New Roof

I don't need an alarm clock this week, because I've got roofers next door, who start to make a racket before 7 a.m. I don't mind, because I was getting pretty worried about the building, which looks like it's about to cave in, but at the same time is a potential gem if it's properly restored. It's a structure about the same age as my house and likewise on the National Register of Historic Places. Currently it's being used as the rectory of the Iglesia Bautista Renovación.

Springfield was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the man who had this house built was a former slave. I'm not sure at what point it became church property.

The church--whose steeple is just visible in this snapshot--is probably the most architectually distinguished building in the city. It was built as North Congregational Church by Henry Hobson Richardson, the architect of Trinity Church in Boston. It eventually became Grace Baptist Church, and for the past few years has been the Hispanic Baptist Church.

I'm not sure the Hispanic Baptists are aware of the history of the building they're having repaired. They know, of course, the bare bones of the history of the church proper. But I don't think they're extremely sensitive to it.

This morning, for example, I noticed a worker dismantling one of the chimneys and throwing the bricks down to the ground. I asked the woman on the ladder if they were planning to trash the bricks, and she said no. Said they'd been told they were "historical" and so they were going to reuse them in rebuilding the chimneys.

I hope they do. But honestly, if they're so valuable, why are they pitching them twenty-five feet to the ground? That building is just over the line from the Quadrangle-Mattoon local historic district, and so is not afforded the same protection as the church itself. And anyway, we have a lily-ass historical commission which does not have the power to act on violations. When will this city and its citizens wake up to the fact that these buildings are precisely our treasure, and take them seriously?