The Church With the Crooked Cross

9:42 pm, 1/7/06

The Church With the Crooked Cross
This place was one of a kind.

CHICAGO, Jan. 6 - A raging blaze Friday afternoon quickly destroyed the 115-year-old Pilgrim Baptist Church, an architectural and cultural landmark in this city's Bronzeville neighborhood that is renowned as the historic home of gospel music.

Investigators could not determine the fire's cause Friday, but officials said their focus was on roof repairs under way shortly before the flames erupted about 3 p.m. The church janitor, who escaped unscathed, said he was the only person inside the building when the fire broke out; two firefighters sustained minor injuries from smoke and debris.

Church members and neighborhood residents stood vigil for hours on blocks filled with black smoke, staring in shock at the charred hole where so much history had happened, as preservationists throughout the city joined in the mourning.

"I grew up in this church, my mother grew up in this church, my grandmother grew up in this church," said Lakeisha Gray-Sewell, 30, who was married at Pilgrim and expected her children, ages 5 and 7, to soon be baptized there, as she was. "When that smoke clears, I don't know what we're going to see. I'm afraid to see what we're going to see. No matter what, this will always be my church."

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."

Inside the landmark walls were rich acoustics, which Thomas Andrew Dorsey embraced as he began putting religious lyrics to jazz and blues rhythms and calling it gospel. Mr. Dorsey, who came to Chicago from Atlanta, spent nearly six decades as Pilgrim's minister of music - the youth choir Ms. Gray-Sewell sang in is still known as the TAD's, for his initials - and was the host of the first convention of the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses at the church.

Other famous gospel singers who worshipped at Pilgrim include Mahalia Jackson, Sallie Martin and James Cleveland. Presidents Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt were among the parade of politicians to attend services there, members said Friday.

"When you were sitting in there, you knew you were in the presence of an awesome peace, of God," said Representative Bobby L. Rush, whose district includes the neighborhood, adding that the majestic woodwork of the church's vaulted ceiling was how he imagined the inside of Noah's ark. "It's like a gaping hole that's being burned out of our community."

Cortez Trotter, Chicago's fire commissioner, said the roof and east wall had collapsed, adding, "The church is a total loss."

As darkness fell, Pilgrim members hugged one another and whispered, but mostly just stood and stared, smoke and soot hastening the tears down their cheeks.

"They can wipe out the church, but they can't wipe out my history," said Al Bracey, 67, who has attended Sunday services at Pilgrim sporadically since 1938. "Can't kill the spirit."

This is the church that inspired the famous scene in The Blues Brothers: The Hollywood recreation of the place was so exact that the pastor is said to have jokingly asked how the crew got inside to film. (They were paid $500 for the use of the exterior and the vestibule in the film.) The Pilgrim Baptist Church was originally built as Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv Synagogue in 1890. This tiny photo doesn't do the interior justice. I'd hope they'll be able to rebuild it just as it was, but who knows what'll happen.