First Baptist Church finally finds preservation partner

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Your Theatre will spearhead preservation efforts at First Baptist Church in exchange for shared space in the historic downtown building.John Sladewski/Standard-Times file

NEW BEDFORD The long battle to save First Baptist Church may have finally found daylight.

Your Theatre, the city's longstanding community playhouse, and First Baptist will enter a partnership that allows the theater troupe to use church space while it helps the tiny congregation preserve the historic building.

The 65-year-old theater group has been looking for a new space and the church was looking for a way to spearhead its restoration, according to Gil Cardona-Erazo, who serves on the Your Theatre facilities committee. The city brought the two together, he said, and the Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE (WHALE) helped coordinate the partnership.

"If this were a romance, the mayor's office is the matchmaker and WHALE is the wedding planner," Cardona-Erazo said.

Your Theatre currently occupies space at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in the South End and was previously located in the onetime Southeastern Massachusetts Technical Institute building that is now the Quest Center. It has been looking for a way to locate in downtown New Bedford.

First Baptist, located on William Street across from City Hall, has received several state grants to preserve its 1829 white-clapboard building but it has struggled to raise the necessary matching funds.

After the steeple began to degrade in the weather, endangering pedestrians on the sidewalk, the city of New Bedford placed a mechanical lien on the property giving it an interest in the building as the congregation seeks to preserve it. The white-spired structure is featured on the city seal, some of its members were active in the abolitionist movement and it was the inspiration for Henry Martyn Robert's development of "Robert's Rules of Order" after an unruly church meeting.

Cardona-Erazo called the theater's move an opportunity "to help the folks at First Baptist be good stewards of their building." He said it will be a rather long process before the partnership begins, and didn't have an exact timeline Tuesday.

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First Baptist Church finally finds preservation partner