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  Home > Book Shop > Architecture and Design >

  The Battle of St Bart's by Brent C. Brolin
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Our Price: $12.28

Condition: See product description
Make/Author/Artist: Brent C. Brolin
Edition/ Material: 1st edition 1st Printing
Details: Hard Cover

Quantity in Stock:1

Product Code: BTTLST

Description
 
The Battle of St. Bart's started as an intramural conflict between two factions within one of the largest and most socially prestigious Episcopal churches in the United States. Soon it escalated into a full blown war between Church and State with basic constitutional issues at stake. But what Brent C. Brolin shows in this book is what took place behind the public debate is a story -- a plot, if you prefer -- worthy of a vintage Louis Auchincloss or James Gould Cozzens novel.

St Bartholomew's Church, community house and garden sit on prime real estate on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has designated the entire complex as a landmark. In 1978, the Reverend Thomas C. Bowers arrived to become rector of the church after brilliant ministries. Young, energetic and extremely charismatic, the rector proposed tearing down all or part of the complex to erect a skyscraper with a projected annual income of $5 million, the profits to be used for charitable purposes.

Backed by an enthusiastic vestry, the rector at first ignored the dissident minority within his church who opposed the tower. Their leader was J. Sinclair Armstrong, a former head of the SEC and deputy secretary of the navy, with as many connections to service organizations as to the Wall Street community. But what could not e ignored was the opposition of the city's landmarks commission, which exercised its right to veto the skyscraper as visually inappropriate. The church's only recourse was to show financial hardship, a plea the commission also rejected.

While the specific case involves only New York City, the issues it raises have national reverberations. To whom does the architectural heritage of a community belong? What if, as claimed, a church cannot survive without additional income? Are churches entitled to take part in real estate speculation? Is the bishop New York right in advising the parishioners of St Bartholomew's that they have a God given vocation to flight landmarks laws?

THese crucial questions are being debated by churches and landmarks commissions across the country, and they will be resolved by our courts. But inseparable from these questions, at least in The Battle of St. Bart's is the more personal drama of two men and two groups with honorable goals who have shown themselves more than willing to use earthly means to achieve spiritual ends.

CONDITION: Hard Cover with DJ, DJ shows wear. USED lightly. 288 pages, Stated First Edition / First Printing, 1988. William Morrow and Company : Publisher

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