Renewing Chelsea Sq. ~ Desmond Tutu Education Center ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu Visits New York
Archbishop Desmond Tutu Visits New York
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to Inaugurate the Building of The Desmond Tutu Education Center
13 September 2005
For Immediate Release
Project is the First Public Expression of The General Theological Seminary’s Comprehensive Revitalization of Its Historic Chelsea Square Campus
NEW YORK CITY -- The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, today joined in a gala reception and festival Eucharist at The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, to bless the site of the new Desmond Tutu Education Center and inaugurate the public phase of the Leaders for the Church campaign.
The campaign will help preserve and transform the Seminary’s historic Chelsea Square campus through a comprehensive plan of building, conservation and program initiatives. These include construction and program development for the Tutu Center: a $23 million project now being created within three historic buildings along the Tenth Avenue side of the campus.
The first visible expression of the revitalization of Chelsea Square, the Tutu Center will provide gracious new facilities for programs in peace and reconciliation, Jewish-Christian studies and relations, continuing education and Christian spirituality. Established and administered by GTS and named in honor of the Archbishop, who was a visiting professor at the Seminary when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the new education complex is designed by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP and is scheduled to open in 2007, bringing a new range of activities--and fresh, gardenlike beauty--to the Chelsea neighborhood.
In a baccalaureate sermon preached at the Seminary’s Chapel of the Good Shepherd in May 2003, Archbishop Tutu spoke of a --new paradigm of power that God asks you to propagate -- power for the sake of service. Being there for others, so that there may be a little more gentleness; there may be a little more caring; there may be a little more laughter; there may be a little more compassion.... And God has no one except you." The Seminary is establishing the Tutu Center in this spirit of service.
According to the Very Reverend Ward B. Ewing, Dean and President of The General Theological Seminary, "The Seminary’s plans reflect a broader effort within the Episcopal Church. We are all striving to provide a gathering place where people can learn together and come to grips with today’s important issues, spiritual, theological and ethical. Where should this take place, if not at General? Over the years, the Seminary has nurtured distinguished teaching and continued scholarship and has sent out generations of leaders for the Church. That’s the tradition to which we are responsible as present-day stewards of The General Theological Seminary. We need to keep that tradition intact--alive, fresh and responsive. We need to make it accessible as widely as possible to people today, and transmit it to those who will follow."
Opening Chelsea Square to the World: The Tutu Center
Physically and programmatically, the Tutu Center expresses a more outgoing presence in the city for GTS and its historic grounds, known as the Close. Built on land donated to GTS in 1819 by Clement Clarke Moore (the poet of "’Twas the night before Christmas"), the Chelsea Square campus and gardens have long been accessible to the public, and its centerpiece, the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, welcomes all worshippers. But with the Tutu Center, the Seminary will reach out to the city and neighborhood as never before.
For the past century, little has been visible of the campus along Tenth Avenue except for a high, blank wall, as the Seminary shielded itself from the commotion to its west--first the Hudson River’s docks, and later the Tenth Avenue rail lines. As part of its plan for the Tutu Center, GTS will open a public entrance on Tenth Avenue for the first time. In place of a forbidding stone wall topped by industrial chain link, GTS will install a beautiful, century-old wrought- iron fence that originally adorned the Seminary’s Ninth Avenue frontage, with a welcoming new gateway.
Just beyond this entrance will be a garden, stretching for 100 feet along Tenth Avenue and extending 40 feet back at its deepest point. To enter the Tutu Center, visitors will walk along a garden path and then proceed into a new, double-height lobby, which introduces a contemporary, glass-and-steel element into the historic masonry structure. A matched entrance on the east side of the Center will open to the Close, so that people on Tenth Avenue will be able to see through to the landscaped quadrangle.
Inside the historic structures being renovated to create the Tutu Center, GTS is building two large, fully wired conference rooms (accommodating 70 and 100 persons), 5 smaller break-out rooms, 59 guest rooms with modern amenities, and a new kitchen for Hoffman Hall’s vaulted, oak-wainscotted dining room. This refectory, which has been called "one of New York’s most beautiful interior spaces" (Gerard R. Wolfe, New York: A Guide to the Metropolis), will for the first time be regularly accessible to people outside the Seminary community.
In addition to hosting programs of the Seminary’s learning centers--The Center for Christian Spirituality, The Center for Jewish-Christian Studies and Relations, The Center for Peace and Reconciliation and The Center for Continuing Education--the new complex will become a resource for other not-for-profit institutions. These organizations may arrange with the Seminary for use of the Tutu Center, which will provide conference facilities of a quality and character available nowhere else in the heart of New York.
Next Phase: Revitalization on Ninth Avenue
In a closely related initiative to preserve its historic Chelsea Square campus, the Seminary is also in the planning stages of a project on its Ninth Avenue side. Although building maintenance consumes a disproportionate amount of the Seminary’s annual operating budget, significantly contributing to a drop in the endowment of more than 25% over the past ten years, GTS still faces an estimated $80 million of deferred maintenance. Unless GTS finds new revenue sources to pay for some of these maintenance costs, and to offset the expense of replacing the architecturally undistinguished and deteriorating Sherrill Hall, the mission of the Seminary, and even its ability to remain an anchoring presence in Chelsea, could be seriously endangered.
To address this reality, GTS is now exploring the possibility of replacing Sherrill Hall with a new, mixed-use building, in partnership with The Brodsky Organization. The Ninth Avenue building will provide the Seminary with space for the priceless holdings of the St. Mark’s Library, offices and other facilities. The Brodsky Organization will develop another portion of the building for use as rental or co-op apartments; the derived funds will help GTS pay for preservation projects throughout the campus. GTS and The Brodsky Organization have selected the distinguished architectural firm of Polshek Partnership to develop a design concept for the proposed building, and the Seminary is now meeting with a range of community organizations to discuss its plans and listen to their ideas and concerns.
Progress on the Revitalization
GTS already has invested $9 million in renovating architect Charles Coolidge Haight’s historic buildings on the Close, built between 1883 and 1902. In recognition of one of these projects, which restored the slate roof and replicated the original copper cupola of Hoffman Hall, the New York Landmarks Conservancy honored The General Theological Seminary and Walter B. Melvin Architects in April 2005 with the prestigious Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award.
In May 2005, the Very Rev. Ward B. Ewing, Dean and President of GTS, led a symbolic fence-cutting ceremony to inaugurate the building program. Site preparation for the Tutu Center began immediately afterward, with active construction scheduled to begin soon.
Master planning, design, and historic preservation are being done by Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP, a firm known for its extensive experience with campus projects and for its sensitive yet imaginative revitalization of landmarked sites such as Ellis Island, Grand Central Terminal and, most recently, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, California. The Tutu Center’s garden is being designed by landscape architects Quennell Rothschild & Partners.
To support these stewardship projects and the creation of the Tutu Center, GTS launched its "Leaders for the Church" capital campaign in 2001. Sam Waterston serves as honorary chairman. The September 13, 2005, visit to the campus by Archbishop Desmond Tutu marks the beginning of the public phase of the campaign, which has a goal of $15 million.
For Further Information:
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Christina Mathews Senior Associate The Kreisberg Group, Ltd. 212.799.5515 christina@kreisberggroup.com |
Bruce Parker Director of Communications The General Theological Seminary 212.243.5150 parker@gts.edu fax: 212.727-1104 |
