COMMENTARY
Charity Vogel: Defenseless old churches lure vultures
This is what it looks like when the carrion begins to fall from the bones.
The parlor in the convent on Emslie Street has vestiges of understated elegance: high ceilings, wood floors, wide-paned windows that let in the glittering sun of a hot summer morning on the East Side.
Years ago, when 40 nuns lived here, this room was used for entertaining guests and quiet conversations.
No more. Now, St. Ann’s convent is food for vultures.
The last nuns moved out 21 months ago. St. Ann’s school had closed; the church faced an uncertain future.
Since then, thieves who prowl the city looking for well-made buildings full of parts that turn a quick buck at junkyards and scrap dealers have feasted on the convent the way they have on many properties around the city: greedily, and with abandon.
Copper pipes, doorknobs, radiators, light fixtures, newel posts, stained glass — at St. Ann’s convent, all that, and more, has been ripped out.
The thieves don’t do neat work. When they tore cast-iron radiators out of the nuns’ parlor, they sprayed filthy black sludge all over the dove-gray paint. In dragging a heavy item — perhaps a cabinet or tub — from an upper story, they ripped a thick oak balustrade clean off its spindles. As a final insult, they left a battered crowbar behind.
St. Ann’s has an honorable past. But today, it’s vulnerable.
Its buildings, particularly the convent and school, sit largely unprotected from the thieves who scavenge the city. No alarms protect them; nobody guards them at night.
You can’t blame the priest, Father Roy Herberger, who is charged with managing a slew of buildings at St. Ann’s and nearby St. Mary of Sorrows in addition to his home parish, SS. Columba & Brigid. He’s stretched thin, and worried.
“Security is a concern,” he said. “There’s no plan as such in place. It’s up to the individual pastor. That’s weighing on me right now.”
Meanwhile, St. Ann’s Church— marking 150 years this week — hovers on the brink.
Like many of Buffalo’s old churches, St. Ann’s is a glorious work of art, full of ornate woodwork, haunting stained glass, inspiring paintings. It dates from 1858, when this part of the city was still rural. For a time it was one of the biggest parishes in the nation.
The Catholic diocese, bearing down in the final painful stages of a shrinkage plan that has touched families and faithful across the region, plans to close it. A diocesan spokesman points out that 15 closed churches have been sold. Bishop Edward Kmiec, he said, formed a committee this spring to offer advice on reuses for buildings.
St. Ann’s convent, too, is up for sale.
Whatever happens to it, and the church next to it, the timing couldn’t be worse.
Buffalo is being stripped and sold, street by street. This isn’t just about Catholic properties; all sorts of buildings are being raided.
But the diocese, in the middle of a massive closing plan, needs to do better. When you close old churches, convents and schools, you need to protect them — at least until you decide what to do with them. Even alarm systems would help.
If this is what 21 months can do, think about what five years will do. Or 10.
On the oak lintel of a doorway in the center hall of the St. Ann’s convent, a quote from the Psalms, lettered in gold paint, is visible beneath the dust and dirt.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation,” it reads. “What shall I fear?”
For those who care about Buffalo’s old Catholic buildings, the time for fear is now.
