Witness to Change
In the past few years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have received a great deal of attention in New York City, but neither for their door–to–door proselytizing, nor for their predictions of an imminent Armageddon. Instead, the New York press is abuzz with news of their real estate acumen. After almost a century of acquiring property in Brooklyn Heights, the witnesses have recently sold or put on the market seven of their twenty buildings. This constitutes about a third of their property in the Heights which they have accumulated since moving their world headquarters to the area in 1909. The Witnesses are estimated to be earning six times their investment on these buildings, a take which has set neighborhood tongues wagging.
Often viewed as a secretive, cultish sect dedicated to proselytization and rigorous adherence to doctrine, the Witnesses have been a source of constant tension among community members and media. As the Witnesses transition away from Brooklyn Heights, it seems critical to examine the impact of their prolonged and expanded presence in the neighborhood. Although their long–term effect is difficult to gauge, the Witnesses have left an indelible mark upon on the architectural, economic and social fabric of Brooklyn Heights. Though some characterize their relationship with the community as tense, their property acquisitions and revitalization efforts have notably improved the appearance and value of the neighborhood. The Witnesses’ expansion, seen in this light, may have given the area a remarkable boost towards becoming the safe, beautifully preserved, coveted neighborhood it is today.
Expansion Meets Preservation
Before the Witnesses arrived, Brooklyn Heights experienced several stages of development since its founding as a “leading private–residential district” in the mid 19th century. By the early 20th century, according to historian Clay Lancaster, the area “had deteriorated into a section made up largely of rooming houses” with some residents living in “crowded dingy conditions.” Businesses catering to working class residents emerged, including “some undesirable establishments,” alongside the surviving “venerable cultural institutions, such as Packer Collegiate Institute and the Long Island Historical Society”. The Witnesses harnessed this opportunity to gain a foothold in the area through increasing acquisitions.
Yet over the course of the following decades, young professionals moved to the area and “rediscovered” its picturesque charm. Fearing a transformation of the neighborhood from an onslaught of developers and planners, lawyer Otis Pearsall formed the Community Conservation and Improvement Council in 1958 to advocate for changes to zoning laws. The Brooklyn Heights Association (BHA) soon absorbed his organization, aiming to preserve the area’s historic nature. After eight years, the U.S. Department of the Interior declared Brooklyn Heights a National Registered Historic Landmark, and New York City approved the Landmarks Preservation Law, designating the neighborhood its first Historic District. The Watchtower Society—the legal apparatus of Jehovah’s Witnesses—asked that its properties be “excluded from the proposed territory” but the city ignored its request.
After this initial achievement, the BHA embraced the role of public watchdog against Jehovah’s Witnesses real estate activities. The BHA publicly denounced the Witnesses’ attempt to turn 107 Columbia Heights—a residential building—into a dormitory for Jehovah’s members, asserting that “the substitution of a large dormitory for the existing residential structures would destroy the principal charm” of the neighborhood. The BHA’s mention of the building’s size and internal organization demonstrated its belief that the internal and external qualities of the buildings in the neighborhood had a direct impact on its social fabric.
This project was not the first in which the Witnesses replaced 19th century brownstones with high–rise apartment complexes. In these instances, the Witnesses purchased houses, demolished them, and constructed dormitories in their place. Their early success suggests that if the BHA had not obtained Landmark designation for the neighborhood in 1965, the Watchtower Society would likely have continued with this stratagem, which although inexpensive, damaged the borough’s historic appeal.
A Tentative Partnership
The hostile relationship between the BHA and the Witnesses intensified during the 1960’s as the Witnesses attempted to shift tactics by purchasing and renovating existing apartment buildings. The BHA responded harshly, declaring that “even though the facades of the old buildings are now protected, the Heights cannot truly survive if its residents are gradually squeezed out by the tentacles of a burgeoning institution.” As the BHA’s confrontational statement demonstrates, the community viewed the Witnesses as outsiders, believing that they cared nothing for the city’s historic appearance and demography.
Yet the Witnesses proved willing to cooperate with the BHA, and even as early as 1967, they were collaborating closely to organize the construction and renovation of several buildings on the corner of Pineapple Street and Columbia Heights. Though the result of this collaboration is aesthetically questionable, Brooklyn Heights residents viewed the joint venture as a great success in blending modern and traditional architecture. The Watchtower Society had originally envisioned a twelve story dormitory on the site of four five–story buildings, three of which were historic brownstones. However, the BHA rejected the prospect of a “very tall building sprouting suddenly above a generally uniform cornice line” and applied pressure on the Society to alter their plans.
