Firefighters Battle Four-Alarm Blaze At Landmark

[babylonsister]

http://cbs2chicago.com/local/local_story_006163022.html

(CBS) CHICAGO Firefighters are battling a fierce four-alarm blaze at the Pilgrim Baptist Church on the city's South Side. The church is a designated landmark in the city's Bronzeville neighborhood.

WBBM 780 reported the building is engulfed and will likely be destroyed. Evacuations of the area are under way.

The church is well-known in the Bronzeville neighborhood.

According to the City of Chicago’s landmarks Web site, the church was designated a landmark in December of 1981.

It was built between 1890 and 1891 by architect Louis H. Sullivan and engineer Dankmar Adler. It was originally built as the Kehilath Anshe Ma’ariv synagogue. The Pilgrim Baptist Church has occupied the site since 1922.

The Web site also says a longtime musical director, Thomas A. Dorsey, was one of the pioneers of gospel music in the 1930s. Mahalia Jackson, Sallie Martin, James Cleveland and the Edwin Hawkins Singers have performed at the church.

[benburch]

1. Oh no!

I know that building well!

[petgoat]

2. ,,

[Rich Hunt]

3. kick

This is a terrible loss to the City of Chicago, especially the black community and for Chicago's architectural heritage.

Pilgrim Baptist was birthplace of gospel music


"Fire swept through Bronzeville's historic Pilgrim Baptist Church on Friday, sending flaming walls and timbers crashing into the grand sanctuary where gospel music was born. The building, a cornerstone of Chicago's African-American community and a landmark work by architect Louis H. Sullivan, was a total loss, fire officials said.

As the ruins steamed Friday evening, that loss had to be assessed from many angles. A neighborhood had lost a church; worshipers, a church home. Chicago had lost a precious Sullivan building. And American culture had lost the soaring hall where Thomas A. Dorsey, a jazz and blues artist who turned to church music during a period of personal grief, had developed a new musical idiom called gospel.

"I can't imagine another space comparable to it anywhere in the country," Brian Goeken, deputy commissioner of the city's Department of Planning and Development. "It was a masterpiece and something like this can never be replaced."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0601070083...

I'm shocked this story hasn't been posted yet. It would be nice if the subject line could
be changed to reflect the fact that this church is now destroyed.

[Jersey Ginny]

4. Foul play or a terrible trajedy?

When black churches (I assume it is a predominantly black church) are destroyed, it makes you wonder. Sorry for the loss.

[Rich Hunt]

5. it's just such a complete devastation

Not a little fire - the fire spread to a nearby school, too.

It burned to the ground in a matter of hours....all that history,
and it's a beautiful rare Sullivan building, to boot.

One of the other stories says that Thomas Dorsey's sheet music
was also destroyed in the church.

Just out of curiosity, I looked at the Free Republic, and they
had this story filed under 'insurance'. Disgusting. The
embers aren't even cold and people are getting ready to
cast blame in the wrong direction.

How can some people be so callous about the loss of this treasure?

[Rich Hunt]

6. from the Washington Post...

The church was a place where the famous architects Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler experimented with the features that made them famous _ such as vaulted ceilings, amazing acoustics and ornamental designs, such as the terra cotta panels with intricate foliage designs, said Ned Cramer, curator of the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

It was built as a synagogue between 1890 and 1891, but it has housed the Pilgrim congregation since 1922. The surrounding Bronzeville neighborhood was a vibrant hub for blacks during the first half of the 20th century.

"It's like hearing a close relative has died or a good friend. It's heartbreaking," said Cramer.

Though no one was injured in the blaze, it is feared the church's archives _ including old photographs and Dorsey's original sheet music _ were destroyed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/07/AR2006010700234.html

So much history in one place....

Deemed a city landmark in 1981, the South Side church was significant not only for its role in African-American musical and religious history, but as one of the last remaining, defining works of the legendary Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan built the structure in 1891 as a synagogue with his partner Dankmar Adler, whose father was the congregation's rabbi; a young draftsman named Frank Lloyd Wright worked on the project.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," David Van Zanten, an art historian at Northwestern University, said when told of the fire. Mr. Van Zanten, co-author of "Sullivan's City: The Meaning of Ornament for Louis Sullivan" (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), recovered enough to add, "This is totally irreplaceable, a document of Sullivan's life."

The building was bought by Pilgrim in 1922. Its details reflected its history, with stained glass Stars of David alongside Christian symbols. John Vinci, a Chicago architect who worked on a 1980's restoration of the building, described its entry arch, windows and panels of ornament and then quietly said: "This is breaking my heart. I'm trying to think it's just another day, but it's not."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/national/07chicago.html