Falls church
on National Register
Published on February
7, 2007
Author: Gail Franklin - NEWS NIAGARA BUREAU
© The Buffalo News Inc.
The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara ( our next-door neighbor at Manchester House Bed and Breakfast) is the city's most
recent addition to the National Register of Historic Places, and the
first church in the city to gain such a designation.
The 1921 church received
local and state landmark status in recent months, and just got word
that it was given federal designation on Jan. 25.
That means the congregation
of just over 50 can now apply for grants that would help pay for preserving
one of the items that makes the building at 639 Main St. so unique:
its facade.
"That was a major incentive,
when there was the possibility of getting grants for that project,"
the Rev. Frances Manley said of the church's decision to apply for historic
status.
The exterior of the church
is composed of roughly cut pieces of limestone dug out of the bedrock
on site during construction excavation, and then artfully installed
with mortar to protrude as much as five inches from the wall. The arrangement
of the stones was meant to resemble the wall of the former Schoellkopf
Power Plant, which was destroyed in a rock slide in 1956.
The effect is three-dimensional
-- but beginning to deteriorate and let moisture into the building.
"We feel the building is
a landmark in Niagara Falls and should be preserved," said Thomas Yots,
city historian as well as a church member. "With estimates of $120,000
to repoint the stonework, and there's 53 of us . . . where would we
get that money?"
After that cost estimate
was received several years ago, church leaders decided to have Yots
write the application for historic status. Now that it has been approved,
the historian said the church will begin applying for grants that may
cover up to 50 percent of the costs to keep the building looking as
it did when it was built.
Manley said the church also
decided to apply for historic designation status to make sure it would
be enjoyed in the future despite whatever happens to the congregation.
"It means someone else can't
come in and easily tear it down," Manley said. "It's kind of that long-term
insurance for the building that we can't provide just by wishing it."
The church resembles City
Hall, just a block away. Both are examples of the Neo-Classical style
of architecture and feature similar monumental columns.
Yots said the local designation
gives it protection from demolition. The city's local list of historic
places now includes 22 buildings, which are flagged in the city's records
so that any proposed permits for work on them are first reviewed by
the city's Historic Preservation Commission.
Manley added that the whole
process has had a positive psychological effect on members.
"People are proud of the
building," she said. "Before we thought, 'Maybe this is too much building
for us. Maybe we can't afford to keep it,' but this sort of thing really
helps us to feel some pride in the building."
Similarly, Yots said that
the building of the church was surrounded by uncertainty. It was built
for a small congregation of liberal religious people and "no one was
sure it was going to succeed," he said
. So the design was plain
but included a theater stage so that if the church failed it could be
sold as a concert or theater hall, or easily adapted for some other
purpose. "But it did succeed, and it grew," Yots said. And with its
new historic status, it now has a chance to be preserved.
