New York Times: "Mormons Plan a Temple Opposite Lincoln Center"

While vacationing in Utah, Brent was informed by President Hinckley that a Temple would be built in Manhattan at the location of the current stake center at 2 Lincoln Square. The next day, he was interviewed by phone by a reporter from the New York Times while at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City.

"Mormons Plan a Temple Opposite Lincoln Center"
(by Daniel J. Wakin; published: August 09, 2002)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is going on a Manhattan building spree to serve what it says is a growing membership.

Yesterday, it described plans to convert two floors of its building opposite Lincoln Center into a 20,000-square-foot temple. The temple, to be completed in February 2004, will be the church's first in New York City and the only one between Washington and Boston.

The church also said that it would begin work, probably by the end of the year, on three new chapels at sites in Manhattan it has acquired over the last year. Buildings on the Upper East Side and near Union Square will be renovated, and a building in Harlem will be razed and replaced, said a spokesman for the church in Manhattan, Scott Trotter.

Church members attend chapels for Sunday services that are open to the public. The temple, however, is the sacral heart of Mormon religious life. It is used for rituals like sealing ceremonies, in which a man and woman are joined in marriage for eternity; instruction in the church's truths; and baptisms for the dead, to allow them entry into heaven.

Mormons in the New York metropolitan region travel to Boston, Washington or Palmyra, N.Y., the birthplace of Mormonism, 21 miles southeast of Rochester, for the rites.

Just ''worthy'' adults who receive permission from church leaders are allowed to enter Mormon temples. But the Manhattan temple is to be open for public viewing for a month after it is finished.

The decision to establish the temple, made by the church's leaders in Salt Lake City, stemmed in part from frustration over the slow pace of work on a temple planned for Harrison, N.Y. Church officials acknowledged that a seven-year dispute with Harrison officials over permission to build had contributed to the decision to build in Manhattan.

''I think that could be part of it,'' Mr. Trotter said. The town, in Westchester County, had objected to the height and volume of the temple and the potential increase in traffic. A compromise was reached in May to reduce the size, and officials expect construction to proceed.

The church president for Manhattan, Brent Belnap, said the Harrison temple was proceeding slowly, ''agonizingly so, unfairly so.'' The Manhattan temple was ''somewhat'' of a solution to the slow pace.

''If it were a religious group any more well known in the New York area, or not perceived as so unique or different,'' Mr. Belnap said, ''I don't think we would be having these problems right now.''

But church officials stressed that the main reason to build the temple and the new chapels was membership growth, a result of vigorous proselytizing in a region not known for its Mormon concentration. According to the church, its membership in New York City, on Long Island and in central and northern New Jersey rose 25 percent from 1995 to 2000, to 37,620 members from 28,350. Mr. Trotter said 25,000 Mormons lived in the five boroughs, from a worldwide total of 11 million.

Mr. Belnap said, ''Growth in the five boroughs has been so great, that the logic of having a temple within easy access to public transportation in the heart of the city makes far more eminent sense.''

The Manhattan temple will occupy the fifth and sixth floors of a church building on 65th Street at Columbus Avenue, where it has been a fixture for more than 25 years. The building has a chapel, offices and a genealogy center, a feature of the church's emphasis on baptizing dead souls. Church officials, sensitive to discussions of the church's wealth and power, declined to say how much the temple and chapels would cost. The money will come from church headquarters, which tithing finances.

The temple will be patterned after one in Hong Kong that also is in a larger building, a rarity for Mormon temples, which usually are freestanding. Following the pattern of Mormon temples, it will have a series of ritual rooms where men and women enter dressed in white garments. In a large Celestial Room, worshipers will pray or contemplate.

In New York's tradition of religious recycling, one building to become a chapel, at 141 West 14th Street, is a former convent. Another chapel site is at 217 East 87th Street, and the third is an abandoned six-story apartment building at 360 Lenox Avenue, near 128th Street.