Pilgrim Baptist Church

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Pilgrim Baptist Church" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Pilgrim Baptist Church is a historic church located on the south side of

neighborhood. In 2017, the church was sold to the National Museum of Gospel Music.

History

This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The building was designed as a

K.A.M. Isaiah Israel Temple

.

A

Baptist

congregation moved into the building in 1922, forming Pilgrim Baptist Church.

The church is credited as the birthplace of

On January 6, 2006, a fire broke out that spread and gutted the building. Investigators concluded that the fire was started accidentally by workers performing roof repairs during a $500,000 restoration. The roofers were fitting metal coping, which is sealed with a blowtorch. Consumed in the fire were decades of historical records, along with boxes full of Dorsey's original sheet music. An elementary school across the street had to be evacuated, and the nearby Illinois College of Optometry building had windows destroyed by the high temperatures of the fire. Cars parked alongside the church were "virtually incinerated."^[2]

After the fire, the brick and stone of the outer walls still stood near-complete and were determined to be structurally sound. A steel support skeleton was later attached to the outside to brace the walls for a possible later reconstruction of the interior of the building and restoration of the façade.

The congregation now meets in a building across the street from the burnt out structure.

Reconstruction plans

Following the devastating fire that destroyed all but the exterior masonry walls of Pilgrim Baptist Church, the congregation committed to reconstructing the church on the current site. Sufficient documentation exists to ensure an accurate reproduction of the church, allowing for necessary alterations related to current liturgical and code requirements.

The target period for reconstruction of Pilgrim Baptist is the 1920s–1930s era. This period was chosen because it was during this time that, as Pilgrim Baptist Church, the most significant events associated with the building, including the rise of gospel music, occurred. At the same time, the building itself retained most of the physical elements that characterized its original design as a synagogue by Adler & Sullivan.

The exterior of the structure will be reconstructed to include all of the character-defining features of its original construction, which survived into the 1920s. At the interior, the sanctuary will be reconstructed to include all of the character-defining features of its original construction, with necessary modifications to accommodate modern accessibility and church usage requirements.

The August 2020 Midwest derecho caused significant damage to the structure but the damage was not expected to affect the reconstruction schedule.^[3]

In popular culture

Although some news reports confused the two buildings, this is not the same Pilgrim Baptist Church as that used as the "Triple Rock" church in the movie The Blues Brothers, which stands on 91st Street several miles to the south.

See also

• Chicago architecture

References

External links

• Media related to Pilgrim Baptist Church at Wikimedia Commons
• Rebuild Pilgrim Baptist Church
• Chicago Landmarks page
• Chicago Tribune news article on fire^{[permanent dead link]}
• Columbia College Bronzeville Project
• BBC: Fire destroys historic US church
• Kaddish for a Legendary Church