ABOUT LA HERMOSA CHRISTIAN CHURCH
La Hermosa Christian Church is a longtime anchor of the Harlem community, primarily serving Hispanic and other minority members of the neighborhood.
Our church has helped foster our neighborhood’s rich musical and artistic legacy, hosting beloved musicians like Tito Puente and the Palmieri brothers, and giving our corner the honor of being one of the birthplaces of Latin and Afro-Cuban Jazz. La Hermosa has always been a deeply important center of Hispanic life in the United States, and a sanctuary in which our community gathers. But the reality is our fortunes have changed, like so many churches around the country.
But the reality is our fortunes have changed, like so many churches around the country.
We simply don’t have the funding to maintain our 23,000 square foot building. The deterioration of our space is having a real effect on our community: old heating and cooling systems mean that services in the winter and summer can be unbearably cold or dangerously hot, a risk for older congregants. With steep steps up to the main worship space, the church is not easily accessible to many. We’ve moved most services into a smaller space downstairs.
Our Plan to Revitalize La Hermosa
We’re excited about our ambitious new plan to revitalize La Hermosa, which will address our challenges and do so much more.
We’ll be able to create a vibrant cultural and religious anchor for Harlem; we’ll establish an endowment that will help us raise the next generation of musicians; and we will set our community and our congregation up for long-term success.
A contextual, mixed-income residential building designed by architecture firm FXCollaborative will be developed next door to La Hermosa, and we’ll be able to use the proceeds to benefit the residents of Harlem.
The Space
Our plan will deliver an inspiring, accessible house of worship for our congregation. The lobby will host art exhibits and performances; top floors will include practice rooms and performance spaces.
The space will be active throughout the day—from Sunday services and bible study to graduations, recitals, child-care, weddings, and even sporting events, everyone will be welcome into our neighborhood’s new, dynamic cultural and social hub.
We’ll listen closely to our community and provide services that it needs: that might mean high-tech classrooms for local nonprofits to work in; better worship and meeting space for the churches that already rely on La Hermosa; daycare or health care services.
Additional Community Benefits
The project will help create affordable housing units for our community, something we can all be proud of.
We’ll be able to honor our history as one of the birthplaces of Latin Jazz by making music and art a cornerstone of our program. We’ll create a multi-million dollar endowment for the arts in Harlem — partnering with local arts and cultural groups to provide music education here in Harlem.
We believe this plan will help us not only create an inspiring space—but will build an anchor for music, for worship, and for helping our community succeed and grow.
FAQ
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What’s the project all about?
La Hermosa Christian Church is a longtime anchor of the Harlem community, and a national home of the Hispanic MInistries. It contributed to Harlem’s legacy of being the birthplace of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz.
But our fortunes have changed. Our 23,000 square foot space is aging, and as maintenance costs grow, we can no longer afford to maintain it. Aging heating and cooling systems mean our church isn’t welcoming in the winter and summer; stone steps to the main worship space provide a barrier for many of our congregants.
By working with the architecture firm FXCollaborative, we’ll use the value of our space to benefit our community. A mixed-income, contextual residential building will be developed next door, and we’ll be able to use the proceeds to benefit the residents of Harlem.
The revitalization of La Hermosa will deliver a vibrant cultural and religious anchor for Harlem; it will establish a multi-million dollar endowment that will help us raise the next generation of local musicians; and will set our community and our congregation up for long-term success. A beautiful new sanctuary will overlook the park and flexible community spaces will host concerts, community meetings and more.
We’ll listen closely to our community and provide services that it needs: that might mean high-tech classrooms for local nonprofits to work in; better worship and meeting space for the churches that already rely on La Hermosa; daycare or health care services. -
Can you renovate the church?
The reality is that our existing building is not meeting our needs in many ways.
It is not ADA accessible, which provides a real barrier to our continued growth as a congregation, and retrofitting an old building for accessibility is prohibitively expensive. The big, inflexible spaces like the balcony remain unused most of the time. Heating and cooling the building is becoming increasingly difficult as these systems age.
We’re excited about the potential for a new, modernized La Hermosa to not only provide an inspiring worship space but flexible community resources for Harlem, on-site affordable housing for our community, and an endowment to honor our history as a birthplace of Afro-Cuban & Latin jazz. -
How will the new building contribute to the community? What new resources are being considered?
La Hermosa is dedicated to creating a vibrant cultural center and place of worship that will live up to Harlem’s legacy of community and art.
Our vision is to deliver a new, inspiring, sun-filled, scale-appropriate and accessible house of worship for our growing congregation. We want the lobby of La Hermosa to host art exhibits and performances; we want to see practice rooms and performance spaces to support and showcase our community’s talent as part of our plan.
From Sunday services and bible study to graduations, recitals, child-care, weddings, and even sports events, the space will be active throughout the day.
We are also excited to be able to deliver needed on-site affordable housing as part of this plan, and an endowment that will support musical education in our community. -
Will this project include a rezoning?
We are proposing a rezoning so that we can leverage our unique location to benefit the Harlem communities. We want our site to be contextual with the other corners and with the rezoning conducted right across the street at 1280 Fifth Avenue. The zoning we are applying for is the same as nearby Schomburg Plaza and 1280 FIfth Avenue.
NEWS
