A storied Harlem church held its final service in Manhattan the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, after it lost a court battle to keep its basement space on West 149th Street.
Gospel Missionary Baptist Church was booted from West 149th Street near Riverside Drive after a foreclosure sale, despite more than two decades in the neighborhood, a trustee at the church Kimberly Karalia said. Worshipers held their last service on Sunday, where Rev. Dr. James E. Wilson urged them to keep faith.
"We were bamboozled," Karalia, the daughter of Gospel Missionary's founding pastor Bishop Henry Smalls, told Gothamist. "We have to be off the premises, keys turned in, all our property removed from there by the 24th of January."
Gospel Missionary was founded in a basement in 1991, before relocating to a dilapidated synagogue the church purchased in the mid-1990s. In 2005, the church entered a deal with developer Hirsch Group LLC to tear down the synagogue to make way for a condo building, Riverbridge Court Condominiums. Under the deal, the church got a brand new space, while helping to provide new housing for the neighborhood, Karalia said.
But the church quickly racked up more than $240,000 in condo fees it was unaware it had to pay to Riverbridge, court documents say.
The West 149th Street entrance of Gospel Missionary Baptist Church.
"We're absolutely devastated. Had we known we needed to pay maintenance fees, we would have paid them to keep the property," said Karalia.
In October 2018, W 149 Realty LLC purchased the church's space in the building in the foreclosure sale, sealing the deal, property records show.
An attorney the church consulted in the past advised the church did not have to pay condo fees as a religious institution, which Riverbridge Court Condominiums had allegedly agreed to as well. But a judge disagreed, writing in a June 2019 ruling, "an alleged oral promise" isn't enough to show the church was not required to pony up the fees and noted there had been two previous foreclosure actions since 2009.
Gospel Missionary will merge First Union Baptist Church in the Bronx, where Wilson preaches. Karalia expects at least some of the 50 active members will relocate to First Union, but she's sure many will find churches closer to home.
"It's definitely a sad day for us," Karalia said. "The church will still exist but unfortunately we won't be in that building."
Tisha Fields has been going to Gospel Missionary since she was a child, recalling when service was held with buckets on the floor due to a leaky ceiling and worshipers kept their coats on when the space was too cold to do otherwise.
"We're still mourning the death of our pastor [Smalls]. It's not just about losing our building," said Fields, a Bronx resident who works in financial services who used to be a part of the youth choir and dance team as a kid. "We're just changing buildings. We're not changing the church."
Others saw the loss of a space in Harlem as bittersweet.
"It’s sad but it's not as sad as I thought it would be," said Chyron Smalls, the late pastor's youngest daughter. "I believe this is how God chose for it to end."
A member of the Bronx church, who attended Sunday's service in Harlem, Ada Patterson said, "It could've been us."
"We're still where we are, and by faith, Gospel Missionary will join us," Patterson said.
Emails to Riverbridge condos were not returned. Contacts listed as representatives for the property owner said they no longer were involved with the property.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to indicate the foreclosure sale involved Gospel Missionary Baptist Church's particular space in the building, not the entire building, and that Gospel Missionary will join First Union Baptist Church, not First United. Additionally, Gospel Missionary purchased the former synagogue building, not Bishop Henry Smalls himself.
