The fight is over, and the muted millennial tones have won—Park Church Co-op (129 Russell St.) has transformed into a luxury apartment building.
Much of the building’s exterior remains intact, though it now sports a fresh coat of white paint.
Avraham Garbo, along with Dutch entrepreneur and social media influencer Sara Rottenberg, purchased the 5,400-square-foot property for $4.7 million last year. Garbo’s GW Russell LLC officially owns the building.
“From the beginning, the group was committed to preserving the building’s unique character and long-standing presence wherever possible since it’s a building with such a long and meaningful history. They kept the structure as much as possible as is,” Noëlle Cathari, a representative for the project, told Greenpointers.
ADOR Builders leads the construction process, which is still a work in progress.
“The project is still underway; things such as window placements, exterior painting, and interior renovation are all in progress and absolutely not finished yet,” Cathari continued. “Construction is expected to be completed by the end of summer.”
Greenpointers had initially emailed Rottenberg for comment, only to discover that we were blocked from her Instagram account. This author’s personal Instagram (which is not used for Greenpointers business) was also blocked. We reached out to clarify why we were blocked after sending a standard press inquiry and were told that Rottenberg had privatized her social media accounts. Soon after this, the block lifted; Rottenberg’s social media remains private, including a TikTok account she had been using to share an inside look at the renovation process.
The new apartment building represents the culmination of a years-long battle to save the beloved community space. For many Greenpointers, Park Church Co-op was more than just a church—many non-religious members enjoyed the space’s offerings, from food pantries, dance parties, concerts, and drag story hours.
The church’s owner, the Metropolitan Synod of New York, announced plans to sell the space at the end of 2021, citing a dwindling congregation and ongoing financial issues. The community quickly sprung into action and launched a campaign to drum up awareness and ask the State Attorney General’s office to block the sale. A local group attempted to crowdsource the funds to turn the church into a community space. Though a judge had ruled to pause any potential sale and give supporters a chance to make a bid for purchase, the group was ultimately unsuccessful, and GW Equities (the parent LLC of GW Russell) purchased the building.
The church initially appeared to be slated for demolition last year, so thankfully, the structure will remain standing.
What do you make of the new space? The off-center window in the middle is driving Reddit users up the wall. Sound off below.
I was born on Russell St. it’s a shame what money is doing to this neighborhood. I still live in the neighborhood but it’s a shame what money is doing to everyone that do not have those resources. I played in a band that used the space to benefit the ambulance corp. that was up the block.
This is a colossal disaster! What kind of idiot paints brick? This is what happens when you let influencers design.
Sad they painted the church white… and the window placement looks a little bit off, but the construction’s not finished yet so who knows, they’ll still change things.
lol, I kind of get why she’d block you guys if you’re already writing articles about a building that’s still under construction. They probably have other priorities
…. It’s a brick building. How much do you think the windows are going to change now? People are rightly frustrated at international investors who swoop in and destroy the housing market. Destroying a local landmark only intensifies that anger. She and Garbo deserve criticism.
I’m so happy that they kept the church instead of knocking it down and the white looks kind of good on the block (I live 2 blocks away)
So ugly it’s unbelievable.
“From the beginning, the group was committed to preserving the building’s unique character and long-standing presence wherever possible since it’s a building with such a long and meaningful history. They kept the structure as much as possible as is”
Total garbage!!
Living here over 60 years…they took our lovely haven and turned it into Steel City!
Beautiful little homes now ugly concrete horrors with nasty dwellers! Goodbye lovely
Greenpoint never to be again!
Very disappointing. A church is not just a building, it’s a sacred space, a house of God, filled with meaning, memory, and community. Park Church Co-op was a place where people found comfort, gathered for support, and shared life together. It should have been preserved as a historical and cultural landmark, not turned into another profit-driven luxury apartment. Not a place to reunion but a pot of gold! To replace something so meaningful with high-end real estate is a deep loss for the neighborhood and everyone who ever stepped through those doors seeking connection, help, or peace.
And then there’s the brick. Why would anyone paint over beautiful, original brick? Brick carries history and it weathers, it tells stories, it ages with grace. Whitewashing it doesn’t “modernize” the building; it erases its character. The charm, the depth, the soul of the structure, it’s all been flattened for the sake of aesthetics that will likely be out of style in a few years.
This could have been a shining example of how to honor the past while embracing the present. Instead, we’re left with something that feels more like a missed opportunity than a transformation.
The whole thing reads like an on the nose parody of a gentrifier horror. Desecration of this once lovely church for condos… driven by rottenburger-deville, an instagram influencer?
Who wants to live in such a cursed space, maybe short of exploiting the b-cinema potential.
What the developers did this once majestic and beautiful part of our neighborhood is a sin. But it par for the course in terms of what greedy developers have done (not for) to Greenpoint in the last few decades., as long time residents and store owners have been forced out. All thanks to real estate industry puppets like Bloomberg, Adams and now wanna-be Cuomo. In a city that cries out for affordability, we build even more expensive condos. This is not “progress”- it is both sick and sickening.
The owner, Abe Garbo, is a liar and asshole, he also butchered a building at 489 Washington Ave in Clinton Hill and ILLEGALLY cut a curb where there was no cut, without permit, to park his Bentley when he visits once in a blue moon! He was fined for it by the city, but never paid and instead, either by bribe or lies, he got a variance from the city to keep his illegal curb cut in perpetuity. He initially made this sort of tenuous curb cut as if it’s not really there and put up a “Don’t park, private driveway” sign, and when long time neighbors, knowing that this is illegal, continued parking there, he accosted in a threatening manner and eventually actually towed someone’s car.
He originally applied for a permit for the *alteration* of a 19th century mansion, and did a horrible hack job leaving nothing of the original, making a bunch of studio apartments with asymmetrical facade, ugly and tasteless. He was proud of it and quoted as saying he got his architect to build a mini-Versailles, to which one Brooklyn paper responded that it belongs to Sheepshead Bay and not beautiful Clinton Hill. The off-center facade pilasters are made of painted foam and gaudily lit up at night.
It’s a pity that people like this have the wealth to build so much shit.