Verizon delivers a Christmas gift atop L’pool’s First Presbyterian Church

By Russ Tarby

Contributing Writer

About a week before Christmas, Liverpool’s historic First Presbyterian Church, a beautiful brick building at 603 Tulip St., had its large steeple roof renovated and replaced. But there’s more to the story.

Turns out that Verizon Wireless was delivering an early Christmas gift to the church in return for use of its 76-foot-tall steeple as a cell-phone tower.

“In October 2014 Verizon contacted the church with an offer to lease space with the bell tower for the installation of cell phone antennae,” explained the Rev. Garrett Anderson, the church’s pastor. “The original materials of the bell tower roof — plank wood and slate — would not allow for signal reception, however, so a new roof with different materials was needed.”

That posed a problem because “Old First” is a village landmark, constructed during America’s Civil War.

“Since this building has historic and architectural significance, we didn’t want the look of the building altered in any noticeable way,” Anderson said.

So Verizon contracted with Stealth Concealment Solutions, Inc. in Charleston, S.C., to build a replica of the bell tower roof using steel infrastructure and fiberglass skin that would meet Verizon’s cell-signal needs while maintaining the architectural integrity of the building.

A member of the congregation, Nick Signorelli of Ashley McGraw Architects, monitored the entire process to insure the replacement structure would be a faithful reproduction.

Rick Pelotte, a member of the church’s Building and Grounds Committee, said the entire wooden structure was being replaced including the white trim work.

“The wrought iron railings on top of the towers have been restored and will be installed when all of the roofing is completed,” Pelotte predicted. “The new ‘slate’ roof is actually a plastic composite material of individual pieces made to look like slate.”

The shingles are the same material with which were used to replace the church’s sanctuary roof in 2013.

“To maintain consistency, Verizon also agreed to replace the slate on the smaller tower with the same shingles, even though they are not using space in that tower,” Anderson said.

While the top of the bell tower actually house the antennae, additional electronic equipment is located at a lower level in the big steeple and on the roof of the pre-school building. Advanced Network Services, LLC from Albany is Verizon’s primary contractor for the project.

Verizon picked up the cost of the construction work, but the church will recycle some of the wood that was replaced.

“We’ve kept as much of the reusable 154-year-old wood as we could in order to use it for repairs to the original window frames in the sanctuary,” Anderson said. “That’s the next project.”

The First Presbyterian Church was founded here in 1829, and a wooden church was built at 603 Tulip St. in 1840. The big brick building was designed by architect Horatio Nelson White and constructed in 1862; liverpoolfirstpres.org; 457-3161.