The Rev. Don Olinger at one of the final services at the Presbyterian Church of Astoria. More Photos >
THE REV. DON OLINGER was supposed to have delivered his last sermon months ago. By now, the bulldozers were supposed to have come through and leveled the Presbyterian Church of Astoria, an 86-year-old gray stone building that sits on a tree-lined residential street in that Queens community. Instead, Mr. Olinger has been preaching before members of the congregation every Sunday, just as he has been doing for 14 years. Only next Sunday will he deliver his final sermon in the church, after which the building will be closed permanently, in preparation for its demolition.
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Mr. Olinger has continued preaching because, along with what remained of his dwindling congregation, he was waiting for resolution to the long tug of war over the future of the church building, which is to make way for housing for the elderly. An area within the housing development is to be set aside for services and other church activities.
The church sits in a neighborhood that has boomed in recent years. Apartments in the area’s mostly low-rise brick buildings are more affordable than many in Brooklyn, outdoor cafes line the sidewalks, and Midtown Manhattan is only 15 minutes away by subway. With land at a premium, the 175-foot strip along 33rd Street, near Broadway, where the church is located, along with its gym and pastor’s residence, was precious turf.
Astoria Presbyterian’s history dates to 1846. The current building, a huge Colonial Revival structure, was built in 1922, and behind four columns and three sets of double wooden doors sits a two-level sanctuary that can hold up to 500 people. But the congregation, which during the peak years of the 1950s had more than 1,200 worshipers, has shrunk in recent years to fewer than two dozen active churchgoers. With the decline, the church has struggled to support its buildings, and, especially, to cope with rising utility bills. The church also needed major repairs, including updated wiring and new heating and plumbing systems.
Like many dying urban congregations, Astoria Presbyterian faced decisions about whether to lease or sell its valuable land, decisions that led to a bitter debate that has pitted congregants against their minister and one another.
This sort of debate is becoming common in historical New York churches. Increasingly, churches are selling their land for development, sometimes in collaboration with nonprofit groups that are pursuing social justice missions and other times to private developers eager to build condominiums.
“I like to say I made a wrong turn on I-95 somewhere,” Mr. Olinger, dressed casually in shorts and sneakers, said one afternoon in his parsonage. That may be the easiest way for him to explain how a 56-year-old man from Virginia with a persistent Southern drawl ended up at the center of a controversy in a New York neighborhood 450 miles from his birthplace.
A Multicultural Microcosm
Although Astoria Presbyterian’s congregation has shrunk, it is deeply multicultural; its members come from at least eight countries, including Portugal, India and Japan. In this respect, the church is a microcosm of its community, long a Greek stronghold but now one of the borough’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods.
Typical among the congregants are Arnold Baboolal, 38, who is from Trinidad, and his wife, Dolly, 31, who is from Guyana. Every Sunday for the past five years, the couple have been attending church with their two children. At a Sunday service shortly before Easter, their 2-year-old daughter, Victoria, was attired in pink from head to toe, save for her purple pacifier. No one seemed bothered by the fact that she roamed around the church during the service and occasionally crept behind the piano to hit the keys.
Although the pastor is legally blind, the result of a degenerative disease called Stargardt’s that began taking his vision when he was 38, he has enough residual vision to recognize most of his congregants and greet them by name.
That Sunday, Mr. Olinger had asked the younger parishioners to sit in the first pew for the children’s sermon. Lowering his voice almost to a whisper, he talked about why good things and bad things sometimes happen at the same time. For example, he said, Danielle Rhodes, the music director, was leaving for six weeks to perform in Philadelphia. It was sad that she was leaving, he told the children, but people were happy because the opportunity was a good one for her.
Nine little heads nodded as Ms. Rhodes took the microphone and with tears in her eyes sang her last song.
A Congregation Divided