NORTHAMPTON — If you look at one window on the southern wall of downtown Northampton’s First Churches sanctuary at just the right angle in the early afternoon, you will see not just a stained glass work of art, but the steady flow of a glistening river, according to the Rev. Todd Weir.
The prized window, handmade by Charles Lewis Tiffany of Tiffany & Co., depicts the river sweeping from a background of rolling hills down into a foreground of lily pads. It’s at least 20 feet in height and flooded with a palette of deep greens, blues, magentas and indigos.
And while the window has deteriorated since a member of the congregation donated it to the church in the 1890s, that river isn’t likely to lose its shimmer any time soon — thanks to the help of some officials at City Hall.
On Wednesday, Northampton’s Community Preservation Committee recommended that the City Council allocate local funding to restore two of First Churches’ stained glass windows, including Tiffany’s creation.
“We felt the responsibility to try to take care of it,” Weir said. “Over the next couple of years it would start to break. It’s a really valuable work of art that we don’t want to let fall into disrepair.”
If city councilors adopt the committee’s recommendations, First Churches will receive $213,000 to repair the Tiffany window, which faces Center Street, and the rose window, which faces Main Street, said Sarah LaValley, Northampton’s conservation, preservation and land use planner.
The committee was established under the Community Preservation Act, a state policy enacted in 2000 that allows communities to create a local fund for protecting open spaces, historic sites, affordable housing and other amenities.
In Northampton, a 3 percent tax on residential properties finances the projects selected for community preservation grants. The initial $100,000 of a property’s value and some low-income and senior residents are exempt from the tax, LaValley said.
The committee, which makes recommendations for distributing the revenue generated by the property tax among local projects twice each year, in the spring and the fall, recommended a total of $780,285 in cash grants for eight different projects Wednesday, LaValley said.
In addition to repairing First Churches’ stained glass windows, the committee also advised money from the fund go toward continuing construction on Pulaski Park, replacing the Academy of Music’s stage curtain, and financing Friends of the Hampshire County Homeless’ first youth shelter, LaValley said.
Committee Vice Chairman David Drake, who also chairs the Northampton Historical Commission, said he and fellow committee members tried to recommend funds for projects with a variety of focuses.
“First Churches is unique in Northampton because its history is not just as a church but as a meetinghouse,” he said, noting that the church’s space is used by at least 27 local organizations on a regular basis. “We didn’t think of it as a church. We thought of it as an asset of great historic value at the center of Northampton.”
In 2007, the church’s roof collapsed, causing more than $2 million in damage, Weir said. To pay for repairs, the congregation petitioned the Massachusetts Historical Commission to sell the Tiffany window to a Chicago museum that offered $750,000 for it. But the state denied the request, citing the church’s status as a historic site, according to Weir.
That’s when the church applied for the community preservation grant. The money would be used to replace the lead that cements the pieces of stained glass together. As the lead deteriorates over time, pressure that builds from the bottom of the window can eventually cause the glass pieces to pop out, Weir said.
“This is actually an ideal time to catch it and fix it,” he said. “With Tiffany glass, once it breaks, it’s gone.”
While the Tiffany window became a part of the sanctuary after the building was damaged by a fire in the late 1800s, the original First Churches meetinghouse opened in 1655.
Architect Tristram W. Metcalfe, whose office is across the street from First Churches, said he’s glad to see the city investing in a cultural artifact.
“It adds many levels of value to the church — aesthetically and historically,” Metcalfe said. “Stained glass windows were made to inspire. It’s art.”