I still can't believe that the Nigro Companies and Price Chopper proceeded with a plan that stirs such ill will in Watervliet. The people built the church, and there was a clear expression of the building's value to the community. If no one in power heard the strength of that devotion, the tower has spoken for itself, standing tall as the wrecking crew snaps cable after cable.
I've been reading about another attacked tower in Herman Melville's story, "I and My Chimney." The narrator defends his chimney from his wife, who wants the large stone structure removed for a grand entrance hall. The husband stands guard against her plans, eventually never leaving the house.
Progress is the wife's cry, progress!
If progress did not seem like the only true north in our society, the church would still be standing, ready to take on another purpose. Maybe a grocery store?
Melville lived in Albany and Lansingburgh. He wrote the story after his novels "Moby Dick" and "Pierre" were poorly received by the public. Maybe the story is about the writer sitting near his chimney, protecting his ideas from an audience that can't appreciate them.
The fact that this story is fiction doesn't weaken its allegorical strength, or keep it from suggesting another outcome for St. Patrick's. The church's defenders didn't have the power the narrator had in his marriage, but the audience for the church's continued life in the community was there.
It is a shame that monied interests determine the shapes our cities and lives take. Many of us would have preferred bricks and wonder to a parking lot for shopping carts, and another market. We deserve more.
Amy Halloran is a Troy writer.