Hippie Church Desecrated
By real-estate market.
In recognition of its historic hippie openness, the soon-to-be-renovated Washington Square Park will remain ungated. But another countercultural shrine down the street, Washington Square United Methodist Church, has shut its big red doors to the public. Last winter, the 1860 church, with its plaque that honors those who refused to fight in Vietnam, was put on the market (along with its rectory next door) for $13 million. It had become too expensive to keep up. Now it’s been sold to developers-architects Jon Kully and Mick Walsdorf, who are most likely turning it into condos. While they plan “to deal cleverly with the building’s history,” it’s hard to picture where the sorts of groups that have congregated there in the past—the Black Panthers, Dykes Against Racism Everywhere, left-wing mime troupes—will fit in on the prospectus.
—Tony Robins