Once the venue for farmers’ markets, raves, daycare, mutual aid services, and, yes, even the occasional sermon, a century-old church on Russell Street along McGolrick Park in Greenpoint is now an unhallowed condo building.
According to a report from Curbed, the new facade of the former Park Church Co-Op, which housed a community space with wildly diverse and embracive community programming for eight years under the leadership of “post-denomational” Pastor Amy Kienzle, unveiled its new facade to the neighborhood earlier this week, uncovering another unsightly example of developers desacrating a local landmark. And residents aren’t too interested in catching its spirit.
“An affront to god,” rebuked one of dozens of aggrieved Reddit users over the building’s design—formarly a towering, historic, gothic, and damn-near perfectly semetrical structure with stained glass windows on the western edge of McGolrick, now a ghastly, pale shell stalking picnics, day parties, and run clubs with one off-center eye. “Sorry to NIMBY but this is bleak AF,” said a user on Twitter, split-screening the before and after images of the church’s renovation.
ugh pic.twitter.com/FRnsgCAhBO
— fully fund transit (@crosstown_line) July 21, 2025
The community fought against the church’s acquisition in 2023, hitting the courts to prevent its sale and demolition. But, even with the judge ruling in their favor, activists were unable to raise the cash to protect the property. It was eventually bought for $4.7 million by developer GW Russell LLC and Dutch influencer Sara Rottenberg, who used her platform presence to document and hype the condo conversion during its construction. Rottenberg’s clips have since been deleted from both TikTok and Instagram (familiar).
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