This looks like a job for my Hot Tub Time machine. Lately it's been too cold for me to use it. But as soon as the weather gets warmer, I'll have an answer for you.
Patterson vs Walkill vs Warwick
by Magnum 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Will Patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of Warwick? If not, what will happen to it?
Frankly, I don't think WT has a plan for us to try to figure out. They've drawn up all kinds of plans along the way when I was in bethel for developing property they had in Brooklyn (local opposition was making it impossible, so not only didn't they continue to build, they saw how much money they could get when they sold Furman and have just continued to $ell, $ell, $ell.) They've drawn up plans to expand Patterson (I think it was simply too expensive and complex to expand on a hillside in the NYC watershed area). They had extensive plans to build a Patterson-sized facility up at South Lansing Kingdom Farm (halfway between the existing New York facilities and Canada branch... and in the middle of nowhere with no clear purpose for the property. I think that was around the time they decided to build the Sands building, which sucked up a ton of money. Construction in Brooklyn turned out to be much more profitable than building anywhere else.). Anyway, my point being that they never seemed to me to be operating with much of a plan beyond a few years and completing whatever they started building.
As far as Patterson, the other facilities aren't designed to take Legal, Art, Service, Audio/Video, and the classes, so I don't see anything changing there. And I don't see much of a market for someone to buy the property. It's not like their Brooklyn properties where they are in the middle of a hot property market. For someone to buy Patterson, they would have to be prepared to take on the waste water complexities and maintenance headaches of a bunch of ugly-ass concrete buildings. The most likely purchaser would be another cult.
Wasn't it originally the intent for the GB to be at Patterson (but now Warwick)? It seems that Patterson will be overkill after the completion of Warwick.
Yes, originally the GB was intended to move up to Patterson, but a few years into construction and they decided the area was dullsville. GB 1.0 was accustomed to the excitement of the city and surrounded by a huge bethel family of the thousands. They seemed to connect with the needs of NYC congregations and many of them would go out preaching right on the promenade. Moving to Patterson seemed too remote, too small, and out of touch for them. I was there when the change of plans came along and the GB decided to stay in Columbia Heights.
But for GB 2.0, they seem to dig the luxury and remoteness of the Warwick compound. I think they decided on Warwick in order to distance themselves from Legal and Service at Patterson, and inky book printing and shipping at Wallkill. And the sick and elderly will spend their remaining days at Patterson and Wallkill, not Warwick.
So in answering your question, Warwick would have been overkill because it would have been very cheap and easy to move the GB to Patterson or Wallkill, but GB 2.0 clearly didn't want either place. They want a new place just for them and without any connection to GB 1.0.
Also, what is the future of Walkill? It seems that printed literature is becoming less common in JWdom. Will there be a need for a complex as large as Walkill?
Wallkill has turned into a crazy complex of the original, poorly designed structures with more and more buildings added on here and there with a maze of passages connecting most. It started as a farm, that turned into a factory, that also became something of a retirement village. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but it always kinda creeped me out because it had such a "this is a cobbled together, yet very expensive, mess" kind of feel.
Wallkills future? Like I said, even WT doesn't know. But it's clear enough that the GB doesn't want to live there. And I don't know who would buy it. Again, maybe they could find another printing-based cult that would be interested in buying.
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insidetheKH
@whatsgoingon printing for the european continent is done in London UK and Selters Germany
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blondie
So there is still farming...every time I mentioned it on JWN, someone would come on and tell me it was over. So they still have beef....must cost less then to raise their own, grapes and orchids....do they sell the orchids?
So how much food is raised for the Bethel family now? Enough to be cost effective rather than buying it?
I agree that the WTS tore little down as far as buildings, just repurposed them when I was there in the 80's. I guess I'm going to quit listening to people on JWN as to the status there unless they are a prove reliable source.
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pontoon
Billy the Ex description of Wallkill made me lol. It really is as he describes, a crazy complex of buildings. It's a mess. Ones that have never seen Wallkill and Paterson would probably be awed by the size of these complexes. -
pontoon
Blondie, you said do they sell orchids? Do you mean like flowers? Is it my bad spelling? I mean apple and pear orchids, and they don't sell anything. lol -
insidetheKH
Ones that have never seen Wallkill and Paterson would probably be awed by the size of these complexes.
Wallkill and Patterson are both HUGE
see here a video of recent(2013/2014) expansions at Wallkill
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Orchards, not orchids. They also still have orchards and beef at Patterson, I believe. The slaughterhouse is at Wallkill. At least it was. I've been gone from there about a decade now. So I really don't know the latest... or really care that much anymore.
They used to raise a lot of different vegetables at Wallkill and had their own canary... oops, I mean cannery. But they stopped that around 1990 because it was cheaper to buy than to maintain everything and do all the work. They used to raise their own chickens (eggs and meat) and pork, but that eventually phased out. And the dairy also was phased out. It simply became cheaper and easier to buy. I was around when they built the Food Warehouse where they did the bulk receiving of nourishing and affordable food from "Satan's world".
So they still do some farming there at Wallkill, but it's not like the old days when they were preparing themselves for the new world by trying to grow all their own food.
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blondie
Yes, Billy vegetables, strawberries, ORCHARDS, beef cattle. They closed the pig and chicken operation when I was there in the 80's. I was told on JWN that the farming had been closed down and the WTS was buying because it was cheaper. They still had dairy when I was there. I worked in the farm area when I was a regular pioneer and lived close by. The Bethel elder in charge of the cannery was in my congregation and several Bethelites worked on the beef farm.
So that leaves the orchards (not orchids). There was a greenhouse on the Farm where they grew flowers for the beds and vegetable plants for transplanting.
So it is no longer called Watchtower Farm (or Farm 2--beef) although there is a little farming?
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Billy the Ex-Bethelite
Wallkill and Patterson are both HUGE
Ah hahahahahahahaha!
Patterson is about a thousand people. The largest cruise ship in the world carries about 6000 people. Even the 50th largest cruise ship in the world carries about 3000 people. To call them "HUGE" is even more naive than I was as a JW.
The printing and distribution at Wallkill may be impressive, but now that I've been out at university and working outside WTland, the scale of WT isn't much of a blip on the screen of the rest of the world.