Pilgrim Basptist

It's Monday and I just came back from wing night. Maggie came, for the first time. No Nathalie, haven't seen much of her recently. A lot happened this weekend. Friday night Pligrim Baptiste burned to the ground. The stone shell remains, but everything else was lost. It's sort of felt like to sign or a warning. I'd been planning on biking out to see it this coming summer once it got warmer, and now it is irrevocably lost. I realized the concept that Pilgrim Baptist existed, and was planning on going to experience it in person when it fundamentally changed before my visit was realized. Echos of New Orleans and my ill-fated attempt to return and walking past the lsSalle Bank Building in the loop after work and admiring it's massing and clean lines at the same moment a fire was breaking out upstairs. I found out that the Pilgrim Baptist had burned down Saturday morning over a bacon omlette, hashbrowns and coffee at the Lighthouse Diner on Chicago and Western. It was on the front page of the SunTimes that somebody had left on the counter. John took off downtown to go to the library and I kept thinking about the fire on my way home from breakfast. I decided to bike out there and see the ruins for myself, before they collapsed or were torn down and there was nothing left. I'd already been planning on making the trip and didn't want to wait until there was nothing left. It felt good getting out on my bike and head South. I wove my way through the warehouse district south of Grand, went through UIC then Pilsen, by the edge of China Town. The outskirts if Bronzeville were a bit decimated. Lots of open lots and crumbly apartments, but nice old buildings. Then modern projects. For a minute it felt like New Orleans between St Charles and Claiborne just upriver of 1-90. I saw a police barrier and a cop car but couldn't see much down the block so I kept going but took the next left. Another police barrier another turn and I was behind the church - a huge blacken brick wall across a parking lot littered with bricks from the fallen chimney. You couldn't see much of the church so after awhile I kept going by turned again where there was another police barrier. I had made a full loop and was at the first barrier so I stopped and saw people walking slowly by down the block towards the church. I followed them down the block and saw the blacken hull of the church and people walking by or sitting across from it and a police office watching from inside his car. I had been walking by bike since the barrier and slopped to look at the church. The stone walls were in good condition, the decorative spandrals looked the same as they probably looked last week. All the windows were hollow though, and the inside was a tangle of blackend beams. The squat central tower had caved into the sanctuary and was a mess of debris indistinguishable from the rest. You could tell it had been an impossing building - powerful and firmly rooted. The contrast between the weight of the exterior and the loftiness of the sanctuary is lost. I took some photos with my camera phone. A great loss for Chicago.