The grand old Bossert Hotel on the corner of Montague and Hicks Streets, is, as Jehovah's Witnesses might say, in Brooklyn Heights but not of it.
Seen from the outside, which is the only way an ordinary mortal
can see it now, the physical hotel exudes the patrician elegance
of the most expensive parts of the neighborhood. The woodwork
is lovingly waxed, the brass is shiny, everything is perfectly
maintained.
But the human goings-on are quite another story. Neatly dressed
young men and women, apple-pie American rather than patrician,
hover around not only as residents of the hotel but also as its
delivery personnel and maintenance crew. Others come from the
neighboring Jehovah's Witness plant on Furman Street to lunch
and to dine in the basement communal restaurant. This dining hall
is the only feature of today's Bossert that can easily be observed
by passers-by, through the basement windows on Hicks Street. The
Bossert is no longer a public hotel; it is a private preserve
of the Witnesses, also known as the Watchtower Bible and Tract
Society, part of the group's very considerable real estate holdings
in Brooklyn Heights.
The Witnesses established their first foothold here in 1909, when
Charles Taze Russell, their founder, moved the headquarters from
Pennsylvania. But their massive Heights presence began after the
Second World War. From time to time there was neighborhood opposition
to them, notably when they displaced older residents along Columbia
Heights to make room for their ever-expanding dormitories. Opposition
was also caused by the rigorous economic self-sufficiency of the
Witnesses. Their food is brought in from their own farms, their
maintenance is performed by their own craftsmen; they cannot be
said to benefit the local economy.
At one time, about twenty years ago, a local florist on Montague
Street expressed his displeasure by placing a sign in his shop
window :
The Jehovah's Witnesses ... embark upon a program of using their tax-free millions to swallow up building after building until they own a major portion of the Heights ... and contribute nothing to the life of the community except for destroying lovely old brownstone houses and erecting ugly, modern structures.
The map of thirty-six properties listed in the name of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society in the Heights derives from city records, which, I was told, may be incomplete. The city estimates the current total market value of the Witness properties that are shown here at over 190 million dollars. A very small proportion of this property is taxed, most of it is wholly exempt. If all of this property were on the tax rolls, the city would receive an additional $9,427,051 per year. But this figure is based on current assessments, which, in the case of totally exempt buildings, are generally out of date. For that reason one can estimate that the city loses well more than ten million dollars a year as a result of Witness real estate holdings in Brooklyn Heights. This sum amounts to an indirect subsidy paid to the Witnesses by the tax payers of the city.
The Witnesses are certainly not alone in receiving such indirect
subsidies. All religious, educational, and charitable groups enjoy
similar benefits. But the Witnesses are distinctly different from
other religious groups because most of their properties are not
used for religious purposes in the traditional sense. Unlike churches
and synagogues, most of the Witness property is not used for public
worship. The bulk of the Witness property in the Heights is used,
first, to print Witness literature in the huge "factory"
(printing plant), and, second, for the communal housing of about
3,500 young Witnesses who work for no more than their upkeep.
The Witnesses, together with certain other groups, have obtained
such gray-area tax exemptions through aggressive litigation. Until
the Second World War, the courts interpreted the laws providing
for religious tax exemption very strictly, and printing plants
and dormitories were held taxable. But since the war, New York
State judges have liberalized the law considerably in a series
of decisions in which the Witnesses figured very prominently.
The result is that the Witnesses today enjoy property exemptions
for uses that would have been deemed secular in an earlier age.
Many say that the Witnesses benefit from a series of legal loopholes.
There is an irony in this situation. The Witnesses believe "worldly"
institutions, especially governments, to be basically evil, though
they do teach that governments should generally be obeyed. Jehovah's
Witnesses, in matters other than real estate, jealously guard
their "separation" from government. They will not serve
in the armed forces, especially not in time of war; they will
not salute the flag or pledge allegiance to the country; they
are, in their own view, above the worldly allegiances of the rest
of us. In a compendium of their doctrines entitled Insight on
the Scriptures, they proclaim that "Christians must keep
themselves clean and unspotted by [the] world's corruption and
defilements, not entering into friendly relations with it, lest
they be condemned with it." The willingness of the Witnesses
to accept indirect government subsidies, through a number of legal
loopholes, must be judged in the light of these Witness doctrines.
Some former Witnesses have criticized the organization for what
they perceive as hypocrisy in the matter of real estate and other
worldly possessions. One such critic is the well-known writer
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, who recalls her Witness days in her
1978 book Visions of Glory. Another is H. James Penton, a Canadian
professor of history and an ex-Witness, who wrote a critical history
of the Witnesses in his 1985 volume Apocalypse Delayed. But the
most embarrassing accounts, from the point of view of the Witnesses,
are two books by Mr. Ray Franz, a former member of the Witness
Governing Body: Crisis of Conscience, 1984, and In Search of Christian
Freedom, 1991.
But despite such criticism from former members, it is unlikely
that the Witnesses will pay voluntarily what is not required of
them by law, or that public policy will change to require such
payments. After all, many more millions are lost to the city through
tax exemptions of the larger denominations, and there are many
instances, in the case of the major religions, of loopholes similar
to those that benefit the Witnesses. It would require a veritable
revolution in the political climate before any such exempt properties
could ever be brought onto the tax rolls.
Nevertheless, we do live in a time in which government cannot
find the means for the most basic services, a time in which people
go hungry and unhoused and without medical care. Perhaps, who
knows, our politicians will some day come to reconsider their
present habit of heaping millions, no questions asked, upon all
manner of religion.
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