May 4, 2009 10:14 pm US/Eastern
DeFede: "A Sad Day" For Miami Preservationists
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
Early Monday morning Arva Moore Parks watched in horror as a bulldozer tore through the former chapel of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church – a structure built in 1912 and believed to be the oldest church building in Miami.
"I'm just so sad," she told me by phone from in front of the church, the sound of the bulldozer still roaring in the background. "We asked them to give us a week, to try and come up with a plan to save the church, but they wouldn't wait. It's as if they came out here this morning and knocked down the front of the church to just shove it in our face and close off any more discussion."
St. Stephen's stopped using the chapel for services in 1958. In recent years the building was home to a trio of kindergarten classrooms. There was also a small retail space connected to the building which was on McFarlane Road near Peacock Park in Coconut Grove.
Parks along with other well-known and respected preservationists met with officials from St. Stephen's Sunday night – begging them to hold off the demolition. The preservationists had only learned late last week the building was slated for destruction. The permits had been issued without anyone at the City of Miami alerting local preservation boards.
Neighbors of the church were horrified when they saw a demolition notice go up on the site. They held vigil throughout the weekend, at one point calling police on Saturday when workers began using sledge hammers on the front of the chapel.
An emergency meeting was called between the activists and the head of St Stephen's, the Rev. Wilifred Allen-Faiella.
"We expressed our concern that this structure could never be replicated and it was important to maintain for the history of the Grove," recalled Jorge Hernandez, an architecture professor at the University of Miami and a trustee at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "We asked for a week to work with them on a design that would do everything they wanted and still preserve at least part of the structure. If after a week we couldn't make it work then we would have accepted their decision to tear it down."
The meeting ended around 8 p.m. Sunday.
Three hours later Pastor Willy – as she is better known – called to tell them their demolition plans were going forward.
By 7 a.m. Monday, the bulldozer was plowing through the church's facade and knocking down the steeple.
"We did not take our decision lightly," Pastor Willy said Monday afternoon. "I have tremendous respect for people who admire history but we are called to be the living body of Christ."
She said her focus was on serving the needs of her congregation and the old building would not allow her to do that any longer.
"When buildings get in the way of our serving Jesus Christ then we have no choice in the matter," she said.
She said she did not believe there was an alternative plan that would both serve the church's needs and preserve the building. "It was our decision that delaying five days – for a project that is so far down the road – at this point to interrupt it and start all over again would do irreparable harm to the families we are here to serve," she said.
She said certain plaques and items from the old chapel will be incorporated into the new building. The new structure will be environmentally friendly, she added, and may in fact become the first gold certified green elementary school in the county.
She said people also scoffed when the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris but everyone loves it today.
Parks and Hernandez said St. Stephen's rushed forward with Monday's demolition to end the debate.
They both said they were concerned that the permitting process at the city of Miami didn't catch the fact that a 97-year-old building, with a storied history in Coconut Grove, was being demolished.
"This never should have happened," said Hernandez. "There should have been some tighter controls."
He said the language in the permit was "extremely vague" and that there was no way to tell from the permit application that a 97-year-old structure was going to be torn down.
He said he was going to work to address that problem with city officials so this sort of thing won't happen again.
"It's a sad day," he said "It's sad because it can not be put back. It did not have to occur. There could have been another way."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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