In the penultimate episode of the fourth season of Breaking Bad, Walter White becomes determined to wipe out his former boss Gus Fring with a car bomb. While he waits for Fring to go to his car on the fifth floor of a distant parking garage, White watches from the roof of a downtown Albuquerque building with a pair of binoculars.
Alas, Fring senses that something is wrong, and decides not to retrieve his car. His fate at the hands of Walter will have to wait for the next and final episode of the season.
We’re bringing this up because it was recently brought to our attention that the location for the scene, the building that Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, is perched on, was owned when the 2011 episode was shot, and is owned today, by the Church of Scientology.
It’s known as the Gizmo building, for an eclectic store that it housed. (Six years ago, some Breaking Bad fans made a fun excursion to the spot.) Scientology purchased the building in 2007 when leader David Miscavige was on a spending spree for his “Ideal Org” program, snapping up large properties that would then sit, unused, for years in places like Chicago, Kansas City, and Detroit.
Eventually, the buildings in KC and Detroit were renovated and opened as new Ideal Orgs, and Chicago is all but ready for its grand opening. But the Gizmo Building in Albuquerque sits, empty and unrenovated, year after year.
We want to thank reader Reyne Mayer who brought this to our attention. She pointed out what a sore point Scientology’s absentee ownership has been for the city, which is trying to bring new life into its downtown.
“I will tell you straight out, the owners of the Gizmo building are essentially holding downtown hostage for money. And I’m sick of it,” Albuquerque’s Mayor Tim Keller said at a press conference last year.
Local developer Mark Baker filled in more…
I was at the press conference and he said that the owner of the Gizmo, which is the Church of Scientology, isn’t actually interested in selling the building. Mayor said that the City offered “$2 million more” and that the Scientologists just said no. Apparently they have offered multiple times and now well above the actual value. There’s a real estate banner hanging on the building, but that is just a prop. They have never listed an asking price. And have never stated a counter-offer to anyone who has made an offer.
Similar story with the owners of the vacant Kress Building which is right next door. These two high profile buildings are right in the middle of downtown and a big part of the boarded-up, vacant look that is detrimental to the neighborhood.
We’ve seen this in other cities as well, that Scientology will keep a property decaying until Miscavige is ready to turn it into a gleaming cathedral he can open. In the meantime, it doesn’t matter how much the local officials howl, the building simply rots.
But in Albuquerque, it’s an even stranger situation. Because in 2018, eleven years after it bought the Gizmo, Scientology purchased a different building that it actually intends to turn into its Ideal Org there.
Mike Rinder wrote about this new location last year, pointing out that not only is the new building rather ugly, but it’s out on the edge of town where there will be zero chance of attracting foot traffic.
Even in David Miscavige’s wildest expansion fantasies, Albuquerque could never use two Ideal Orgs. A fundraiser, for example, produced this awesome turnout in 2015, documented by our old friend Rod Keller…
So why is Scientology still stubbornly holding on to the Gizmo and foiling any chance for the city to spruce up its downtown?
Reyne suggested that with an annual tax bill of $15,000 for the empty building, Scientology may have unrealistic expectations of getting a high enough price to make up for those many years of costs.
That sounds like a likely reason. But in the meantime, Scientology is simply an impediment to the city’s renewal, and the mayor is beginning to see that, hey, maybe Scientology is actually bad for Albuquerque.
We know that the derelict ownership of the Gizmo Building is not high on Scientology’s long list of crimes, but it just reminds us that this ruthless organization never deserves the deference that so many city, state, and national leaders give it.
When are they going to wake up to Scientology’s true nature?
Chris Shelton is going Straight Up and Vertical
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Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history
Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea
Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time
Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology
Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain
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A $15,000 per year tax bill would be well below the $2 million above-market that Scientology was offered for the building, so that's not the reason. Clearly, the reason for hanging onto the building is that selling it would mean that Miscavige was wrong about something. And that will never do...
Albuquerque is a very sore point in the $cienoverse. No one can understand the clampires real estate ventures. None of it makes any sense, because it is not a business, it is a whim driven, cash intensive cult that does illogical things for no apparent reason. I guess Miscavige has some sort of attention deficit disorder that only fixes attention on one thing at a time. Hiding from process servers seems to take up most of his time these days.