Historic church renovating for wheelchair accesbility

Heather Bowman is looking forward to being able to go to church again.

The 32-year-old Kings Park resident has belonged to the First Presbyterian Church of Northport since she was a child. After a 2004 auto accident left her in a wheelchair, she had trouble navigating the 225-year-old building's many stairways and narrow corridors.

But an ambitious renovation project will make the historic church fully wheelchair-accessible. It also will modernize the interior and create a larger space for a food pantry in the building that serves more than 150 families a week.

A series of portable ramps purchased a few years ago had provided a stopgap measure, but require a wheelchair user to enter the sanctuary right behind the minister's podium, leaving them unable to exit the sanctuary without stopping the service. The only bathroom that can accommodate a wheelchair can't be reached by people in wheelchairs.

"If it [the church] was accessible, I would have been there every Sunday," Bowman said. "That really hurt me because I felt like I was missing out. That's my church."

Walking through the Main Street church, pastor Tim Hoyt Duncan pointed out stairs that routinely cause visitors to trip, noting that several elderly congregants recently fell.

"Accessibility is a big issue for us," Hoyt Duncan said. "We want to be a welcoming congregation, but how can you be welcoming when people can't get into your church?"

The $1.75 million project, which began on Nov. 6, will take nine months to a year to complete. The multiple staircases, labyrinthine corridors, and series of tiny rooms will be replaced by a modern interior with an elevator. Offices will be relocated to the entrance of the church, ending the practice of visitors wandering the halls unescorted.

The new interior will include an expanded space for the Northport/East Northport Food Pantry, which the Ecumenical Lay Council operates.

Currently, the pantry is run out of a small main room in the church's basement, at times getting so crowded that pantry director Sally Stark has had to turn away volunteers for lack of space.

The church intends to keep the pantry open during construction as long as possible, Hoyt Duncan said, although there may be a few weeks in the spring when it will have to close temporarily.

"The space will obviously be much easier for us to lay everything out," Stark said. "It will be a big help."

Church leaders so far have raised $1.3 million for the project.

Bowman said she thinks the renovations will bring more people to church on Sundays -- including herself.

"I can't wait to see when the renovations are done and I'll be able to navigate the church in a wheelchair," she said. "I used to run the hallways when I was a child, but as an adult it will be fully accessible."