Who Burnt Down South Bushwick Church? w. Rev. Dr. James Steward II

And then of course as the investigations started. At first they were trying to say it was accidental or electrical, which made no sense because one, in the sanctuary there are no utilities, and so I knew right away that it wasn't electrical. I suspected it was arson for a minute. One oh for the get go, you thought arson. But we you know, we've been there one hundred and seventy five years. We had no problems, you know. And then the other members in the community is like, pastor, make sure you do not let them get away with saying it's accidental or electrical. Right. Oh, so they were hip to it right off the bat too. They were hip too because they they know it's you know, Brooklyn is the type of neighborhood. It's gentrifying, it is developing, and so everything is. About development and getting property, and so our community is ultra sensitive to that. Anyway, We've lost a lot of historic buildings to development and demolished and demolished. Or just replaced right in general, So they're ultra sensitive to losing landmark or losing historic buildings, condos, condominiums, or some type of housing development structure, and so you know, how that go. Yeah, so you have that migration of that that has happened. I've been past almost fourteen years, and when I first got to the church, it was largely like a native kind of Yeah. And in the years I've been there, you've seen it rapidly. Grow and the houses have turned into condos and you know, not affordable, even though they say it's affordable, but now you know, it's pricing out people who had been there. And so of course that was the initial thought of the community. The United States of condos. That's what's becoming everywhere I go in this country. It's people putting up condos everywhere. I guess your experience at South Brunswick Church, what's the community like there? I mean within the church and I guess the surrounding neighborhood. You know, what's the vibe over there? So at South Bushwick we are a diverse community. We have a Caribbean, African, American, Caucasian and everything is part of our congregation demographic of what it is. I love university. The neighborhood is grown in diversity since I've been there. Initially it was a largely immigrant community and then it's sort of evolved into like a younger adult hippie population to a younger adult professional population. They grew up and so you grew up. So now you have a lot of like ultra professionals who are in the neighborhood. Then they're migrating into the church. It is a community of musicians. It is a very artsy neighborhood. So you know, we don't, yeah, we don't struggle to find musicians. So you know, we have a band part of our praise and worship. You know, you can find a drummer, guitarist, bassist, you know, everything in between. So that makes their way into the congregation. And I watched some of your YouTube. Yeah, and then you're. From start to finish, the whole church situation is really beautiful, really well done and definitely talent on the instruments for sure, and the singers. Yes, and then and then also it's an artsy neighborhood, so we do a lot of like arts and. Cultural stuff at the church. And then we have an adjacent parish hall that's an auditorium and we do a lot of community events there as well. And so you know, the neighborhood is just a really good family vibe and that's reflective in the carregation. Yeah, well that's very cool, man, It's that's a beautiful thing, especially in U. I guess in you I haven't been in New York in a very long time. What do you what do you guys? What are you guys struggling with in your neighborhood these days? Just the the building up from. I think I think that's a big I think that's a big part. You know, we're struggling also with losing that identity. There was always a culture when I grew up. I grew up in New York, and so there was also a culture that defined what New York was. And so largely because people are coming into New York, the culture has shifted a lot in that sense, and so I think there's a struggle of identity, particularly in the neighborhood we are. You have the older generation and people who have been their life long or many years versus the transplants, and I think trying to find that cultural identity. And I also serve on the local community board, and so we see as reflective you know there where you have like sort of I don't want to say on one side, but you have the older demographic who've been there fifty sixty years plus. I really want to maintain. That identity versus newer people who are coming into the neighborhood have great ideas and trying to figure out a way to kind of mesh the two is. It is really interesting to watch, but I think it is a bit of a struggle. We also struggle with homelessness. One of the things that I've tackled. I served when I first got on a community board. I served as part of the Veterans and Religious Committee, And so we struggle a lot with veterans and homelessness. Oh really, we struggle a lot with people who have been there for fifty or sixty years in homelessness. Right, been homeless for sixty years. Yeah, and and dealing with that. And we're talking about you know, the ongoing, ongoing stuff. But you know, you will hear a lot about migration and different things in the news, but on the ground is very different, right, And so you know. A lot of it is not locals, necessarily, but it's not it's American problems, yes, not necessarily imported problems. Yeah, some of them is important, but its largely it's it's a native it is a Native an American problem that's not talked about. And so the neighborhood is like it's that constant conflict of why it's so much emphasis placed on people outside of the neighborhood rather than inside of