God's Corner Lot

On the most expensive strip of real estate in the world (Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, between 42nd and 57th Streets) stand four churches. One of them is the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, whose 79-year-old, brownstone steeple is dwarfed by the neighboring towers of Rockefeller Center, the spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral.

A month ago, the Consistory of New York's Collegiate Reformed Dutch churches proposed to sell Dr. Sizoo's church* for some $3,750,000 to a corporation which planned to build a 50-story skyscraper on the lot. This sum, they said, would pay off the church's mortgage, leave $3,000,000 to build a fine new church in the fashionable East Seventies.

But Dr. Joseph R. Sizoo did not want a new church. Sizzled Sizoo: "It is putting thq dollar sign before the cross! I'm not defending brick and mortar. The issue is not, shall St. Nicholas Church be moved -- but rather: shall religion retreat!" Dr. Sizoo called his parishioners to a "day of prayer for intercession," took to the air to denounce "the rising tides of secularism." He charged that part of the consistory (33 ministers, deacons and elders) had succumbed to "the lure of material things." "I am reminded," he added, "of what a distinguished Boston judge said when a group tried to sell historic Old South Church in Boston. He hoped the time would never come when God could not afford to own a corner lot in the city of Boston." Last week Dr. Sizoo's fight had apparently succeeded. Two parishioners had offered $350,000 toward redeeming the mortgage if others would contribute a like amount. It looked as if God could still afford a corner lot on Fifth Avenue.

*A stone slab atop the church has long been pointed out by drivers of sightseeing buses as the tomb of a rich parishioner who had a mortal fear of worms. Actually it is only an ornament.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.