Voices of Preservation: Urban Renewal and Historic Preservation in Newburgh
In this guest blog post from the team behind the Picturing Urban Renewal project, Ann Pfau, David, Hochfelder, and Stacy Sewell look at the legacy of urban renewal in Newburgh, NY. The Picturing Urban Renewal prototype website has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The authors post research findings on Substack at Researching Urban Renewal. They formerly blogged about Albany’s South Mall at 98 Acres in Albany.
The intersection Water and Colden Streets in Newburgh, NY, c. 1960s. Courtesy Tom Daly and Historical Society of Newburgh.
In response to the 1977 plan to expand Newburgh’s Montgomery-Grand-Liberty Streets Historic District, Rev. Frank E. Jones, pastor of the city’s historic AME Zion Church, expressed concern that preservation would simply continue prior policies aimed at “black removal.”
Soul Saving Station, Church of God in Christ (former Newburgh Savings Bank), 1970. This church was demolished as part of the East Newburgh Urban Renewal project. HABS/HAER photograph by Jack Boucher, Library of Congress.
Rev. Jones had reason to be concerned. The historic district encompassed what was left of the East Newburgh Urban Renewal area; it was also where, due to residential segregation, many displaced families ended up moving. Rev. Jones feared that stricter code enforcement combined with costly facade repairs would force black homeowners to sell. Furthermore, the election of Mayor George Shaw did not invite confidence. Prior to holding public office, Shaw had been a leader of a grassroots organization formed to prevent construction of public housing for the majority-black displacees in the city’s all-white west end. Finally, personal experience might have prompted Rev. Jones to regard preservation as a white pursuit. Three years earlier, he had offered to purchase and rehabilitate a historic house, known as Tuscan Villa, owned by the city’s urban renewal agency. The City sold the house, located just uphill from the AME Zion-sponsored Varick Homes housing complex, to white outsiders instead.
South side of Washington Street, with the AME Zion church and rectory in the middle of the block 1983.
AME Zion’s 1905 church building was included in Newburgh’s expanded East End Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. Roughly thirty years later, this designation set in motion a conflict that pitted black church leaders against a predominantly white group of preservationists. In 2018, the congregation proposed to partially demolish the church and replace it with affordable apartments, community meeting space, and a more accessible sanctuary for aging church members.
Supporters and opponents of the congregation’s demolition and reconstruction plan both referenced AME Zion’s long history in Newburgh and on Washington Street but drew different conclusions. In this case, preservationists prioritized protecting the building over preserving the congregation’s presence on Washington Street, and Newburgh’s Architectural Review Commission sided with them. The chair suggested that if the congregation could not afford repairs and updates, they should sell the building and move to a different location.
The problem, as we see it, is that the meaning of 111 Washington Street derives at least as much from the congregation that built and occupied this church as from the architectural elements listed in the National Register nomination. Furthermore, preventing AME Zion from rebuilding on this site runs the risk that the 1905 structure will, like Newburgh’s Dutch Reformed Church, deteriorate due to disuse.
Map showing distribution of Black and Puerto Rican population. Roughly 90% of displaced residents were Black, even though they represented about 30% of the city’s overall population in 1970. Metcalf & Eddy, Comprehensive Development Plan for Newburgh, 1969.
Preserving Newburgh’s heritage is a laudable goal. But by focusing on a 1905 building and the 1870 visit (to a different church structure) by Frederick Douglass, preservationists ignored a more troubling period of Newburgh’s past, when the City’s urban renewal program forced hundreds of black families from their homes and places of worship. This more recent past helps explain on one side, the fear of dispossession and displacement, and on the other, the determination to prevent the demolition of additional structures. These two impulses need not be opposed, but at present they appear to be.
Isabelle Wilkerson has compared U.S. history to an historic home, warning that, like a leaky roof, “whatever you are ignoring is not going to go away,” it will “get worse” over time. Today, the City of Newburgh’s new Housing Policy Framework is intended to address the city’s ugly past and promote equity by documenting the long-term effects of segregation and urban renewal, updating fair housing laws, and working through regional authorities to increase the stock of affordable housing. In support of the first goal, we helped the City write a successful National Park Service grant to update the 1985 National Register nomination to include the history of southern migration and civil rights activism. Unclear as yet is whether and how this change will affect historic district tenants and property owners.
East End Historic District map from National Register nomination, 1985.
More recently, the nonprofit Fullerton Center, with funding from the Preservation League, has begun a separate study to determine whether the historic district should be expanded once again. This second study is intended “to identify important architectural, historical, and social narratives associated with underrepresented communities” and to determine how “incentives like Historic Tax Credits will make home maintenance much more affordable.” This sounds great, but we think the case of AME Zion before the Architectural Review Commission gives reason to pause any expansion.
Moving forward, how will Newburgh’s citizens, lawmakers, and municipal agencies weigh the value of architectural versus community-based historic assets? How will historic district designation affect the people who live, work, and worship in this area? These questions become more pressing as greater numbers of wealthy outsiders move into the city, attracted by the “magnificent” yet “affordable” architecture.