Spirituality and places
May 11th, 2007
I got into a friendly argument with a colleague about “appropriate” uses for churches. It started with an observation he made about how St. Bart’s in Midtown over-advertises its cafe - and why does a church have a cafe anyway? He advocates separation of uses, and deplored as an example, the proposal to turn a church into a nightclub. I believe instead that churches are gathering places - in a whole host of different ways, whether they are cafes, nursery schools, night clubs, or anything else.
Maybe I remember very clearly the packed jazz club in the basement of St. Giles Church, one of the oldest Episcopalian churches in London, where the priest tended the bar, and it was one of the few places you could get absinthe. I thought of it as the safest place you could try absinthe, not as a dangerous place.
The argument reminded me that I took pictures of a cemetery in the East Village - the New York Marble Cemetery, which operates like a park on the weekends. Chairs are put outside and people are encouraged to have picnics and visit the park/cemetery.
What do you think of this use of the cemetery? Disrepectful? Or good management?
Much of our disagreement was wrapped up in our conception of these places and activity that is or is not perceived as illicit. I don’t thinking drinking and dancing or listening to music late at night, say at a night club, is such an illicit activity that needs physical separation from the observance of spirituality. However, my colleague thought that night club activity is immoral and church activity is moral. We agreed to disagree. I do think this discussion highlights some of the fundamental principles guiding people’s inherent reactions to the use of space. What do you think?
Entry Filed under: Ambiguous Places
7 Comments Add your own
1. xn | May 11th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
I like this place, a true “hidden gem”. The people are in the walls, not under the picnic tables. I think its fine. Its interesting to know that people related to the deceased to this day come to visit. Death is sad to those of us still here missing the departed, but would they want us crying? I think I’d like knowing people were happy in my final resting place
2. Brenda Becker | May 12th, 2007 at 6:53 am
There’s a fine old precedent for picnicking in cemeteries; it was all the rage in Victorian times in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood, which was a big tourist attraction even before the opening of Prospect Park. As for churches and nightclubs, there is a matter of tone and degree in what will rile even a reasonably urbane person of faith (okay, me); genteel jazz and cocktails in the Undercroft (even a naughty sip of absinthe) is one thing, but Sodom and Gomorrah in a sanctuary really depresses me. We Catholics actually “de-sanctify” a space before turning it over to the condo develoopers or whoever (not sure how we do that, but we’re good at that sort of thing, probably offer technical advice to Hollywood directors of Satan movies on it). I will ‘confess’ (being Catholic, haha) that every time I walk past ‘Limelight,’ which has been at various points a notorious druggy decadent hellhole, I recite an Our Father just in reparation for the degradation people have brought upon themselves in there. I attended the club once in one of its less hellholey incarnations, and the fun of the goth vibe was outweighed by a sorrow that a place made for consolation and worship had been repurposed to an ironic funhouse. Bleagh.
3. Nick | May 22nd, 2007 at 8:10 am
It seems like there’s a distinction between a church making a point of programming their public spaces (St. Bart’s cafe, the cemetery mentioned here) and passing a church on to a private use.
I think of places of worship as community spaces, and to the extent that they can offer valuable public uses outside of traditional worship I say go for it!
4. Michael Beavers | June 20th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Urban design and interaction design share many things…one of which is context. Cemeteries contextually are a place where the living commune with the dead.
The Victorians had it right…death shouldn’t be something feared, loathed, and then tucked away when it befalls loved ones. Cemeteries are in fact gardens and places of community for the living as well.
They are a lovely compromise in an urban setting–where the needs for greenspace and community are both served effectively.
Otherwise, we have to “urn” our greenspace elsewhere.
5. Kathryn | June 20th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
As Albert Einstein reportedly said, “Either it’s all a miracle, or none of it is.” I think it’s all a miracle, so a church is no more or less sacred than a park. And anything that brings people together peacefully has my support.
6. kiran keswani | June 23rd, 2007 at 3:32 am
a MURAL PAINTING camp at a burial ground
Once a corporate house offered to support such a camp. We, supporters of arts, crafts & architecture in india, were quite fascinated with the idea. The camp is yet to happen…
we had so many questions as we planned… It had to be a 2 week artists’ camp and the artists would work here as burial processions came in every day…
WHO WOULD SEE THESE MURAL PAINTINGS WHEN COMPLETED? People come to the burial ground only when someone is no more… In India, women do not go to a hindu burial ground, so, i had never seen one.
We thought this would be an event that would offer artists and the public a great experience and it would be good to know how it would make this burial ground different from others as months and years passed by…
7. David Andre | July 20th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I must agree with you (immoral vs. moral) and think it is very interesting. A place is not only framed by the type of activity it is purposed for but also the activities that are actually carried out there. Like just going to the gym and not actually working-out doesn’t make you strong, or exercising in your bedroom will improve your health but might not cause you to be more rested. Believing that spaces should only be used for one thing or another is unreasonable, but one must admit there is something less than absolutely tangible that happens in a nightclub that was once a church or a church that was once a warehouse. Besides, who says immoral things don’t happen in church and moral ones are absent in nightclubs. That might not be your colleague’s point, but I think we could stand to be a little less wooden about the whole thing and enjoy the intangible.
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