Wikimedia Commons
The old Mishkan Israel building, now ECA.
There’s an architectural trend in secularization in New Haven, and it’s only gaining speed as we transition from the 20th century into the 21st.
The 1904 episcopal Church of the Epiphany, now below the Q-/Pearl Harbor Bridge, became a restaurant in 1944, then a plumbing supply house, then a strip club. The Calvary Baptist Church became the Yale Repertory Theater. The Trinity Home Church was taken over by the Salvation Army. The Henry Austin Design Chapel is soon to be turned into market-rate rental housing. The Orange Street location of Temple Mishkan Israel moved to Hamden, its building becoming the Educational Center for the Arts. It may be saving a building by adaptive reuse, but it means one bigger thing: churches today are in great danger.
The transition of churches from places of worship to sites of industry, commerce and habitation is not limited to New Haven; it’s just highly pronounced here. But is this embrace of the profane, this kind of “worship at brunch,” posing a danger to the very spiritual fabric — and architectural history — of this country?
I would say yes. This flight from faith has put just about every church building in New England in a place of danger. The First Church of Christ Scientist on Whitney Avenue, built by Douglas Orr in 1950, became a part of the new Hooker School built about a decade ago. As a member of the Connecticut Episcopal Diocese’s Property Committee, the remaining Episcopal churches are exploring a number of architectural adaptations to maintain a missional presence. The Episcopal Church of St. Paul & James feeds the hungry from its undercroft and may reinvent its parish hall to stay where it is. Plans for St. Andrews to renovate its parish hall as a second chapel in Newhallville are in limbo.
Join me as I explore this topic in an episode of “Design Czar.” To listen, click on or download the above audio.