the neighborhood. Well that's maybe an easier villain to sort of drum up. Right, right, and and that and that, and that's you know, an ongoing battle. Uh. In the particular neighborhood where we are, it is a lower the middle class neighborhood, and so you know, trying to find ways to you know, make sure that people are engaged, that they support where they can the community. Young people coming in or were. Yeah, definitely. It's one of the best things about our church is that young people gravitated to it. I get calls every day, you know. There was a few that were really special to me that touched me in the last few days and it came from some teenagers pre teens who said, your pastor, I missed it. Right before the fire, we had a baptism that past twenty seen of. Them were youth. You guys did in the house. Yeah, so in the parish hall we have our baptism pool. It's one of the main reasons that we are fighting and have been fighting to keep the parish hall right because you know, it is the baptism pool that's right underneath our auditorium stage. And so, you know, one of the media members got wind of it there was like, can I talk to you know the young person you're in your congregation, because I know he mentioned that he was baptized right before this. I said, you know, yes, but you know, a couple of teenagers mentioned that how they had been struggling to find home in a church, and yeah, they like find trying to find like a welcoming place in a church, right, and so they have been doing for years. But as soon as they came here they felt welcome. They weren't. They wasn't judge even if they showed up five ten minutes late. As the message read. There's a two twin girls who are sixteen in the congregation, and they were like, you know, you never judge. You just was loving and you put your arms around us. How you doing. And so you know, hearing that, even in the midst of dealing with the crisis, was really a blessing to me and to us, right, because you really don't you're you're not really aware the impact you're making. You hope that you're making it impact. But you know, when a young person will tell you that, you know that. It was a long way. I'm sure it. Goes a long way. Truth comes, you know, generally from you know that age group. Yeah, yeah, it's a big difference. Now. I don't know when you were a young man, but when I was, it was not a you know, teenager twenties that we didn't hear kids all the time saying that I'm going to go to church. Right and and and so me, I mean, I grew up in the church, and so my story is a little different. But we know that a lot of my contemporaries once they hit that like college age range, they faded, you know, even in the generation before, they kind of faded at eighteen nineteen. And some of them will come back in the thirties perhaps when they had kids, and you know, some of them did it even when I Yeah, I think about a lot of you know, my colleagues now as they've gotten married, they've reached out to me to marry them, or they'll come back to the. Church in that way. But it feels like now even though it's not talked about this way, but I do feel like that younger people are seeking the church more than I think that's a good time, and so I think with all of the struggles that we see and that we're experiencing, there's hope for the future of ministry. So how are you guys still having church right now at another location? Yeah, so we're worshiping virtually for the next two weeks and then we're going to move to a terorary location, you know, trying to because we did live stream our services, so trying to find a location that was close that could accommodate, you know, some of the membership who need access, and so it wasn't easy. We got a number of people who opened their doors, but but yeah, just to be able to accommodate the population, we wanted to do that as best as possible. So it's not that we didn't want to take them up on their offer, but you know, you have some seniors, you know, who they live close, and we didn't want them to have to travel too far, you know, even though it was like ten minutes away from us, but we didn't want them to have to travel. We wanted something at least within a five or six block radius if we had to be there, and so you know, for the seniors, we also wanted to make sure it was live stream capability. Not every church has that or worship space has that, and so we make sure that was there. And so, you know, so for the time being, we did. We do have a place that we are going to be beginning in August for Sunday in August, and so we will do. That, okay, And then all that was good work case. And then dealing with all the things that we've had to in the meetings and stuff that have popped up suddenly, it was best. To be worked. We were even me dealing with. The stuff with the city and every days it's been a twenty four to seven operations, so we did not want to be caught. We're like our board members and some of our leadership committee who had to be on some of the subcommittees dealing with engineering things and techno issues that have to meet like meetings are going on now as even though we got a temporary hold of full demolition that's been extended. Now we have to work on how we transition with the city from them doing it to us now doing it. And so we are a team that's working on trying to do that. And so, you know, those meetings were taking place twenty four seven some days, they were going overnight because I was sitting in on them until I got to the point where I was like, I can't do this and so I need to delegate it all for the most part. You know, knowing was going on, but oh sure, allowing people to do this, and so. Yeah, that process has been well, that whole process is probably one of the big reasons why I reached out to you. I mean, I saw the