{"id":297050,"date":"2026-07-15T21:16:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T21:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297050\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T21:16:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T21:16:37","slug":"city-pauses-demolition-of-landmarked-bushwick-church-at-last-minute-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297050\/","title":{"rendered":"City pauses demolition of landmarked Bushwick church at last minute \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an \u201cincredible reversal of fortune,\u201d at about 6 p.m. on July 15, the Department of Buildings granted the the South Bushwick Reformed Church\u2019s request for a hold on the demolition of its fire-ravaged building through July 18, giving the church the time it needs to save its historic Fellowship Hall, the Bushwick Historic Preservation Association posted on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolks, you\u2019re not going to believe this (we can\u2019t believe it ourselves) but in an incredible reversal of fortune, WE JUST SECURED A HOLD ON THE DEMOLITION! This morning, the DOB reached out giving us another chance and this time our submission was accepted. There\u2019s still a whole procedure we must follow but for now we celebrate! Stay tuned for additional updates,\u201d the post reads.<\/p>\n

The DOB had previously said<\/a>\u00a0demolition of the remains of the historic church at 855-867 Bushwick Ave. would start on Tuesday. By late that afternoon, afternoon, workers had demolished almost everything up to the Fellowship Hall. At 3:30, workers were leaving for the day, and one said demo would probably start Wednesday on Fellowship Hall.<\/p>\n

\"southMuch of the church building has already been demolished. Photo by Susan De Vries<\/p>\n

Fellowship Hall is a Greek Revival church addition at 867 Bushwick Ave. with a striking pediment and pilasters that was completed in 1881 as a Sunday school building. Church engineers said it is stable in their June 24 report. The original 1853 church building at 855 Bushwick Avenue, a country-style Greek Revival in white clapboard with its iconic steeple, appeared to be a near total loss. The entire structure was landmarked in 1968<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since the tragic blaze on Friday, June 19, the church and preservationists have been scrambling to save what is left of the iconic Greek Revival building, raising funds from the public, and negotiating with a developer over an air rights deal, they have said.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the church \u201cfinally put together a team of engineers and contractors, and came up with a plan to stabilize the rectory side of the building in a way that wouldn\u2019t endanger workers on site,\u201d so the DOB approved the hold request this afternoon, said agency spox Andrew Rudansky. The agency has been in nearly \u201cdaily communication\u201d with church leadership since the fire, has \u201cgone above and beyond\u201d to advise them, and will closely monitor the stabilization of the remainder of the building to ensure public safety, he added.<\/p>\n

\"fellowshipFellowship Hall, at 867 Bushwick Ave., earlier this summer. Photo by Susan De Vries<\/p>\n

On July 14, the same day the DOB hold was approved, FDNY fire marshals said the cause of the fire is \u201cincendiary,\u201d a department spokesperson told Brooklyn Paper\u2019s sister site Brownstoner, meaning they are investigating it as an arson.<\/p>\n

The confirmation followed Brownstoner\u2019s report<\/a> that a security video from a neighbor shows suspicious behavior on church property just before the fire broke out. In the video, which the neighbor shared with investigators, a person can be seen walking back and forth along the northwest side of the church facing Stanhope Street in an area generally not accessed by the public, stopping to look at windows, and coming and going from the direction of Bushwick Avenue. At one point, the figure disappears behind shrubbery near a side door to the church, and a loud noise is heard twice.<\/p>\n

Someone on Bushwick Avenue saw a person leaving church property just before the fire, another neighbor said.\n<\/p>\n

Bushwick residents and preservationists have been \u201cheartbroken\u201d by the fire and the loss of the iconic local landmark, many have told Brownstoner. In the days after the church burned, Dina Alfano of the Bushwick Historic Preservation Association said the community is \u201cabsolutely devastated\u201d by the destruction given the building\u2019s history and status on the Bushwick thoroughfare.<\/p>\n

This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper\u2019s sister site Brownstoner<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an \u201cincredible reversal of fortune,\u201d at about 6 p.m. on July 15, the Department of Buildings granted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[113096,3094,98,100,99,24556,9449,113097,113098,2822,2823,2824,194,545,745,9,24,12,370,63,646,105953],"class_list":["post-297050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-andrew-rudansky","tag-arson","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-brownstoner","tag-bushwick","tag-bushwick-historic-preservation-association","tag-demo","tag-demolition","tag-department-of-buildings","tag-dob","tag-fdny","tag-fire","tag-investigation","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-police-and-fire","tag-south-bushwick-reformed-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297050","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=297050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}