Not much remains of Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church.
Its doors, which had been open every Sunday for the last seven years along 39th Street, are sealed shut, a “Keep Out” signed plastered over the plywood sheet covering the charred door frame. The roof is gone, bits of its metal sheets peeled down into different rooms of the building. Broken windows line the walls, burnt metal and wood litter the floor of the sanctuary where nearly 500 people gathered each Sunday to worship.
Its steeple, once a towering image of the church, lies bent and broken on the sidewalk.
This was the building where the Rev. Frank Kennedy led a food kitchen and clothing ministry for the community, both now gone after a fire that razed Mount Pilgrim March 21.