Is God’s Will really more parking?

 

Grace Apostolic Church Demolition (image credit: Tiffany Benedict Berkson)
Grace Apostolic Church Demolition (image credit: Tiffany Benedict Berkson)

A tragedy of epic civic proportions is occurring at the corner of 22nd and College Ave on the near north side of Indianapolis. The old portion of the Grace Apostolic Church was recently mowed down thanks to a tall crane with a wrecking ball attached to it.

Grace Apostolic Church Demolition (image credit: Tiffany Benedict Berkson)
Grace Apostolic Church Demolition (image credit: Tiffany Benedict Berkson)

I made some brief inquiries into what the purpose of the demolition was. I checked in with Chelsea Humble of King Park CDC and she that it was being destroyed to make way for a new parking lot. It pained me to see this building coming down for a couple of reasons. First, it was a beautiful structure. To watch it meet the wrecking ball to make way for a parking lot seems a tragically undignified end to it’s life. Second, for the cost of the demolition and parking lot, I am QUITE sure that many people could have been helped out whether that was feeding the poor, reaching out to the hundreds of underfunded community organizations, etc. It seems a short return on investment to say that preserving the place of worship through automobile parking was the best use of funds for this church. However, these reasons are subjective based upon each person’s perspective of religion and faith.

Grace Apostolic Church Demolition (image credit: Tiffany Benedict Berkson)
Grace Apostolic Church Demolition (image credit: Tiffany Benedict Berkson)

I drove past the site too many times during the demolition without taking photos but as luck would have it, some existed and I contacted Tiffany Benedict Berkson of Historic Indianapolis who graciously agreed to share hers. She captured the destruction perfectly.

Special thanks to Tiffany Benedict Berkson of Historic Indianapolis for the images and additional commentary on the topic. Check out her post on the property here.

Comments 4

  • This is really sad to see. I ran past their the other day and jokingly yelled to a worker that they tore down the wrong building……..he just looked back.

  • Who’s even parking there ? There’s not really much at all going on in that neighborhood, That’s just kinda infuriating, Is there some sort of approval process property owners must go through if they want to demo a building above a certain size, and or over a certain age ?

  • There is a extraordinary amount of parking near this church. I suspect the church decided longterm upkeep and renovation of the space was too costly (rather than merely wanting a few additional parking spots for Sunday – Still a sad outcome. I wish the neighborhood development group could have helped the church find a use and source of public/private dollars to support this space.

  • ^^^ Seriously, there are huge Urban prairie properties just a block up the street. Its pretty unjustifiable to knock down a building like that when half that neighbrhood is vacant. That’s some criminal shit in my opinion. #Cultural Crimes.

Leave a Reply to Joe Smoker Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *