The fire started at the Iglesia Pentecostal Arca Cristiana Wednesday morning and also damaged the neighboring parsonage.
A Bushwick church was destroyed in a three-alarm fire on Wednesday. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
By Kirstyn Brendlen & Lloyd Mitchell, Brooklyn Paper
A three-alarm fire consumed a Bushwick church on Wednesday morning.
The fire started at the more than century-old Iglesia Pentecostal Arca Cristiana at 1155 Halsey Street at around 10:30 a.m., and firefighters moved in “aggressively,” said FDNY Chief of Operations Kevin Woods.
But with the bell tower and a large portion of the wood-framed church engulfed in flames and the building at risk of collapse, firefighters were forced to retreat and work to control the fire from outside.
Heavy smoke was visible for miles around Brooklyn as more than 140 firefighters fought for hours to control the flames, even as they and their equipment became covered in icicles in the freezing weather.
The bell tower collapsed, Woods said, and Wednesday afternoon, there was “extensive damage to the church.”
“It’s probably, most likely, a full demo,” he said.
With the fire under control on Wednesday afternoon, the FDNY requested a structural inspection of the church, according to Department of Buildings documents.
Flames also scorched a building beside the church, though the fire did not spread further than that. No injuries were reported, and the only person inside the church when the fire started was the pastor, who evacuated himself safely.
One neighbor said the smoke from the fire was so thick “you couldn’t really breathe or see.”
Another, Susie Rosa, said she grew up attending the church, which was built in the 1890s.
“That was my church when I was a little girl, it was my family’s church over the years,” she said. “I have lots of happy memories there.”
FDNY fire marshals will investigate the cause of the fire.
The wood frame church dates to 1896, when plans were filed for a new worship space in Bushwick for the Fifth German Presbyterian Church. A wood frame parsonage was built first while the new church, designed by architect Henry Vollweiler, was constructed. It was dedicated in October of 1896 and served the congregation through a 1919 name change to the Halsey Street Presbyterian Church.
Historic images show the church was significantly altered between 1923 and the circa 1940 tax photo with the removal of its late Victorian period ornamentation and transformation to a more streamlined 20th century appearance. The adjoining parsonage still retained its original look in 1940, but by 1981 was covered with Permastone.
In 1954 the First United Christian Church moved into the worship space, and they in turn sold it in 1970 to Iglesia Pentecostal Arca Cristiana. The parsonage next door was not included in that sale and was sold to a private owner. The parsonage still stands although with a full vacate order due to the fire.
Brooklyn has seen a host of unrelated but devastating fires recently. A February 9 house fire in Bay Ridge killed a 37-year-old Navy veteran, and 11 people were rescued from a two-alarm fire in a Crown Heights brownstone days later. In May, just a few blocks from the church, a huge fire tore through a grocery store at 1385 Bushwick Avenue and adjacent apartment buildings, displacing dozens of people and leaving a large empty lot on the corner of Cooper Avenue.
— additional reporting by Susan De Vries
Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here to see the original story.
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