In a message dated 98-10-29 01:26:52 EST, you write: << For the second time this year a Historic Middlesex County Church was destroyed by the wreckers ball. Just two months after the destruction of the Holy Trinity Church in Perth Amboy, the old Tabernacle Baptist Church building in South River was razed to make way for a parking lot. I passed the site Sunday morning. All that is left is a pile of rubble with an orange plastic fence around it. I can tell you that someone isn't happy about the churches destruction. On the fence was a hand written sign stating "History Destroyed by the Taber Baptist Church, an enemy of South River". >> Unfortunately there's more than one side to this story. There seems to be a misconception that churches are all wealthy. Churches don't usually have much (if any) money to spare; most if not all of their income comes from donations from their parishioners, and most of their budgets run in the red. Old city churches, whose wealthier members tend to move to more suburban areas and to take their money with them, are usually the hardest hit. When the building that they're using is too small to be effective or too old to be safe, the only choices they normally have are to sell the old property in order to buy another or to demolish the old building to make space for a new one--or for the parking space legally required to accommodate the parishioners at the new facility. They haven't the spare cash to maintain two buildings: one for current use and the second for historical preservation. In some areas, historical societies have purchased the old building for its historical value; in others, the courts have become involved. In at least one case that I know of, a church was forced by the court to keep and maintain the historical site, the result being that the congregation couldn't find the resources to rebuild. They had to continue worshiping in an old, inadequate building. All too often the end of stories like that is that so many of the members of the congregation leave for other churches that have large enough facilities to provide the programs they need that the original church folds--and then what becomes of the historical site? Typically the property gets sold to a developer or condemned, and the site gets lost, anyway. In an ideal world (which we all know doesn't exist) there would be plenty of donors willing to supply the cash to maintain historical sites; in the "real world" that we live in, often the cash isn't there. People have to choose their priorities for what to do with their discretionary income, and they may have others that are more important than historical preservation. It's a shame to lose old buildings, but sometimes their owners have no choice. Doris Stanford