In the bitter struggle to force Harlem’s Atlah church to take down a sickeningly gay-bashing, illegal sign, the city’s “administrative enforcement” is proving no match for the church’s “fire and brimstone.”
Atlah World Ministries, at Lenox Avenue and 123rd Street, has long flaunted the city’s landmarks law over an outdoor sign proclaiming its desire to rain “fire and brimstone” on gay people and “Jesus would stone homos.”
Pastor James David Manning this week had an unholy retort to the city’s effort to get rid of the marquee-size monstrosity: “Like hell will I let them take it down,” he told The Post. “Hell will freeze over before I take down that damn thing.”
Atlah just managed to have the city agency that handles landmarks enforcement “adjourn” a hearing on the issue for the third time. Scheduled for February, it’s now been pushed back to April — the latest successful delaying tactic in its effort to stave off judgment day.
The scandalous sign in the church courtyard stands 20 feet above the Lenox Avenue sidewalk. The message board, which changes from time to time at Manning’s whim, currently maligns President Trump as a “racist” and a “confessed rapist” who “should be arrested.”
But perhaps its most infamous message appeared in 2014: “[President] Obama has released the homo demons on the black man. Look out black woman, a white homo might take your man.”
Manning this week called the sign “an attractive piece of equipment” that “can withstand a 120-mile-an-hour wind.”
It’s also withstood every effort by the city to have it removed. The church owes $23,000 in fines that were imposed on it since 2015, in part for refusing to take it down, and it shows no willingness to pay.
The sign’s language is regarded as free speech despite infuriating neighborhood residents and elected officials. The legal issue, however, is that it was erected in a designated historic district without the required approval by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
It’s one of Atlah’s five flagrant landmarks violations, including removal of an outdoor brownstone balcony and installation of vinyl banners to hide damage caused by the balcony stripping.
Unrepentant Manning calls the sign “a landmark.” He said it should be “grandfathered” because it’s been up for nearly 20 years and nobody complained until gay-bashing messages appeared on it after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008.
But a thing can be “grandfathered” only when it existed prior to new regulations that forbid it. Atlah bought the building 10 years after the Mount Morris Historic District was designated by the LPC in 1971 and put the sign up later.
Most landlords comply with landmarks rules or negotiate compromises at the commission’s discretion.
But the April hearing before the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, if it isn’t postponed again, won’t likely accomplish anything.
A preservation-advocacy group, the New York Landmarks Conservancy, last year tried to “work with the church” to craft a solution, possibly involving a smaller sign, that would be acceptable to the LPC, Conservancy President Peg Breen said, “But unfortunately, talks have broken down.”
And Manning even doubled down last summer by installing a large, noisy video screen on the sign’s south-facing side that blares his bizarre sermons.
Atlah is exploiting the Landmarks Commission’s reasonable-sounding “prosecutorial discretion” policy. The agency can bring civil lawsuits over unauthorized work that threatens a building’s structural integrity or creates a safety risk.
But in situations such as at Altah, offenders are first issued warnings, then given grace periods to correct violations. Atlah received its first warning in 2013. The city clearly needs heavier artillery.
The church narrowly escaped doom in 2016 when a judge reversed an earlier foreclosure ruling over $1.02 million it owed creditors, including to the city for unpaid water and sewage bills.
That case, still in court, might be settled before Atlah gives up the sign — or hell freezes over.