Roosevelt Island Dayspring Church Evicted - Actively Looking For An Exciting New Use For The Stone Cottage On Roosevelt Island East River Waterfront Promenade Says Main Street Retail Master Leaseholder Hudson Related

A tipster reported last week that the Dayspring Church, which occupied the stone cottage on the Roosevelt Island West Promenade next to the Octagon building,

 was evicted from its premises.

by Main Street Master retail leaseholder Hudson Related for non-payment of rent.

In response to my inquiry, a Hudson Related representative replied:

They were evicted and we are actively looking for an exciting new use for the space.

This Dayspring Church October 16, 2018 fundraising appeal explained their financial difficulties:

... Dayspring church in the last couple of years have been through ministry travails and trials, ups and downs, twist and turns that resulted in a considerable decline of membership and attendance.

This put the church in a situation where we could not meet our financial obligations. During this period that stretched about four (4) years, the church was only able to meet 40% to 50% of her monthly bills leaving us with a minimum of 50% indebtedness each month. This is with respect to rent payments.

Today, the church stands indebted to our landlords in accumulated rent and interest of almost $60,000. Our current situation is that the church has been taken to court by the State of New York; the owners of the building, through their management agents. This is to recover the past due rent and interest, evict the church from the property and retake it back before the lease ends, if the accumulated rent of $60,000 is not paid by October 31st, 2018.

We are also in need of financial help in the tune of $50,000 for needed repairs and renovations on the church building, which we have not been able to do due to the financial situation we found ourselves in recent times. We are calling on the people of God to come to the aid of Dayspring Church Family. This church building was shut down and abandoned in 1973 until the church came to reactivate and reopen it for worship services in 1997. The church has spent nearly a million dollars in the past 21 years in rent, repairs and updates....

According to Correction History report in the year 2000:

... services are held here by the congregants of the REDEEMED CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF GOD. The church refurbished and occupied the building in 1997 under minister and island resident Oloe Obed. It was originally the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit, built in 1924 as a chapel for Metropolitan Hospital, with an attached rectory for the hospital's chaplain. The chapel was later rededicated to the Order of Saint Dennis.

When Metropolitan Hospital moved to Manhattan in 1955, the chapel stood abandoned for the next twenty years. In 1978 Richard Hemm, the chaplain of the relocated Metropolitan Hospital, occupied the rectory and remained there until the early 1990s.

Modeled on a church in England, the chapel's most noteworthy features are its stained- glass windows and steep- slate roof. It was the last of many island structures built out of island-quarried gray gneiss, and it blended nicely with Metropolitan Hospital's other buildings. Though its architecture is quite reserved, it maintains a handsome and charming distinction amidst the surrounding land....

It was later renamed Dayspring Church.

Roosevelt Island Historical Society President Judy Berdy has a very interesting chapter in her Roosevelt Island book about religion on Blackwell's (now Roosevelt) Island.