the rix mix

Elizabeth theater goes from vaudevillian to vocational

The building’s current incarnation as a community center where religious services take place has its new owners hopeful that the renovated Liberty Center will become a positive force in the heart of Elizabeth Avenue.

Puff piece. I walk past this theater every so often, watched the renovation take shape. The route also brings me past some of Elizabeth's struggling, historic mainstream protestant churches, including the old but inclusive St. John's Episcopal downtown. There's some tough, rigid fundamentalists behind the bright marquee of The Liberty, but you have to look closely because they don't want to give it away in the slick marketing (that's why it's called a "community center"). Hispanic Catholics are one of their important target demographics, & to aid in attracting them these protestants have built themselves a fine & fancy cathedral. Yes, a church. But it is a Catholic agency doing hard, daily outreach to homeless here, & Catholic Pax Christi organizing lonely defenses of immgrant rights outside the isolated detention center in the warehouse district. I notice that, too.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, religion