Six Chicago churches and a synagogue have been quietly granted municipal landmark status over the last decade in actions that stirred little more than grateful nods of appreciation among preservationists.
Suddenly, however, the Chicago City Council has decided to allow exemption of religious buildings from future landmark designation because of a North Michigan Avenue church that stands on a piece of land worth more than $50 million. The action has underscored in still another way the decline of Chicago`s landmark protection movement.
For the record, the seven houses of worship that hold city landmark status are:
— Pilgrim Baptist Church, 3301 S. Indiana Ave., originally designed by Adler & Sullivan as a synagogue in 1891.
— Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral and rectory, 1121 N. Leavitt St., designed by Louis Sullivan in 1903.
— Second Presbyterian Church, 1936 S. Michigan Ave., designed by James Renwick in 1874 and reconstructed after a fire in 1900 with the assistance of architect Howard Van Doren Shaw.
— K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Temple, 1100 E. Hyde Park Blvd., a 1924 synagogue by Alfred S. Alschuler.
— Quinn Chapel, 2401 S. Wabash Ave., a historic 1892 church by an unknown architect.
— All Saints Church and rectory, 4550 N. Hermitage Ave., designed by John C. Cochrane and built in 1883.
— First Baptist Congregational Church, 60 N. Ashland Ave., designed by pioneer Chicago architect Gurdon P. Randall and completed in 1871.
The church whose landmark nomination led to the recent council action is Fourth Presbyterian, 876 N. Michigan Ave, designed in 1912 by Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram.
As America`s foremost exponent of Gothic architecture in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, Cram designed important churches and college buildings throughout the East and Midwest.
Fourth Presbyterian has long been considered a distinguished work of architecture, a fact that almost became lost in the controversy over its proposed landmark designation. It would make any list of the best three or four Gothic structures in Chicago. (The parish house next to Fourth Presbyterian was designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw and built in 1925).
More than a year ago, however, it became clear that Fourth Presbyterian officials would fight the proposed designation of their property.
In a letter to the city`s landmarks commission, Rev. John M. Buchanan, Fourth Presbyterian`s pastor, said landmark status ”would result in an impermissible incursion into church decision-making by a government body.”
Historically, he said, the church has had enough resources to ”maintain and preserve the property and support its programs,” but ”should that ever change, the presbytery must be free to allocate resources without governmental interference.”
Commission Chairman Peter Bynoe responded with a letter stating that designation would not be an obstacle to ”the church`s basic goals,” nor would there be ”additional costs involved in obtaining necessary approvals for needed repairs and improvements.”
Property owner resistance has been commonly encountered in many Chicago landmark designations. Building owners frequently claim that designation would cause financial hardship by making it difficult to remodel property or sell it to someone who might want to put it to a different use.
Such opposition persists even though designation forbids neither demolition nor alteration of a building. It simply sets up a set of delaying actions, so that no one can deface or wreck a landmark on whim.
In any event, the landmarks commission`s proposal to designate Fourth Presbyterian ran into another obstacle last June when Elizabeth Hollander, city planning commissioner, submitted an 11-page report of dissent.
The ordinance that created the landmarks commission in 1968 requires that the planning commissioner comment about how every landmark designation might affect the surrounding neighborhood.
This sort of review appears harmless enough. Still, it has been used to prevent preservationists from getting in the way of real estate speculators bent on tearing down old buildings. Former Planning Commissioner Lewis Hill often employed the review to delay action on landmark proposals for as long as several years.
Planning commissioners also sit as voting members of the landmarks commission. Because they tend to favor anything that encourages real estate development, they often put entrepreneurial priorities ahead of esthetic ones. Hollander is no exception, as she demonstrated when she wrote the dissent by which she hoped to influence fellow landmarks commission members.
Hollander`s language expressed her belief that anything delaying the eventual demolition of Fourth Presbyterian would be bad for business along the so-called Magnificent Mile.
The street is a place of ”high fashion shopping, luxury hotels, entertainment and quality restaurants,” she declared. ”The special character of North Michigan Avenue would be dampened” by the landmark designation.
”The location of this large religious facility . . . interrupts the continuity of uses and character of Michigan Avenue.”
Nancy Kaszak, a landmarks commission member, was among those who disagreed with this rationale. Kaszak called Fourth Presbyterian ”an important symbol of the past that is too valuable to surrender to the wrecker`s ball.”
At the conclusion of her report, Hollander raised a church-state separation issue and declared:
”A religious structure is the symbolic statement of the congregation. As a part of their liturgy, a congregation celebrates God through the architectural qualities of its church. . . . As a matter of policy, should church groups be at liberty to make the statements they choose in their buildings? And should they be free to modify and change those statements to reflect changes in ministry and worship?
”To decree that a congregation lives forever with the vision that, in its time, inspired a building could stifle religious vision and may have the effect of giving the state an unwarranted voice in framing the values of the church.”
But it remained for Ald. Burton Natarus (42d) to finally kill the Fourth Presbyterian designation proposal (the church is in his ward).
As members of the city council prepared to vote last month on an ordinance tightening up certain landmark procedures, Natarus introduced a surprise companion ordinance. It provides that no place of worship may be named a landmark without the consent of its owners. Council members approved the Natarus measure by a 35-4 vote.
”I believe we`ll get into a terrible hassle if we begin designating churches and synagogues,” Natarus said not long ago, ignoring the seven religious landmarks already approved by the city.
”What if they want to replace a stained-glass window, move a statue or change some other religious symbol?” Natarus added. ”Do we tell them they cannot?”
Underlying this whole chain of events is the fact that Fourth Presbyterian stands on what is perhaps the most valuable piece of church-occupied land in Chicago. Real estate experts who have been following recent purchase prices on Michigan Avenue estimate the value of the church`s 67,600- square-foot site at more than $50 million.
Church spokesmen insist they have no present plans for demolishing their buildings or selling part or all of the land. Yet the high-stakes character of Fourth Presbyterian`s geographic location cannot be ignored as though it did not exist.
Clearly, too little attention has been devoted to the architectural and historic merits of many proposed landmarks here and far too much to zoning and potential real estate deals.
The Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois is an outspoken opponent of practices that weaken and demean the designation process. Career staff members of the landmarks commission are outraged by recent events. So are a few commissioners like Kaszak. The American Institute of Architects` Chicago Chapter has spoken out on a number of important landmarks issues, too.
Yet that is not enough.
The spirit behind landmark preservation in this city is alive and well. Its constituency ranges from architectural scholars to ordinary people who simply appreciate the beauty of Chicago`s famous buildings. But Chicago`s preservation movement has never enjoyed the unstinting support of the city`s business leaders, art patrons or top political leaders in City Hall. That is why it is dying.
