Preservationists in Fells Point won a reprieve yesterday in their battle to save a row of buildings that were once a school run by Franciscan friars.
Workmen who were about to begin demolishing the structures next to the former St. Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church were forced to lay down their tools when confronted with the news that they lacked a crucial permit.
After asking to see their paperwork, City Councilman James B. Kraft said city officials had not officially approved the wrecking crew's plan to stabilize an 18th-century house that the preservationists hope will remain standing on the site. The so-called "four-bay mansion," built about 1795, is in the middle of the row of buildings on Aliceanna Street that are slated to be torn down.
"Everything is going to stop right now," Kraft told a group of about 20 neighborhood residents who had gathered at 7 a.m. and watched as he spoke with the construction workers inside the site, which could become a row of condominium townhouses. Kraft emerged to say that the crew had shown him only a sketch of how they planned to shore up the four-bay house.
The Rev. Joseph Benicewicz, speaking from the Franciscan order's provincial headquarters in Ellicott City, said it was a "huge surprise" to learn that the friars' plan required the blessing of city officials.
"We would say we had everything we needed," Benicewicz said. "There's nothing in the permit that we had that says it had to be stamped or approved by the city. We have taken all steps that are necessary to be able to proceed with a valid demolition."
The delay, he said, "continues to cost us more money."
It could also mean a revived fight over the fate of all the buildings, including the three-story, four-bay mansion, said Ellen von Karajan, director of the local Preservation Society. The friars' demolition permit expires April 5 - hence the rush yesterday - and an application to renew it could force city officials to reconsider whether to let any of the buildings be destroyed, she said.
Von Karajan and other activists are urging city officials to confer landmark status on, at the very least, the four-bay house - so called because its width, about 28 feet, permits four windows in a row, as opposed to most other houses of the period in Fells Point that are three or two windows wide. Local historian Bob Eney said the only other four-bay house known to have existed in Fells Point, on Thames Street, was demolished in 1934, although details of its architectural highlights are preserved in the Library of Congress.
