There’s been a huge crane blocking egress in our parking lot for most of the summer. If you come down very early some morning you can talk to mason Kevin Mussleman who is completing a detailed survey of the entire southern and western façades of our building. He’s finding where the mortar between the bricks or limestone blocks has aged, fallen out, or is in need of replacing. This enormous “repointing” project is appropriate for a building that’s celebrating its 150th birthday this year. (Kind of like going to the dentist and having cavities filled so you don’t loose any teeth!)
Part of our legacy as The Park Church certainly includes our building – it is our biggest asset and our biggest liability. Imagine it brand new – with a dumb waiter bringing up coal from the basement to heat the various furnaces, when the sanctuary was illuminated by a gas lit chandelier hung under the skylight. (Electric street lights would not replace gas ones until 1883.) And now we have heat, air-conditioning and de-humidification with electricity sourced from solar collection panels!
Over the past four years, we’ve accomplished many historic preservation and capital improvement projects for our facility. And thanks to the church stalwarts who came before, we have an invested endowment fund that can assure our building’s survival into the future.
Here’s a list of some of our recent preservation and capital projects:
2020: Exterior landscaping and painting of doors, windows, and the Kirker-Bender spiral slide. A new sign for the Church Street entrance. Ethernet cable strung throughout building. We paid off the last $50,000 of the roof mortgage!
2021: Paved the parking lot. Received a huge surprise bequest from C. William Brand enabling us to hire Willet Hauser to do a complete stained glass window condition assessment and then completely restore six west side sanctuary windows at their studio in Winona, Minnesota and to repair six others on site.
2022: Began heat pump project for Beecher Hall and the sanctuary - bringing AC and heat while lessening our dependence on fossil fuels. Competed landscaping on the Gray Street side of the property. Received another surprise bequest from Nonnie Denton. Applied for a City of Elmira grant for up lighting along the Wisner Park façade.
2023: Received that City grant and lit up the night -- highlighting our eclectic architecture. Beefed up both external and internal security with cameras, signage and the “hardening” of doors and windows. Updated our audio and video capabilities in the sanctuary. Completed installation of both the heat pump system and the restored sanctuary stained glass windows. Cleaned out and refreshed three unused spaces on the second floor creating possibilities for a large gym and two artist studios.
2024: Successfully negotiated with the City of Elmira to trim the Wisner Park trees that had been touching our building and allowing squirrels easy access! Hired Hunt Engineers to inspect all our systems and create a full building assessment for future capital projects in anticipation of becoming more accessible throughout the building.
Began a project to improve AV presentation quality in Beecher Hall for our use and for that of outside organizations.
Hired Kevin Mussleman to repoint those bricks and find that leak that we’d been trying to repair for three years.
Thanks to all our contractors, volunteers and funders for all these projects. Thanks to you – it’s still working!
See you next Sunday, Jenny
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