The 107-Year Relationship Between the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Brooklyn Is Coming to an End
By Terence Cullen Sept. 21, 2016, 9:45 a.m.
For Jehovah’s Witnesses, Brooklyn Heights was until recently the equivalent of Vatican City for Catholics.
Brooklyn—“the borough of churches”—arguably has no congregation with a more noticeable presence than the Witnesses. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the governing body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, built its headquarters at 25-30 Columbia Heights, and it is there to greet any visitor driving over the Brooklyn Bridge. The pamphlets its missionaries hand out door to door were printed along the waterfront, put on ships in Brooklyn’s port and sent all around the world.
That was another time, however, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are going the way of the Dodgers and leaving Brooklyn for good. A decade’s long plan to move upstate is nearly complete, and the Watch Tower Society is listing the last of its holdings for sale.
“We feel that we’re leaving Brooklyn with our heads held high,” said Richard Devine, a spokesman for the Watch Tower Society. “We wish everybody the best as we leave. We’ve always enjoyed working with our neighbors in Brooklyn.”
The Witnesses are the ultimate real estate winners as far as being shrewd landlords who held onto property and then sold the bulk of its portfolio during the borough’s boom. For the last 10 years, the church has been shedding its real estate assets—and in the process they’ve pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s true, the church faced criticism for not using any of their profits for community investment, as well as for benefiting from upzonings originally intended for nonprofit use—but others have countered that the Witnesses extremely positive influence over the last 100 years, preserving parts of Brooklyn from falling into urban decay.
“They were a force for good,” said Timothy King, the managing partner of Downtown Brooklyn-based CPEX Real Estate. “The Witnesses never spared any expense maintaining their properties. I think it’s part of their lifestyle. They try to do everything they ever did the best way possible.”
Their buildings have stood out for their location, their quality and their ability to convert with relative ease. At one point, the Witnesses’ Brooklyn real estate empire totaled 4.5 million square feet that spanned 30 buildings, such as the Watchtower Buildings and the Hotel Bossert—making them one of the major players in New York real estate.
But the Watch Tower Society only has nine properties left and has made somewhere in the ballpark of $1.25 billion through sales since 2004, according to a Commercial Observer review of their transactions.
More at link.
Relationship Between the JWs and Brooklyn Coming to an End
by betterdaze 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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betterdaze
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sir82
“We feel that we’re leaving Brooklyn with our heads held high,” said Richard Devine, a spokesman for the Watch Tower Society. “We wish everybody the best as we leave.
Poor Brother Devine didn't get to finish his thought. I've completed it for him here:
“We wish everybody the best as we leave. Of course, we daily pray for the moment, very soon now, when Jesus Christ and a horde of resurrected ex-Bethelite spirit creatures will annihilate nearly every man, woman, and child in Brooklyn. But until that day comes when men, women, toddlers & infants are writhing in agony at their painful & violent deaths, well, hey, all the best!"
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Heaven
Yep, they're pulling up stakes, off to sell crazy some place else.
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NewYork44M
Brooklyn has always been a cultural anchor for JWs. I have often wondered what effect of losing this cultural anchor will have on the organization.
Something tells me that abandoning Brooklyn is part of a much larger strategy to create a directional change in what this religion is all about.
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dropoffyourkeylee
The old guard, the JWs who I grew up with in the 60's and 70's, looked at the complex in Brooklyn as sort of a Mecca or Vatican. Now however , with the majority (someone check me on this) of JWs in non-north America, the move will not be a big issue, my opinion.
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Pete Zahut
Most of the attraction for JW's to visit Bethel was because after you were done with the tour, you had all of New York at your disposal. Now, a visit to Bethel will entail staying in a one horse town located miles from nowhere. I suspect the amount of JW's streaming to see Bethel will slow down drastically.
The comment about "having our heads held high" smacks of martyrdom and makes it sound as if they thought they were the local Pariahs there in Brooklyn. In actuality, they were the ones who excluded themselves and rejected the community with the scathing articles published in their literature.
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Absolutesbeginners
Funny to see life passing by ....
1914 /2016
No jw will blink an eye .....( we love our drug dealer ! )
" the carrot is around the corner "
iTs a shame !
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Cold Steel
Sir82 » "We wish everybody the best as we leave. Of course, we daily pray for the moment, very soon now, when Jesus Christ and a horde of resurrected ex-Bethelite spirit creatures will annihilate nearly every man, woman, and child in Brooklyn. But until that day comes when men, women, toddlers & infants are writhing in agony at their painful & violent deaths, well, hey, all the best."
You are going to writhe for that one!
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ToesUp
"The Witnesses never spared any expense maintaining their properties. "
Hello...it's all free labor! If I had a swarm of free volunteers to maintain my home and the grounds, my home would look pristine too!
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millie210
Pete Zahut
The comment about "having our heads held high" smacks of martyrdom and makes it sound as if they thought they were the local Pariahs there in Brooklyn. In actuality, they were the ones who excluded themselves and rejected the community with the scathing articles published in their literatureThat part of his statement jumped out at me. It sounded extra defensive.