The recession has not helped. Historic buildings tend to fare better in lean times because fewer developers are tearing them down, according to Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But on the flip side, a recession means fewer dollars for restoring or maintaining old buildings and thus more “demolition by neglect”  a fate that seems to have befallen St. Paul’s.

Image UNPROTECTEDA divided Long Island village is moving toward destroying the 130-year-old St. Paul’s School. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Founded by the multimillionaire Alexander Turney Stewart in 1869, Garden City was upscale from the start. It is filled with graceful Victorian homes, and wealth: In 2008, the estimated median household income was $154,766.

But this elegant village has already lost several historic buildings. The palatial Garden City Hotel, built by McKim, Mead & White, and where Charles Lindbergh slept the night before his historic flight, was torn down in the 1970s to make way for a boxy replacement. Another, St. Mary’s School, for girls, was demolished in 2001 after a long vacancy and a fire.

“They’re well on the road to the ordinary, unfortunately,” Mr. Kroessler said of the village.

People thought it would be different with St. Paul’s, which was built by Mr. Stewart’s widow in his honor. The village came to own it in 1993, as part of a prized parcel of 48 acres it bought from the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island for $7.25 million. The chief draw was the land’s vast expanse of athletic fields, and a mayor’s committee was formed to figure out how best to use St. Paul’s.

Then the arguments began.

The building needed work. Leaks had riven the slate roof, interior mantelpieces had toppled and plaster chunks had crumbled in its stately halls and stained-glass-lined chapel. Restoration estimates proffered by the village  and contested by its opponents  ran into the tens of millions of dollars, which some village leaders felt taxpayers would not or should not shoulder. Public uses for the building  moving the library there, or the town hall, or a high school  were abandoned by village leaders in favor of possible private uses.

This enraged some residents, who believed that the building should be public and that the village had been deaf to alternate suggested uses.

“The residents have never had the opportunity to provide significant input into an affordable low-cost plan for St. Paul’s,” said Ed Keating, treasurer of the Committee to Save St. Paul’s, a group of residents formed out of frustration with the village’s handling of the building. “We believe that it is absolutely essential for it to have some form of public use.”