At the BHA’s insistence, and with the Landmark Preservation Commission’s support the Witnesses “shrank [their] blueprint to six stories” and “agreed to leave the front half of each [of the historic brownstones] standing, to tear down the rear halves,” and build their dormitory behind the preserved facade. The Witnesses even agreed to retain the architect plans recommended by the BHA. This development provided a model for interaction between the Witnesses and the local community, with the Witnesses accepting a design that was both smaller and more costly than initially planned.
The Unexpected Alliance
Despite newfound cooperation, the BHA continued to distrust the Witnesses’ intentions into the 1970s. Yet New York’s economy plunged early in the decade, rendering many neighborhoods crime–ridden and dilapidated. The period took its toll on Brooklyn Heights, with seven long–term hotels on the verge of bankruptcy. “There has been a change in Brooklyn Heights,” explained a resident in 1971 when interviewed by The New York Times. “Some of the brownstones are boarded up [and] the hotels don’t do the business they used to.” That same year, when a town hall was held in the St. George Hotel on the corner of Clark and Henry Streets to discuss high crime rates in the neighborhood, more than 500 members of the community came to protest the level of insecurity.
Many residents linked the high crime to the presence of a large number of welfare families placed in the local hotels. Indeed, at least seven hotels in Brooklyn Heights had become “a veritable dumping ground for welfare families.” Residents of the hotels, many of them elderly, complained of “rats, frequent crimes and brawls,” while residents of nearby brownstones, most of them middle to upper–middle class, often called the police about “very loud disturbances, garbage, bottles and even furniture being thrown into their gardens as well as into the street.” An official of the Brooklyn Heights Association told the press that “the community [was] very upset about this situation. There is no question,” he said, “that far too many welfare families have been placed in hotels in our midst. It’s not fair to them or to us.”
 The Bossert Hotel, purchased and renovated by the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the 1980s, is viewed by the Brooklyn Heights Association as an example of the Witnesses’ positive contribution to the city. Photo by Frederique Siegel. |
The failing hotels were an undeniable problem. Because they were designated for single room occupancy (SRO), they could not be converted to apartments. In this, then, the Witnesses’ search for a building to convert into a dormitory aligned well with the neighborhood’s desire to eliminate of the welfare hotels.
The Bossert Hotel was one of several that the Witnesses acquired and renovated during the 70s and 80s. By 1983, when the Witnesses purchased it, the building had been “reduced to a sad condition by age and neglect.” The ceiling plaster was falling apart, the window frames were completely deteriorated, and the marble walls were stained and cracked. The Witnesses restored everything, reproducing the mahogany windows in their own carpentry shop, casting new plaster for the ceiling, and hand–painting it to replicate its original appearance. They also had to “replace over 2,500 square feet of Bottachino Classico marble with stone from the original quarry,” and reincarnate the lost technique of plastering called “scagliola” which gave the columns a marble–like appearance. The Witnesses themselves performed the restoration. They issued a call for volunteers among their own members and raised funds through donations from Witnesses all over the world. Though this self–reliant method stoked the old suspicions of the Witnesses as an insular institution, the renovation was generally considered a success. It earned the Witnesses a “Preservation Award” from the New York City Landmarks Conservancy in 1991, and a Special Award for Architectural Excellence from the Brooklyn Heights Association in 1993. The renovations also increased property values in the area, and arguably attracted developers to Brooklyn Heights to rehabilitate other buildings in the area. Restorations became commonplace. For instance, the Pierrepont Hotel, another welfare hotel that featured prominently in the neighbors’ horror stories, was converted to housing for the elderly. The Margaret Hotel burned down, to be replaced by a modern high–rise design by the developer Bruce Eichner, who later sold it to the Watchtower Society. Eichner also rehabilitated the Franklin Arms Hotel on Orange Street, another former “neighborhood trouble spot.” The New York Times reported in 1971 that the “personal behavior of the Witnesses [was] not lost on members of the Brooklyn Heights community, especially in the months since the city began putting welfare recipients in local hotels.” A real estate broker interviewed by the Times in 1977 remarked in retrospect: “They’ve fixed up old buildings that had pimps and addicts in them... They keep their property in tip–top shape. Some idiots complain about them but I wish more people would take their example.”
