German Subversion

The Catholic Diocese of St. Paul put the 90 year-old St. Andrews Church near Como Ave. and Lexington Ave. in the capital city up for sale in 2013. The property was purchased by the German Immersion School, a publicly funded charter school. This article, by pseudo-journalist Joey Peters, details the controversy since then in an article in the City Pages, a "cutting edge" subsidiary of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Never known for coherent content, it's described as an "alternative newspaper". Peters describes himself thusly: I'm a freelance reporter based in Minneapolis. My work has appeared in Reuters, NYTimes.com, Public Radio International, Columbia Journalism Review, KFAI Radio, Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages, St. Paul Pioneer Press, MinnPost, Stateline and more. I previously served as senior reporter at NM Political Report and staff writer at the Santa Fe Reporter, both based in New Mexico.

The German Immersion School, now owner of the property, plans to demolish the church and replace it with a structure more suited to their current mission. This has roused the ire of locals who, as is normal in nimby St. Paul, don't wish to see the local landmark replaced with something of less significance.

The sale of the church was no secret and the local population, who, according to the article, greatly value the structure, could have gone to the trouble and expense of buying it themselves. They did not.

Interestingly, Peters' account of the controversy contains many emails  he maintains are between church administrators, contractors and others regarding the process of altering the property. At no time does Peters tell us how he came by what appears to be private communications between these parties, if, indeed, such emails are genuine.

As is often the case in matters such as this, the offended party has no monetary "skin in the game". They've offered no money to the German Immersion School to curtail its plans. They somehow hoped to simply  talk them into forgetting about the project and leaving the church pretty much exactly as it currently stands. They also feel that a growing number of students will raise traffic issues in the neighborhood, a few blocks from the city swimming pool, Como Park, the Como Lakeside Pavilion, soccer and baseball fields, a railroad main line, and more. 

In the late 19th century, St. Paul, home of Canadian immigrant James J. Hill, the Empire Builder, and founder of the Great Northern Railroad, experienced a building boom. Log cabins and tar-paper shacks were demolished to make way for the newest forms of architecture. If there was any objection to this process we are unaware of it today. Perhaps there were a few Victorian nimbys that resented the replacement of placid views of cabins with cloud obscuring multi-story granite buildings. But there were no historical preservation organizations or bureaucracies to stand in the way of progress then. The rights of property owners were also respected then.