{"id":272283,"date":"2026-06-19T21:48:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T21:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/272283\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T21:48:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T21:48:50","slug":"fire-tears-through-historic-reformed-church-of-south-bushwick-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/272283\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire tears through historic Reformed Church of South Bushwick \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"902\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/south-bushwick-reformed-church-brooklyn-855-bushwick-avenue-fire-june192026-abs-brownstoner-2.webp\" class=\"crop-center wp-post-image\" alt=\"fire at reformed church of south brooklyn\" decoding=\"async\"  \/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>A three-alarm fire destroyed much of the historic Reformed Church of South Bushwick on Friday. <\/p>\n<p>Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t&#13;<\/p>\n<p>A fire destroyed much of the historic Reformed Church of South Bushwick Friday afternoon. The steeple is gone, as is most or all of the roof, and the top half of the structure at 855 Bushwick Avenue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s so sad right now seeing it knocked down,\u201d said a local resident named Lewis, who has lived in Bushwick his whole life.\n<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-244621\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/reformed-church-bushwick-abs-061926.webp\" alt=\"firetrucks at reformed church\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\"  \/>One firefighter was injured while battling the blaze. Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-244623\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/south-bushwick-reformed-church-brooklyn-855-bushwick-avenue-fire-june192026-abs-brownstoner-1.webp\" alt=\"fire at bushwick church\" width=\"700\" height=\"508\"  \/>Most of the church was destroyed. Photo by Anna Bradley-Smith<\/p>\n<p>One firefighter sustained minor injuries but refused medical treatment, said an FDNY deputy. Firefighters got the call at 1:22 p.m., and by 4 p.m. there were no flames visible but plenty of smoke as firefighters hosed down the building to get the fire under control.<\/p>\n<p>The adjacent row of brownstones appeared unaffected, and neighbors were waiting to get permission to reenter their homes, one told Brownstoner. The fire was contained to the church, the deputy said, and the cause is under investigation.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-244622\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/south-bushwick-reformed-church-brooklyn-855-bushwick-avenue-june092022-sdevries-exterior-57.webp\" alt=\"reformed church southern brooklyn in 2022\" width=\"700\" height=\"514\"  \/>The church steeple in 2022. File photo by Susan De Vries<\/p>\n<p>The iconic Greek Revival white clapboard church and steeple dominated this stretch of Bushwick Avenue since it was completed and consecrated in 1853. It was landmarked in 1069. The congregation, which dates back to 1654, has been working on repairing the building, and completed repairs to the steeple about six years ago.<\/p>\n<p>This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper\u2019s sister site <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/brooklyn-life\/855-bushwick-avenue-fire-reformed-church-of-south-bushwick\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Brownstoner<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A three-alarm fire destroyed much of the historic Reformed Church of South Bushwick on Friday. Photo by Anna&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9449,21977,194,545,9,24,37283,12,370,63,646,104932],"class_list":["post-272283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-bushwick","tag-church","tag-fdny","tag-fire","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-fire-department","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-police-and-fire","tag-reformed-church-of-south-bushwick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}