The ban on worship services in public schools hampered new churches from starting and the expansion of existing churches needing a temporary home as they found larger meeting spaces.
A small church in New York, Bronx Household of Faith, decided in 2001 to have me refile its lawsuit challenging the city policy prohibiting worship services in vacant public schools.
As the church’s attorney, I had spent that summer negotiating fruitlessly with school officials to reverse their policy following the court’s decision, but they refused.for a new lawsuit. I added to the documents the date we planned to file them with the federal court in lower Manhattan: Sept. 11, 2001.The terrorist attack on the towers did not damage the courthouse, but it massively disrupted many things, including the court’s electronic filing system.
Maybe the loved one had survived and was lying in a hospital bed instead of lying buried beneath the rubble. But it was not the only one. Many churches, as well as synagogues, Hindu temples and mosques started meeting in empty schools around the five boroughs. The churches soon able to meet in the schools became part of the “good neighbors and friends” willing to live there and “be part of a great city.”
They donated band equipment and computers to schools. One Korean church paid to install air conditioning in a Chelsea public school.
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