Representatives of the Jehovah's Witnesses didn't show. But their work on the former Masonic Temple at 385 Broadway was praised by the commission's executive director, Michael Wing.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are cleaning up, repainting and refurbishing the temple in a way that meets their needs for worship but doesn't despoil the building's original intent, said Wing. A large Masonic symbol in ornate floor tile has been covered with a circular rug, he said.
Other symbols on the outside of the building have been covered with stucco, he said.
The congregation could have obliterated both, but they remain, he said.
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City honors woman |for preserving its past
Monday, November 18, 2002
By CHRIS GALE
Herald News
PATERSON - Flavia Alaya, a historic preservation activist, sounded a war cry on behalf of the city's besieged history, including four stolen plaques that once adorned Hinchliffe Stadium and which she said are in the possession of a Montclair antiques dealer.
Initially, Alaya's voice was swallowed by the Paterson Museum's voluminous hall, filled with silk looms, lathes, airplane engines and a submarine. But she roused the audience, telling members they should be "harassing the people who have charge of our culture."
She read out the phone numbers of various officials and told the crowd it should call for the return of the plaques, which she said were discovered missing five years ago and had been sighted in a Montclair antique shop. The dealer won't return them, she said.
The historic preservation activist, who also busies herself with other causes, was one of three people receiving the City of Paterson Historic Commission's Annual Heritage Citizen Award, an honor she started when she was the head of the commission. In a ceremony noting success stories in the city's preservation movement, she reminded attendees of the combative side of historic advocacy and the tendency for Paterson's history to be purloined.
Two valuable Colt pistols were stolen from the Paterson Museum, and have yet to be recovered. At a city memorial, two plaques and a stone urn are missing. A small cannon that was part of a Civil War memorial was stolen in the mid-1990s. It was later found at a scrap yard in Newark and returned.
"So many blows to strike, can't strike them all," she told a friend later as the gathering broke up.
Joining Alaya in receiving the award, a scroll tied with a multicolor ribbon, was John Peretti and Michael Lemme, and The Jehovah's Witnesses of Paterson.
Peretti and Lemme had rehabilitated a dilapidated Victorian house at 624 East 27th St.
"Everybody thought we were crazy," said Lemme about the day they bought the house.
Peretti said their attention to historic detail will pay off when they find a buyer willing to pay the $399,000 they've listed the house at.
"When this house sells, it will send shock waves," said Peretti.
Representatives of the Jehovah's Witnesses didn't show. But their work on the former Masonic Temple at 385 Broadway was praised by the commission's executive director, Michael Wing.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are cleaning up, repainting and refurbishing the temple in a way that meets their needs for worship but doesn't despoil the building's original intent, said Wing. A large Masonic symbol in ornate floor tile has been covered with a circular rug, he said.
Other symbols on the outside of the building have been covered with stucco, he said.
The congregation could have obliterated both, but they remain, he said.
Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, acknowledged the recipients, giving each an award of his own, emblazoned with the congressional seal.
He recalled his time as mayor of the city and his push for historic preservation saying "people laughed at us 25 years ago." But Pascrell said preservation, and the militancy of activists like Alaya are necessary -"preservation is renewal."
Reach Chris Gale at (973) 569-7132 or [email protected].
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