A Day in the Life: Church Building

We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Each week we attend our congregation, the Astoria Ward. Our ward is a part of the Woodside New York Stake, which consists of five wards and four branches. Our ward meets in a beautiful building just 12 blocks from our place, in Woodside, Queens. Church starts at 9:00 am. We usually take the subway on the way to church in the morning -- we only need to ride it to the next stop. When it gets really cold, snowy or rainy, we'll take the subway home too, otherwise we like to walk home to stretch our legs and enjoy the nice weather.

We get off at the 61st Street subway station. It's a lot bigger than our little station at 52nd St. 

The Long Island Railroad has a stop at the 61st St station. The LIRR is a commuter rail system that runs from Manhattan all the way out to the eastern tip of Long Island. It was established in 1834, runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, carries over 300,000 people daily, and is the oldest U.S. railroad to still run under its original name. We take the side stairs out of the subway station that lead down to the railroad's tracks because it offers us a shortcut to the street.

After walking along the railroad platform, we cross over to the street by way of a small staircase. I work with the cub scouts in our ward, and so I go to the church one evening a week. Usually, the guy that owns the small garage on this street (on the left in the picture) has his garage open, which is chock full of stuff for sale. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in there buying anything though.

Across the street and down the block is our church building -- the Woodside Stake Center. A total of three wards meet here each Sunday, our ward, the Woodside Ward (Spanish Speaking), and the Queens Young Single Adult (YSA) Branch. The YSA Branch gets the 11:00 am time slot and the Woodside Ward has the 1:00 pm time slot. We switch times with the Woodside Ward each year, so next year we will be meeting at 1:00 pm.

    

    

Originally, this building housed the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking. The school was started by Arde Bulova -- the son of Joseph Bulova, the creator of the Bulova Watch Company -- in 1946, just after WWII ended. The school was intended specifically for disabled veterans from the war, giving them a chance to learn a useful trade for free. It eventually expanded to include any disabled person. The school remained open until 1993. In 1997 the LDS Church purchased it, renovated it, and opened it as the Woodside Stake Center in 2000.

I think it's so beautiful, especially set behind the vibrant fall leaves. Our church is actually comprised of two separate buildings, connected above ground by a small grassy courtyard, fenced off from the street, and below ground by a tunnel-like passageway. Each building contains two floors.

Our church even has a large, and normal looking parking lot off to the side of the second building.

The doors on the first, columned building lead into a foyer.

      

Doors on either side of the foyer lead into rooms used by the Woodside New York Family History Center. The center door leads down a short hallway to the chapel. You can take an elevator or stairs down to the second level.

     

The second level in the main building contains classrooms, the Bishop's office, clerk's office and a small kitchen. The baptismal font opens up into the largest classroom on this room. The buildings' interior decor looks like any other LDS church building -- the layout, not so much. The winding hallways on this level lead to the tunnel-like passageway.

     

Simply referred to as "the tunnel" by ward members, this passageway is always cold, echos a bit and slopes downward. The little kids in our ward love to run up and down it.

     

The tunnel leads to the lower level of the second building which contains more classrooms, restrooms, and the stake offices. From here, you can take another elevator, or walk up the stairs to the above level, which contains more classrooms, another kitchen, and the gym.

      

Sometimes, when the primary room, and gym are occupied, we hold cub scouts in the Relief Society room. A couple of weeks ago, we were teaching the boys how to set up a tent, and this was the only space available (it was too cold to do it outside in the small grassy courtyard). I bet you've never set up a tent in the Relief Society room before.

We have always felt so blessed to have such a beautiful (and normal feeling) building to meet in for church. We love the people in our ward and have loved serving in our various callings. It is the one place that has felt the most like home here in NYC. Although, even this aspect of our lives is affected (albeit only slightly) by the city. The building is kept locked up tight, and the parking lot's fence closed and chained shut when not in use. We used to be the only ones here for the first hour or so when we met for cub scouts, so we were told to keep the doors locked until others started coming. There have been a couple periods of time where unknown (homeless) individuals would come in and hang around (it has never happened while I've been in scouts), and to ensure our safety the stake has requested that we keep the doors locked while we are there so not just anyone can wander in. Also, there has been another instance in another, nearby Queens ward where a certain rabbi has come around harassing the missionaries, and wandering around in church meetings on Sunday trying to record them. So occasionally, we will receive emails from the stake warning us about certain individuals, or reminding us to keep the doors locked if we are the only auxiliary at the church, etc.

We just had our Stake Conference last week, where all the wards and branches meet in our building. Our Stake is so diverse that different rooms are set up for different languages. Those that speak English meet in the gym, where the speakers deliver their talks. The talks are then streamed into other rooms -- the Relief Society Room, Elder's Quorum Room, Primary Room, Chapel. There are translators in each room that convert the talks into Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese, etc. 

On the occasions that we do ride the subway home, we get to enjoy this view of Queens while we wait on the subway platform for our train.

   

There is a fairly traditional looking LDS Church building in Rego Park Queens, that I've been to a few times for scout activities. That is the only other church building I've been to in Queens, and I'm not sure what the others look like. In Manhattan, I know that some wards meet in the same building as the Temple. There is an LDS Employment Office Building near Union Square where other wards meet, and there is a church building squished in on the Upper East Side, and another in Harlem. There are others there as well, but these are the only ones I know about. So that about covers going to church in NYC.