In 1923, some two dozen members of Palo Alto's African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, who had been worshiping for five years in Fraternal Hall, began planning for their own church building, to be constructed on a lot they owned on Ramona Street near Homer Avenue.
Less than two years later, on April 5, 1925, the first black church between San Mateo and San Jose, seating 200, was dedicated. The cost of the building was $6,000.
The simple structure at 819 Ramona St. served the AME Zion congregation for 40 years, until the growing membership sold it to finance construction of a new, larger church on Middlefield Road.
The buyer of the old church on Ramona Street was the nearby Palo Alto Medical Clinic, which was also growing. The clinic needed the old AME Zion building for storage--and, to this day, continues to use it for that purpose. In recent years, as the clinic has focused its attention on building a new medical facility, the old AME building, heavily damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, has been allowed to deteriorate to the point that engineers now say it is dangerous.
The old church was a near certain candidate for demolition, and no one was objecting until Ruth Anne Gray came along. Gray, a Sunnyvale resident whose grandfather, Isaac McDuffey Hinson, was a founder of the church, has waged a virtually single-handed campaign for the past eight years to have the old AME Zion building preserved. She has received support from historic preservationists and, last month, persuaded the California Historic Resources Commission to back her efforts to get the church listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.
Wishing to avoid entanglement in an expensive preservation effort that could complicate its own redevelopment plans, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation has declined to support the application for listing on the National Register. Last week, in fact, Medical Foundation officials said they would apply for a permit to demolish the dilapidated church. The church cannot be placed on the National Register if the owner objects to it, but just being declared eligible for a listing throws up some bureaucratic hurdles to demolition.
What is the price of preserving this piece of Palo Alto's history, and who is willing to pay it? This is what the debate comes down to.
It does not seem fair that the property owner--whether it be a seemingly powerful medical organization or an impoverished elderly widow--should be saddled with these costs. After all, when it purchased the church, nobody recognized the building as particularly special. The Medical Foundation, with major fund raising needs of its own, should not be the object of public pressure to take on this expense.
If the old AME Zion Church building is to be saved, the community will have to decide whether it's worth the substantial financial price of restoring the structure--and then raise the money to do it. The historic status of the church may make it eligible for some grants and loans, but substantial private fund-raising no doubt will be required as well.
But this does not remove the foundation from responsibility for recognizing the building's social--if not architectural--significance, belated though that recognition may be. In the spirit of cooperation, the foundation should at least hold off on plans for demolition for a few months to see if a communitywide preservation plan emerges.
A restored and shining AME Zion Church would stand as a legacy of the Peninsula's early black settlers. But it would come at a price. The community will have to decide whether it is willing to bear that price. The Foundation, which has owned that building for 30 years, should be able to hold off on demolition plans long enough to hear the answer.
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