sale did not reflect a lack of concern for the neighborhood.

?The church has deep respect and regard for the traditional character of the community of Harlem,? said Ahmed Corbitt, a church spokesman.

He said the church?s gleaming new meeting house demonstrated its investment in Harlem. On March 7, it will hold an African American Family History conference offering free genealogical research. The multimillion-dollar building, like other Mormon churches, was financed by the tithing of Mormons worldwide; selling the old property, he said, would replenish those coffers and help finance churches, agricultural projects and ?storehouses? ? centers that give out free food ? in needy places around the world.

He said that the central headquarters knew best how to allocate resources, and that while local congregations? recommendations were considered, ?local members and leaders wouldn?t have that global perspective.?

But Wayne Collier, a Harlem congregation member, said the church was missing an opportunity. He said he and others had proposed turning the land into a ?welfare center,? with a cannery, storehouse and employment center ? all institutions the church currently has scattered from Inwood to New Jersey. He said his proposal was to keep the garden and build the center next door, with rental apartments above it to finance that project and others.

Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=fec7a6566639a0d961998da6b0a6e256

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