Fallin' Women

Salvation Army Parkside Evangeline Gramercy Park, originally uploaded by trexfiles23.

The Parkside Evangeline is a high-rise building that borders New York's Gramercy Park. It originated as a Salvation Army way-station for young working women in New York--with inexpensive housing as the lure, this no-men-allowed building kept the women out of trouble (the Juno kind of Trouble) and provided a medium for the Salvation Army to inculcate the strong moral values that would make them upright wives and mothers.

Times changed, and eventually the building basically became a cheap apartment complex with the charity as its landlord. A number of residents became lifers; others were new arrivals staying for a time, but with by-and-large no significant engagement with the Salvation Army's spiritual mission.

And when property values soared through the roof, the Salvation Army decided to sell the building. After all, the rumored asking price--one hundred million dollars--could go a long way toward stabilizing the charity's system for providing aid to the impoverished.

Thus began a conflict akin to the CBGB dust-up, except with rent-controlled tenants. Last August a court ruled that because the Salvation Army is a charity it was exempt from the rules that typically apply & thus could toss the residents out. There's been an outcry that the SA is acting contrary to its nonprofit purposes, but . . .

The whole thing's actually kind of complex.

Yes, the Salvation Army is essentially evicting people. and usually that's not something a charity wants to do if it is averse to reputational blowback.

At the same time, the building no longer serving its core mission, except in the tangential way of maintaining New York's identity as something more than just a playground for the rich.

Court documents indicate that the building may be running in the red to the tune of a couple hundred Gs a year. Is rent-controlled living something that something the Salvation Army should be required to subsidize?