It happened slowly, then suddenly. The old South Bushwick Reformed Church, built in the Greek Revival style and largely unchanged since 1853, erupted into fire.
“I noticed a little bit of smoke coming up and then, after five minutes, I saw fire coming out the side,” said Anthony Williams, who has owned the Juice Box (852 Bushwick Ave.) across the street for the last seven years.
“There was one guy, I don’t know if he was a janitor or what, he came running out. Right before it happened. He came out right when the smoke started,” recalled Williams. But it alerted Williams and others to start dialing 911. Firemen and local news coverage followed; by one count, there were at least “sixty-three units and nearly 200 fire and EMS personnel.”
No lives were lost, though the building itself was destroyed. A GoFundMe has since started to raise money for rebuilding the church, initially funded by Manhattan’s Collegiate Church in the 1860s.
In addition to firemen, the fire attracted Antonio Reynoso, Borough President and NY-07 congressional candidate. He arrived and pointedly talked on his phone in front of the cameras. He looked busy. When he started talking in front of the microphones, I couldn’t hear what he was saying and the remarks didn’t make it to most of the local news packages about the fire.
Instead, I talked to Robert Camacho, chairperson of Bushwick’s Community Board 4.
“We’re hoping that the church will stay there,” he said in front of the smoldering ruins, before moving on to whoever he thought would want to occupy the church next.
“I’ve been here 65 years. Nobody wanted to be here until now. Now, they want to push us out. So that’s the feeling and that’s the sentiment here. People are coming with roommates, we come with families. We keep the dog in the backyard. That’s why we’ve got to keep our communities intact. We lose our churches, we lose our schools, and then what?”
Despite claims that the fire was arson from a nebulous developer, records show that the church is still owned by the parish, which has occasionally struggled to raise money for further repairs. While its rectory (15 Himrod St.), excluded from the church’s landmark status, was at one point being marketed for sale, records show its owner as James E. Steward II, the church’s lead reverend and a former hospital chaplain.
Williams from Juice Box, who was born in the area, was among the flurry of early onlookers to aim their phones at the century-old steeple as it burned. “This type of steeple once characterized the skyline of London,” observed a designation given by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1968.
In recent years, the steeple was most known for its slight slant, which remained even after repairs.
“It was like the Leaning Tower of Bushwick. It was a little bit sideways, a little distinct,” said Jade, a painter who bartends and lives down the street. She moved to the area two years ago from Australia.
According to Brownstoner, this tilt came from the impact of a freak tornado in 2006, though Steward assured the site a few years ago that renovations would be at hand.
Williams told me that Steward had completed a major paint job on the steeple two months ago.
“I feel like you could tell people, ‘The Slanted Church’ and people would know what you meant,” said Jade, who had never entered the church, but nevertheless referred to it often.
“We can see it from our rooftop, so it’s kind of iconic. It’s in the background of all our pictures. You walk past it every day and you think you’ll see it forever,” she told me. “The first time I noticed it was the other day… I always thought it was Heritage-listed derelict. But I just found out that they hold services for kids or something.”
Williams said that he goes to the church’s services regularly and that Steward, the pastor, “comes in every other day and buys smoothies.” About one or two hundred people show up for mass on Sundays, and Steward had hosted a watch party for the Knicks game during last week’s championship run. Williams had grown up in Bushwick, in the shadow of the century-old church, but now lives in Springfield Gardens, past the train lines in deep Queens.
While they had different memories of the church, both Williams and Bushwick’s newcomers had similar premonitions about how the church’s departure would impact the area if it were not rebuilt.
“That’s what they’re going to do for it, tear it down and build houses on it. Charge people an arm and a leg to live in the houses they put up there,” said Williams, pointing to the buildings surrounding the church. “A lot of this is new.”
He has his own new ways of making by; he’s opened two more juice stores in Florida, and just authored a sequel to his first novel, Korupt Cops.
“It’s a street book,” he says. “It’s a story I was told when I was growing up [in Bushwick] and I just turned it into a book, but I changed the names and everything so I don’t have to give anyone any money, but it’s a real good read.”
“You gotta have a plan in your life. Because New York is getting too expensive to live. They’re not going to push me out. I’m not going to allow that.”
“Everything is getting gentrified and sad and all these old buildings are disappearing,” said Jade. “We’re getting ‘Temu Towers’ put up. This is the only grasp at having some history. The churches and the libraries are what hold it down. Sad to see one go.”
“Yeah, we do, unfortunately [live in a ‘Temu Tower’ ourselves] but there’s not many other options unless you want to pay $4,000 for a tiny apartment in a brick house, which I’m sure would be lovely.”
Even though she had never been inside, she would miss the church deeply.
“Everything kind of looks the same around here and this was the one thing on the street that you could see from miles away,” she said. “You could see it from rooftops, and it was very distinct.”
“It was the prettiest thing on our block,” said Elle, an art student at Pratt, who moved here earlier this month from San Francisco. Like Williams, she’s a writer too. “I wrote about it yesterday. About how it’s got a leaning steeple, and how it’s interesting.”
“There was a plaque about its historical value, or whatever. So I guess it’s part of a New York that is clearly, quickly disappearing around here,” she added. “But I think I’m part of the problem. I’m a transplant, I’m new, I’m just here for school. I don’t contribute to the economy very much or anything and I know that’s a huge problem. But I have to go to school.”
Addendum:
I sit on my seat at the bench in my backyard as the uncharacteristically cool June wind rustles through the trees and grazes my shoulder. The overcast sky casts its mood upon me, however I suspect the weather is imitating my preexisting condition. I take long depressed drags from my cigarette as I peer over the fence to the church’s spire. White, crooked, and unkempt, as if it’s some allegory of god and his abandonment. Grime clings to its nooks, starkly standing out against the peeling white paint. There is no god, and if there was he has only transiently passed through this life.
That church burned down today, yesterday I gazed at its lonely abandoned state. Through the smoke and the rushing noise of the fire hoses hitting it, all I could feel was this desperate sense of loss. The most beautiful part of my block is now wet ash with helicopters flying above it. You’re not here and I can’t tell you. Everything is gone. I saw your friend on the train today and when she saw me she laughed. She waved at me with a sense of pity and I meekly waved back. Everything is gone. – Elle Lyonn
Top photo taken by Anthony Williams, Juice Box owner. Other photos by Andrew Karpan.
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