Will Patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of Warwick? If not, what will happen to it?
Frankly, I don't think WT has a plan for us to try to figure out. They've drawn up all kinds of plans along the way when I was in bethel for developing property they had in Brooklyn (local opposition was making it impossible, so not only didn't they continue to build, they saw how much money they could get when they sold Furman and have just continued to $ell, $ell, $ell.) They've drawn up plans to expand Patterson (I think it was simply too expensive and complex to expand on a hillside in the NYC watershed area). They had extensive plans to build a Patterson-sized facility up at South Lansing Kingdom Farm (halfway between the existing New York facilities and Canada branch... and in the middle of nowhere with no clear purpose for the property. I think that was around the time they decided to build the Sands building, which sucked up a ton of money. Construction in Brooklyn turned out to be much more profitable than building anywhere else.). Anyway, my point being that they never seemed to me to be operating with much of a plan beyond a few years and completing whatever they started building.
As far as Patterson, the other facilities aren't designed to take Legal, Art, Service, Audio/Video, and the classes, so I don't see anything changing there. And I don't see much of a market for someone to buy the property. It's not like their Brooklyn properties where they are in the middle of a hot property market. For someone to buy Patterson, they would have to be prepared to take on the waste water complexities and maintenance headaches of a bunch of ugly-ass concrete buildings. The most likely purchaser would be another cult.
Wasn't
it originally the intent for the GB to be at Patterson (but now
Warwick)? It seems that Patterson will be overkill after the completion
of Warwick.
Yes, originally the GB was intended to move up to Patterson, but a few years into construction and they decided the area was dullsville. GB 1.0 was accustomed to the excitement of the city and surrounded by a huge bethel family of the thousands. They seemed to connect with the needs of NYC congregations and many of them would go out preaching right on the promenade. Moving to Patterson seemed too remote, too small, and out of touch for them. I was there when the change of plans came along and the GB decided to stay in Columbia Heights.
But for GB 2.0, they seem to dig the luxury and remoteness of the Warwick compound. I think they decided on Warwick in order to distance themselves from Legal and Service at Patterson, and inky book printing and shipping at Wallkill. And the sick and elderly will spend their remaining days at Patterson and Wallkill, not Warwick.
So in answering your question, Warwick would have been overkill because it would have been very cheap and easy to move the GB to Patterson or Wallkill, but GB 2.0 clearly didn't want either place. They want a new place just for them and without any connection to GB 1.0.
Also, what is the future of
Walkill? It seems that printed literature is becoming less common in
JWdom. Will there be a need for a complex as large as Walkill?
Wallkill has turned into a crazy complex of the original,
poorly designed structures with more and more buildings added on here
and there with a maze of passages connecting most. It started as a farm,
that turned into a factory, that also became something of a retirement
village. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but it always kinda creeped
me out because it had such a "this is a cobbled together, yet very
expensive, mess" kind of feel.
Wallkills future? Like I said, even WT doesn't know. But it's clear enough that the GB doesn't want to live there. And I don't know who would buy it. Again, maybe they could find another printing-based cult that would be interested in buying.
