Letters to the editor

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 7 | November 10 - 16, 2006

Dean: Right back at you

To The Editor:
Re “Your seminary source” (letter, by Melodie Bryant, Nov. 3); “Foreman flubs the facts” (letter, by Robert Trentlyon, Nov. 3); and “Dissects dean’s letter” (letter, by William Borock, Nov. 3):

Allow me to set the record straight on recent assertions about the General Theological Seminary in letters to the editor. One writer suggested that the seminary did not want the public to attend the recent unveiling of its new building. The opposite is true. We selected a prominent and accessible venue to accommodate hundreds of people in the hope that many would attend. We publicized the event for weeks in advance. Neighbors on our e-mail lists received several notifications. We sent announcements to Community Board 4, elected officials and other community leaders asking that they forward them to their constituents. For three days we posted fliers, only to see them torn down right away. For the record, anyone who wants information about upcoming meetings can contact Chris Ballard at ballard@gts.edu.

The fact is that the seminary’s commitment to preservation is longstanding and substantial, as reflected in our program to provide mortgages for homeowners in redlined communities in the 1960s and 1970s. The seminary gave more than 110 mortgages at about half of the prevailing interest rate. About 30 of the mortgages were for homes in what is now the Chelsea Historic District. The other 80 were for homes across the city, with concentrations in East Harlem and the Lower East Side — distressed communities where the seminary did not have property values to protect.

Many people, including noted urban historian Joyce Gold, credit the seminary with saving many of the historic structures in Chelsea. At the time, Hortense Gabel, city Rent and Rehabilitation manager, was quoted in The New York Times as saying that the seminary “helped spark the whole renewal of the Chelsea area.” In the late 1970s, due to a major shift in the landscape of American theological education, the seminary faced declining enrollments and revenue and discontinued the program.

A final clarification — the New York Landmarks Conservancy is on the record in support of the seminary’s preservation plan, having stated: “We agree with Beyer Blinder Belle’s assessment of the deteriorated conditions of your buildings and the need for restoration and repair.” The Landmarks Conservancy recommends that the work begin as soon as possible to prevent irreparable decay. Copies of the preservation plan and the Landmarks Conservancy’s assessment can be found at www.savetheseminary.org.

Ward B. Ewing
Ewing is dean and president, the General Theological Seminary