Long Island Town Debates Future of 19th-Century School

Submitted by wsimari at: February 6, 2010
Once again, the wrecking ball casts a shadow over a treasured Garden City landmark. Apparently destined to follow the the fate of Stanford White’s Garden City Hotel, St. Mary's School and almost half of the town's original “apostle” houses, the magnificent high-Victorian monument to Alexander Stuart, St. Paul's School, stands abandoned and alone, awaiting the results of an environmental impact study that may well be the final hurtle to demolition. To an outside observer, it would appear that the residents of Garden City have declared war on their own architectural heritage.   As a frequent visitor from a more ordinary corner of Nassau County, I had often glimpsed St. Paul's across the rustic expanse surrounding another Stewart-era landmark, Incarnation Cathedral; I sensed some sort of communality between these two gothic figures which stood apart like distant relatives at a family gathering.   Attending a book fair at St. Paul's years later, I had an opportunity to move in for a closer look. I never did find a buyer for my 1902 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica but never mind, I had stumbled onto the threshold of a magnificently unspoiled treasure. Soaring above its main entrance, the spires, turrets and gables of St. Paul's animated the sky and sent the imagination into overdrive. Here, in our suburban landscape, ever hungry for color and dimension was a banquet in stone, fancifully served up, bejeweled in imagination- a delight to the senses from every vantage point. How many hollow modern imitations inspired by just this sort of grand interworking of stone and art had I seen masquerading as historical reference and served up to those who had never been fortunate enough to experience the real thing? Here, windows sang in stone, grand arches and sentinel spires spoke of a timeless constancy – of a confident jurisdiction over a way of life long past. The very entrance to St. Paul's freezes the visitor in a moment of pomp and heraldry; the portal is overseen by gargoyles, and is flanked with stone-embroidered glass, all embraced in the unity of stylized crossed-sabers overhead. Once inside, I found a world of paneled walls, path-worn floors, of ennobling stories come to life in stained glass, of a hundred secret corners, infused with a sweet spicy smell of aged wood that set the imagination loose in a flurry of fantasy. Here, with time suspended and senses charged, one could feel a palpable communion with lives played out before, with grand halls inhabited by youth swept along by some inner light not unlike that which flooded the chapel's windows each morning.    Perhaps it takes an outsider to put things into perspective: I find Garden City a unique and tangible statement that suburbia need not be bland, lusterless and historically disconnected. I don't live here but I'm glad St. Paul's stands. Perhaps the bricks and mortar of this village did not take shape simply by trading imagination for profit. It was, after all, the vision of an idealist with the means to build his dream. It was sustained by the faith of his widow when she emblazoned his name in stone over the entrance to St. Paul's. Reducing Cornelia Stewart's great signature monument to landfill would be a tragic mis-step, a squandered opportunity to engage in bold, creative planning, an erosion of village identity and an irreversible loss of Garden City's sense of place. Not unlike Penn Station, most here will come to mourn the destruction when it is too late. Public ownership or private development? Open land or mothballing? Higher taxes or demolition? Squabbling aside, could anyone credibly deny that there are countless ways to recycle St, Paul's, and possibly realize a profit by reinventing this extraordinary building? Lost somehow amid all the disagreement is the astonishing fact that a majority of Garden City residents did not vote to demolish St. Paul's. Certainly the six million dollar demolition cost could be more creatively spent: yes, it's all been discussed before: adaptive re-use as senior housing, a new home for municipal offices. Is any of this really so objectionable when you consider the greater rewards to the village? Can the plain-vanilla boxes that now house the town hall and the library even begin to compare to the soaring grandeur of St. Paul's with its gracious spaces, fireplaces and storybook windows framing greenery in three directions? There is room here for cafes, a library, a bookshop, a museum, a screening room, art galleries, a community gymnasium or health club, continuing education classes; one can easily envision the rebirth of the chapel as a community theatre (complete with vintage organ as a backdrop); not to be overlooked is that all of this would be packaged within a, green, pedestrian-friendly environment, a selling point that could, and should, capture community imagination and the spirit of the times. Would not a reincarnation as senior housing or even as a college, allowing preservation of its landmark exterior, be preferable to seeing it disappear forever? With the desire for open land an issue, the town need not sell off all the property; certainly the adjacent athletic fields could be retained for public use with St. Paul's as a key player offering ancillary services, town facilities, entertainment, and yes, a dramatic backdrop. Other communities have successfully found both profit and marketability in their recycled landmarks, many of them considerably less impressive than St. Paul’s. It is not hard to imagine St. Paul's as the centerpiece of a unique tableau of attractions and services drawing people from the surrounding area and beyond. Here is an opportunity to boost community pride, achieve a sense of accomplishment, preserve history, and build on forward thinking that just might prove contagious to other communities seeking ways create new centers of public life.   An article published in June of 1897 in the New York Times spoke of St. Paul's thus: "(the school)… has attained a position which makes it an object of pride to the New Yorker…the graduates…making themselves known at Yale, Harvard and Princeton… The boys at St. Paul's are are a fine healthy, wholesome set. They are healthy because they are in a healthful place…" The writer goes on to describe the spacious halls, the athletic traditions, and the spiritual quality found at St. Pauls: "At the head of the grand staircase, on the second floor is the chapel, a wonderfully beautiful little worship room which has more of the truly religious atmosphere than most cathedrals…The cathedral at Garden City is not so important an institution as St. Paul's School."    It is sad to think how far from grace St. Paul's has fallen since that article was written. If the stone entablature over the entrance to St. Paul's bearing the inscription, "In Memoriam Alex. Turney Stuart", is allowed to be ripped from its walls and tossed to the ground in a heap of rubble, Garden City will have diminished itself both materially and spiritually. It would be sadder again if Garden City does not step in, search its heart, and stay the wrecking ball before it is too late. Sometimes, making the right choice, in this instance, choosing glorious rebirth over advancing mediocrity, should not require so much debate. 

Submitted by FormerResident at: February 5, 2010
What a shame it would to lose this landmark. Very few towns in America can claim such a grand and historic building. Given it is in the center of town, and has been such an integral part of the architecture of GC, it would be a grand blow to GC and its history. Did we not learn from the destruction of the old GC Hotel....replaced by a non impressive and run of the mill hotel with no historical value or style? Keeping and preserving St Pauls is a good investement as it makes GC unique and INCREASES property value. Dont be short sighted,,,,save this treasure!

Submitted by Gregory Hubbard at: February 26, 2009
Garden City? Garden City... Isn't that the wealthy Long Island community whose town government has sat idly by while nationally significant landmarks were destroyed? A government whose knowledge of and enthusiasm for historic preservation has always seemed inversely proportional to an historic building's commercial viability and importance? Like the famous Garden City Hotel - Let's see, a McKim, Mead, and White hotel building of extraordinary quality; the hotel where Lindbergh stayed the night before his great flight? Now to be visited only in photographs... and the replacement building that looks like the worst Miami Beach has ever had to offer... So this crowd are now reviewing the preservation of the remarkable St Paul's School? It'll be gone by next Tuesday.

Submitted by Diana at: February 13, 2009
This is a lovely and gracious old building... I applaud your efforts to save it....

Submitted by Arthur Mboue at: February 12, 2009
With warren buffett, it will be a good palazzi for the abused, just 5, 10 or 15 acres around this gothic building

Submitted by Garden City Life editor at: January 29, 2009
hello, i just read your article and was wondering when/where Garden City residents "will meet to discuss the potential future of the building" this Saturday, jan. 31.