Now you see it; now ...

Well, pretty soon you may not. But at least Grace Hall will be there a little longer.

When Woodstock Christian Life Services presented its architectural drawings to the City on January 8th, I'm sure it expected an easy approval and thought they'd slide right through. And while the City had previously indicated that it would let me know when plans were submitted, it didn't; I learned of the plans about last Friday, Jan. 15.

Thanks to sharp eyes of the City staff, the plans will not be approved as submitted. There were numerous "deficiencies" in the plans, and WCLS will be getting a letter that explains where they fell short. Weren't they listening, when the City Council told them what they'd need to do to get a green light?

Grace Hall deserved landmark status and to be preserved as a historic building. But the City Council didn't think so and greased the way for WCLS to keep going on its path to demolish this grand building and replace it with a duplex.

And the City Council has never, not even to this day, acted on the nomination of Landmark status by the Historic Preservation Commission! The nomination disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle - the black hole where agenda items go when the Council tables them. As far as I am concerned (and the public ought to be concerned), when an item is tabled, it's still alive. It needs to come back to the table for a decision.

Will the City Council bring it off the table after Grace Hall has been demolished and it's too late to designate it as a Landmark? We deserve better.

The way they did it was shoddy, to say the least. But it's about time for the fat lady to sing. I wrote to a friend over the week-end that I wished I could fly in a band from New Orleans and have a dirge played when the wrecking ball shows up.

Take a look at what you'll see in place of Grace Hall. (Click on the image to enlarge it; then click on the Back button on your browser to return here.)

The top drawing is the back side of the unit, which will face Route 47. Classy, eh? An architectural delight, isn't it? Somebody is going to pay $180,000 to move into one end of that?

This is what the City Council is letting WCLS get away with, when it could have facilitated adaptive re-use of Grace Hall with the help with three preservation agencies.