Apog, That is probably the thinking of the current GB. It's the kind of thing that Splane has said before.
The move to Warwick is a huge change from the thinking of GB 1.0 and even Russell. They recognized the importance of visibility. Anybody visiting NYC would see the WT sign across from Manhattan. Tour boats and tour buses would all point it out as a local landmark. When Patterson was being built, it was supposed to be the future home of the GB. But that didn't happen. After visiting a few times, most of the GB found it too boring, too far from the airport, with none of the excitement of NYC. After all, most of them had already lived in Brooklyn for decades. Shortly before I left, they were still talking about building on their huge DUMBO property. In fact, it was the second largest undeveloped piece of real estate in all NYC. But too much local opposition to more WT buildings. And building in the city is very, very expensive with a lot of legal and labor union hassles.
GB 2.0 has almost no history of living in the city. None of them are interested in walking right outside the bethel doors and being able to witness to victims on the promenade, like GB 1.0 often did. GB 1.0 saw how badly the NYC congregations needed the help of bethel to have elders (some congs only had bethelite elders, I think) and the ability to get KH properties (bethel had a department that helped to purchase and develop the expensive city properties). I'm sure GB 2.0 just saw the ordinary, usually poor JWs in NYC as less desirable than the somewhat wealthier JWs living outside the city. And of course, GB 2.0 sees all that money to be made by selling that Brooklyn property. Back when I was in bethel, many took pride in the notion that WT was growing and would only buy, never sell property in Broolkyn. When the huge Furman building was sold, most thought that would be a one-time deal since there was so much hassle with the Brooklyn Bridge Park project. Wrong. It's been all sell, sell, sell, because now it's all about cash.
As far as them looking for safety outside the city, if chaos broke out in NYC, they're still plenty close for "worldly" people to drive up to Warwick and pillage the property. It's not like they've moved to Nebraska.
After all, it's a cult. So you can't expect what they do to make any sense.