Renovation and Restoration of the Hotels
Property values soared. Apartments that were selling for $3,000 a room in 1977 tripled in value every two years and sold for $10,000 a room in 1979, according to Henry Forster, a real estate agent in the area. Accounting for inflation, the five brownstones purchased by the Witnesses on Columbia Heights in 1946 for $203,000 would be worth $2.2 million today. When compared with current rates of $6–8 million similar homes on the same block now, the financial impact of the rehabilitation of the neighborhood becomes clear: the buildings enjoyed a 1250% increase value since 1964. While some of this growth must be attributed to New York City’s broader economic boom, the Witnesses seemed to have some effect.
Further, some of the elderly tenants remained in the hotel under Watchtower ownership. According to the representative of the Witnesses that I interviewed, they were very pleased with the ownership change and the security provided by the Witness–installed doormen. In 1993, the Brooklyn Heights Press interviewed May Gibbons, a woman who had been living in the Bossert Hotel for 17 years, over the course of which the hotel had changed to Witnesses’ hands. She recalled a time when “building security was poor and inside robberies were taking place” and was appreciative of the “feeling of safety she now [enjoyed].” She reportedly loved having Witnesses as close neighbors, and they in turn “warmly greeted” her in the lobby as they passed by.
A Tower Almost Grows in Brooklyn
In spite of their efforts to improve the community, the Witnesses once again ignited controversy in the 1980s when they attempted to build a residential tower atop their printing plant. While the building was not technically located within Brooklyn Heights, the tower would have impeded many residents’ view of the Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge. Their proposal involved changing the zoning from manufacturing to mixed use, so that they could construct a 35–story building, with housing, an industrial kitchen, and a parking garage. In the community’s view, the plan represented the Witnesses’ wanton disregard for the community’s history, architecture, and community.
The BHA mobilized the community to oppose the Witnesses’ construction. They attended hearings, organized petition signings, and encouraged residents to send letters to their politicians voicing their opposition to the zoning change. By 1988 the building design shrunk to 19 stories, but the BHA, remained staunchly opposed to the proposition and organized a rally that started at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and led to the Promenade along the East River. Hundreds attended the rally holding “banners and balloons and proclaiming, ‘Stop the Watchtower Building!’” The meeting was planned to coincide with the Board of Estimate hearing, during which the fate of the building would be decided. Over a thousand Witnesses and members of the Brooklyn Heights Community alike attended the meeting, testifying on behalf of or against the new construction. The Board overwhelmingly vetoed the Watchtower Society’s request for a zoning change. The BHA was specially commended for its “tireless efforts in mobilizing the residents of Brooklyn Heights,” again demonstrating the influence of the residents to determine the direction of their own neighborhood.
From Towers to Tunnels
In the aftermath of the tower debacle, the Jehovah’s Witnesses began selling some of their properties, and relations with the BHA and the neighborhood at large have noticeably improved. Neighbors have felt less threatened by the Witnesses, and have grown accustomed to their presence.
In many ways, the Witnesses’ relationship with the neighborhood and its impact on its real estate has been a question of perception. The Witnesses succeeded in making their presence feel less invasive than it initially appeared to the community by consulting with the BHA. The notion that they had improved safety and restored order was instrumental to the rise in property value. While actual crime rates may not have dropped as drastically as reported, the amount of garbage being thrown out of hotel windows decreased and adolescent gangs virtually disappeared, increasing the general sense of security among neighborhood members.
Indeed, the Witnesses have understood that to maintain cordial relations with the community, they must do their part to better the neighborhood and abjure from embarking on controversial projects. The Witnesses have kept an increasingly low profile, even building tunnels between their properties to avoid disturbing the neighborhood. As the Witnesses sell their holdings, they have cultivated an air of invisibility that has remarkably improved community relations. If the fall of the tower represents the Witnesses’ last great confrontational stand, then the tunnels symbolize a new arrangement in Brooklyn Heights: good tunnels make good neighbors.
FREDERIQUE SIEGEL is a senior in Columbia College, majoring in Urban Studies and Urban Planning. She is a native of Brooklyn Heights but spent most of her life in London.