A proposal to demolish the AME Zion Church appears to have stalled following an appearance before the City of Newburgh Architectural Review Commission in May. The more than a century-old building has deteriorated in recent years, but historians say the building is culturally significant and must be preserved.

“I see the church as a symbol, a symbol of all the progress that has been made by the African-American community in Newburgh, the wider African-American community in the Hudson Valley,” said Orange County Historian Johanna Yaun. “The history of that community is not about one individual person, building or moment in time, it’s the story about the grand strides taken by the community.”

AME Zion Reverend Julius Walls Jr. spoke in front of the commission on May 8, explaining the aged building, located on Washington Street near Liberty Street, had grown increasingly expensive to maintain.

He presented a plan to demolish the majority of the church, keeping architectural features such as doors and bells to be salvaged for use in a new, handicap-assessible building. Church officials also proposed that 50 apartments be built on adjacent church-owned property.

Walls said the building is not part of State and National Registers of Historic Places. However, according to the meeting minutes, city Assistant Corporation Counsel Jeremy Kaufman said the city deemed the building “to have historic character and contribute to the aesthetic of the historic district.” Church leaders were asked to return with a revised plan with more details and information required by the city zoning code.

An historically significant building

Orange County Historian Johanna Yaun said she was “shocked” to learn of the proposal.

“If we’re going to be tearing down offensive monuments, we also need to be able to lift up, preserve and highlight the monuments that symbolize equality,” she said, referring to Confederate monuments in cities such as Memphis and New Orleans being taken down due to changing American values. “This is a story we want to tell people about.”

(Photo from City of Newburgh Historian) The AME Church was built on Washington Street in 1833. “Zion” was added to its official title in 1848.

Plans for Newburgh’s celebration of the 150th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’ jubilee march along Washington Street are already in the works for 2020, she said. “It happened in honor of the passing of the 15th Amendment,” she said, which granted African-American men the right to vote in 1870.

That year, Douglass, a revered African-American statesmen and abolitionist, visited Washington’s Headquarters and the Newburgh Opera House on Second Street, where he gave a speech on the new amendment. He also visited AME Zion Church, the first African-American church in Newburgh and now the oldest in the Hudson Valley. A monument stands outside the church, marking the event.

The church was founded in 1827 and moved to Washington Street in 1833. Designed by Frank Estabrook, the current church was built in 1905.

Congregation members including George Alsdorf and family are believed to have aided runaway slaves escaping through the Underground Railroad.

The church survived two attacks by angry mobs around the time of the American Civil War. The first took place on New Year’s Eve, just prior to the war in 1860, and the second on Jan. 1 in 1863, following President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The church and its congregation would live to see many other monumental events occur in the centuries that followed. “They passed the flame of civil advocacy for centuries,” said Yaun.

An aged structure

Newburgh AME Zion Church Pastor Milton Stubbs declined to comment for this story. In a 2016 interview with the Mid Hudson Times, however, Stubbs said the congregation was planning a fundraising campaign that year to repair the building, which faced serious challenges even then.

“The bricks are deteriorating due to age,” said the pastor, motioning to the crumbling exterior of the building, one of several problems he pointed out at the time. Stubbs described issues with a staircase and other access points. Two fires in the mid-2000s had badly damaged parts of the church, he said.

“It seems logical that you would want to build something that functions in a modern way, that fits the community today,” conceded Yaun, when the subject of building safety was raised.

Old church buildings can be rehabilitated and repurposed, and the church’s historic status can be used as a powerful tool for fundraising, Yaun said. “If a congregation leaves a church, it can be turned into lots of versatile things. If you build a modern building without architectural charm, there is no second use for it down road,” she said.

“If they tear this building down, that’s it,” Yaun asserted. “We lose that building. We are not being good stewards of our heritage if we tear down an historic building. We’re not giving the next generation a chance to market it, reuse it, adapt it.”

City of Newburgh Historian Mary McTamaney weighed in on Monday.

“I oppose demolishing the AME Zion Church because no one has offered a convincing reason it needs to be torn down,” she stated in an email. “It is a 1905 sanctuary that has held generations of sacred and social events.”

McTamaney said hundreds of Newburghers had contributed to the construction and maintenance of the church over the years. “If the interior entry steps are difficult for the elderly, put in a chair lift,” she wrote. “Other multi-level churches have done so. Living in Jesus Ministry did that on South Street, so did Grace Methodist on Broadway.”

“If the motivation is to enter a new era of managing a housing ministry, there are several housing organizations already working here to partner with that have good experience and would welcome more support,” she wrote.

McTamaney said she understands that attendance and contributions have dropped for churches, in general, making it increasingly difficult for congregations to maintain church buildings.

If the building is failing structurally and can’t be rehabilitated, then the congregation should consider moving to a different building, she said. “Then our community can welcome future generations into the spaces that their elders treasured,” wrote the historian. “I believe it is important to stand in the footsteps and sit in the spaces of those who came before us. It adds a dimension of understanding to our history.”

Yaun said plans for the 2020 celebration to honor Douglass’ visit to the city will move forward regardless of what happens with the church building.

By SHANTAL RILEY sriley@tcnewspapers.com