I just received this letter from a former Bethel worker who saw my post on the DUMBO property plans of the Watchtower. Don't tell me they aren't doing this DUMBO project just the same as the Margaret Hotel and who knows how many others?
LETTER DATED 12/18/03 from ANONYMOUS
re: The Secrets behind the Margaret Hotel purchase by the Watchtower
Dear Randy:
It has been a couple of years since we exchanged correspondence and today, after reading your letter on the Watch Tower DUMBO area project, memories of my year at Bethel came back to haunt me.
It turns out that I was invited in the spring of 1986 to work at Brooklyn Bethel, specifically to help in the engineering department. I had already worked with some of these brothers for two weeks at the end of 1985 and Ray Rose, in particular, liked my work and arranged for the invitation. In those days the Watch Tower was using a real estate company called COHI Associates for the express purpose of buying properties in the Heights area. To my knowledge, they purchased the Standish and Bossert buildings this way. Officially, I came to Bethel as an employee of this company and was given an apartment in the Standish building.
I was brought in because the demands on the engineering group with the Patterson project going full steam, the refurbishing of the COHI properties was being neglected. These old buildings needed to be brought to Bethel standards for the eventual turn over.
A few of months after arriving in Brooklyn when the plans for the remodeling of the old Bossert Hotel were finished, I was invited to be a part of a secret project. This project had to do with designing a new residence building in the lot where there had existed the old Margaret Hotel on Columbia Heights. The building had been consumed in a fire and now the Society entered secret negotiations with the proprietor to buy the building.
As you know, the community has serious concerns about the ever-expanding Witness headquarters and was the subject of negative articles in the local press on numerous occasions.
Our job in engineering was to prepare design plans for a luxury apartment building that could be easily converted to Bethel rooms by simple modifications. During that period, the department was closed to the public and we would not be allowed to discuss the project with anybody, including our spouses. The plans were prepared under the name of a local engineer who was a witness. We, in engineering, came to cal the project ?Madame X.?
After a few months, the plans and permits were obtained and construction began. A ?worldly? construction firm laid the foundation and steel framework was being erected. On the property, a sign showing a rendering of the completed structure featured the telephone number of a real estate company in charge of sales. A person in the engineering department, as explained to me, answered the telephone.
One fine morning, after the steel frame was completed, it was announced to the Bethel family that the Society had ?just acquired? the building under construction. I felt bad, terribly bad because I knew better.
I left Bethel in the spring of 1987 at the end of the one year agreement because my wife?s poor heath. But my experience in Brooklyn was the catalyst for the crisis of conscience that peaked ten years later.
I join you and the community, even if just in prayer, in your efforts to stop the Watch Tower availing themselves of the ?world? to further their own interests at the expense of others.
May God bless you always.
In Christ
Anonymous
Below are the ?sanitized? references by the WTBTS of the events described above.
*** w96 4/15 26-7 Expansion With Jehovah's Blessing *** The speaker also described how Jehovah?s Witnesses purchased the former site of the famous Margaret Hotel, just across the street from the original Bethel Home. The location is ideal, since it could easily be tied in with the Bethel complex by an under-the-street tunnel. In February 1980, when the building was in the course of being remodeled, it burned down. Then, because the owner had trouble putting up a new building on the site, he sold the property to Jehovah?s Witnesses.
*** yb88 25-4 1988 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses *** Additional property for housing the Brooklyn Bethel family was acquired in February 1987. The 11-story structure is located at 97 Columbia Heights and will have 127 rooms, with underground parking space for 30 cars. A hired contractor completed the shell of the building, and the Society?s personnel will finish the interior construction by approximately September 1988.
[Picture on page 24]
*** g89 4/22 23-4 More Living Space for a Growing Family *** 97 Columbia Heights One is this beautiful new 11-story building overlooking the East River, located on the site of the former Hotel Margaret. It has an unobstructed view of one of the most photographed sights of all time, the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan and its famous financial district. More importantly, it is located next to 107 and 124 Columbia Heights, large residences that accommodate over a thousand members of the Bethel family.
Just a hundred years ago, the 150-foot-high [50 m] Hotel Margaret was completed at 97 Columbia Heights and became internationally known. In February 1980, while the Margaret was in the process of being converted into luxury apartments, it was devastated by fire and was afterward torn down. In 1986, after the developer finally received permission to go ahead with the new construction, he sold the property to the Watchtower Society, a legal agency of Jehovah?s Witnesses. As successive floors of the building were readied for occupancy during 1988, a total of 250 members of the Bethel family moved in.
A spokesman for the firm that designed the building said that an attempt was made ?to keep some memory of the Margaret alive.? The way the windows are done, for example, is reminiscent of the copper metalwork on the Margaret. The spokesman added: ?We tried to keep the building larger in scale toward the water and smaller in scale toward the community.? Thus, the building is stepped down to the level of buildings nearby.
posted at: