ESCALATION
Is Occupy Wall Street ratcheting up its war with Trinity-Wall Street Episcopal Church? Does it mean to get revenge on Trinity for those recent trespassing convictions? Someone with OWS appears to be digging up dirton Trinity with the intent of inflicting as much damage to the parish as he possibly can. Selections:
This is some info about Trinity Church, and their ugly past as one of the top real estate holders in New York, originally collected to help build a narrative for the D17 action. fond memories. sorry I can’t be at the court hearings.
But Father Jamie, as everyone calls him, does not flinch when the talk turns to Trinity Church as a tough commercial landlord. Over the years, the church has been as quick to evict deadbeats, as steadfast in keeping rents up and concessions down, as adamant about getting personal guarantees to back up leases, as any developer around. Indeed, Father Jamie and the real estate folks sound a lot alike. “We find it difficult to evict tenants but we do it all the time,” said Joseph T. Palombi, Trinity’s executive vice president of real estate. Now hear Father Jamie: “In the grimmer days of the 90′s, we cut grants in half and laid off 38 people, but we still put millions into the buildings. We have to preserve our patrimony.” And quite a patrimony it is. Trinity Church owns close to 6 million square feet, most of it in 27 buildings around Hudson Square, an area bounded roughly by Canal and West Houston Streets, Avenue of the Americas and the Hudson River. Over the last few years the church has pumped more than $100 million into its properties, all in hopes of converting the area, which Trinity got from Queen Anne of England in 1705, from a printing and manufacturing bastion to an office hub.
Trinity generally leased the land to developers who had the capital to build factory buildings. That arrangement worked fine during the early decades of the century, but during the Depression many building owners defaulted on their mortgages and the properties were in danger of being seized by the city for unpaid taxes. A bank lent the church money to satisfy the tax payment, which is how Trinity came to own the buildings as well as the land. [Abe: by borrowing from banks during the great depression and spending it on buying the properties built up on Trinity's land, Trinity could now collect rent on all buildings instead of just the developers who built the properties! Interesting to spend money on this DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION!!!]
If OWS does mean to directly attack Trinity, I seriously doubt whether any of this or any other information OWS might turn up will have much of an effect since there is scarcely a church of any denomination anywhere that hasn’t done things in its past that it would prefer that the rest of the world didn’t know.
For my part, there are a great many things I fervently pray that the world never finds out about me. And I suspect that I am by no means alone.
Unless Occupy Wall Street can come up with something illegal or sleazy that Trinity is doing right now, it really should drop this effort. This fight can’t ever be won. Because “victory” would be far more costly for OWS and the Episcopal left than “defeat.”
This is some info about Trinity Church, and their ugly past as one of the top real estate holders in New York, originally collected to help build a narrative for the D17 action. fond memories. sorry I can’t be at the court hearings.
But Father Jamie, as everyone calls him, does not flinch when the talk turns to Trinity Church as a tough commercial landlord. Over the years, the church has been as quick to evict deadbeats, as steadfast in keeping rents up and concessions down, as adamant about getting personal guarantees to back up leases, as any developer around. Indeed, Father Jamie and the real estate folks sound a lot alike. “We find it difficult to evict tenants but we do it all the time,” said Joseph T. Palombi, Trinity’s executive vice president of real estate. Now hear Father Jamie: “In the grimmer days of the 90′s, we cut grants in half and laid off 38 people, but we still put millions into the buildings. We have to preserve our patrimony.” And quite a patrimony it is. Trinity Church owns close to 6 million square feet, most of it in 27 buildings around Hudson Square, an area bounded roughly by Canal and West Houston Streets, Avenue of the Americas and the Hudson River. Over the last few years the church has pumped more than $100 million into its properties, all in hopes of converting the area, which Trinity got from Queen Anne of England in 1705, from a printing and manufacturing bastion to an office hub.
Trinity generally leased the land to developers who had the capital to build factory buildings. That arrangement worked fine during the early decades of the century, but during the Depression many building owners defaulted on their mortgages and the properties were in danger of being seized by the city for unpaid taxes. A bank lent the church money to satisfy the tax payment, which is how Trinity came to own the buildings as well as the land. [Abe: by borrowing from banks during the great depression and spending it on buying the properties built up on Trinity's land, Trinity could now collect rent on all buildings instead of just the developers who built the properties! Interesting to spend money on this DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION!!!]
If OWS does mean to directly attack Trinity, I seriously doubt whether any of this or any other information OWS might turn up will have much of an effect since there is scarcely a church of any denomination anywhere that hasn’t done things in its past that it would prefer that the rest of the world didn’t know.
For my part, there are a great many things I fervently pray that the world never finds out about me. And I suspect that I am by no means alone.
Unless Occupy Wall Street can come up with something illegal or sleazy that Trinity is doing right now, it really should drop this effort. This fight can’t ever be won. Because “victory” would be far more costly for OWS and the Episcopal left than “defeat.”
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