footage of the fire and you know that that kind of thing, and when I started to hear about kind of weird, you know, the sort of change up in media presentation of oh, this looks like Arson, and then all of a sudden, this ain't Arson. Like I kind of got a vibe of like something was weird here. Yeah, and then and then all of a sudden the way that the whole building is going to be handled now. And so where were you at when it started? Were you at home? Did you see? Oh? No? Or yeah? I was at home. Yeah, I was at home, and actually we were preparing to go to the church to do a barbecue later that day and prepare for Father's Day weekend, because you know, that was always a big deal at the church. The you know, men do the Mother's Day weekend, the women do the Father's Day week and so we're they were preparing to do the setup and everything for Father's Day weekend, and then we were the men were going to barbecue while you know, the ladies were going to be preparing the church and all of that. So we were preparing to go there. One of the members who lived closest called as a pastor, the church is on fire. You got to get over here quickly as we can, and so we guided, you know, we got over to the church and it was it was just really devastated right from the start. When you get there was really like was it like, oh we can't go? Yeah, when I got when we when we got there, it might have been like a handful of people on the street that I guess were there when it first started. Firefighters had just they had been there a little bit because they were going into the shirt bringing the door going into the church. And so you know, I stood stood there and basically now all all hands were on deck. Now you're talking about it went from like one or two fire trucks to a dozen to two dozen, three dozen, and then all of a sudden you just start to see if they shoot up and they're like you got to move back, get across the street. And then pretty quickly the media assembled, Like you know, having been in media before ministry, I know how that goes. Media assembled. I think within like had to be like twenty or thirty minutes. And wow, and we're talking about, you know, not just the local Brooklyn media. We're talking about the ones that are like city wide or regent wise. You know, your main news people saw they're gathering, so that's heard about it told me that had it was already on radar quickly, and and you know, coming from the city to Brooklyn, even though it was a holiday, you know, June teenth, but yeah, it was a sunny it was sunny. It was a nice day, so you know, they got there quickly. And I'm you know, I'm watching, and of course you're learning a fire that not only do the media symbol but just people just in general business for people like whether it's adjusters or or professionals or whatever. So they're looking because apparently as soon as there's a fire, there's an opportunity. Right away, hundreds of them start gathering. Wow, like sharks, and it was shark and I'd never experienced this, so I didn't know wo And so right away they're. Like, oh, I'm gonnadjust it. Here's my card, here's my and I'm and it was going that was going on for about forty five minutes an hour. Meanwhile, me like, okay, you gotta you know, we want to give a statement. You want to get there, And knowing knowing my friend, I'm like, you know what, I'm not even dealing with that. I'm gonna wait some time, right. Yeah. And so by that point Pound Church right right, you had. The church is burning down, and I'm like, I don't want to give initiue thoughts, right, I try to be measured. But then also I felt like that I wanted the story God was leaving me and say that the story needed to be told from the community perspective, right, And so I wanted to get the community voices out first, right, because it is a community church, the community is affected by it. It's a loss. You know, we had food, food pantries, back to school. Eventually you had a community resource fair days before with the high school down the block, we were preparing there was gonna be a graduation there, and. The community says, so it is a hub of the community. So I was like, you know what, let's get the voices because I didn't want them to just wait on me and then they go, because I knew as soon as they heard from me, they were gonna leave. And I said, we need to get as many voices, and so then politicians start calling and coming. Now you're really in trouble and so now. But of course knowing that, I'm like, okay, there's the cameras here, so that's part of it. But then also my message is okay, I need you all to be here going forward, right. Yeah, don't take the picture and leave. And so that's been something gratefully because I've served community boards throughout the city. You know, I know many of them, and so you know, they held me in high regards. So right away they came. So within about an hour, hundreds of people were just like on the street, and you know, think about you know, now we're dealing with this effect that this Canadian wildfire and like smoke is all over the place in this region. Now a lot of the country, and. Wife was saying yesterday that, yeah, this looked like a lot of that day. Kids, It's like, no, this is worse in terms of the air quality for the day. But there were some as you saw in the pictures, I mean smoke field fielded and oh yeah, but the firefighters got knocked it out fairly quickly in a couple hours and that spread pretty quickly up. But you know, the damage could have been a lot worse, right. So you know they did a good job of knocking it down quickly so that it only affected the sanctuary, right, because you know you have adjacent parish hall, there are houses that surround the church, and so you know that was spared and so you know they got that they were able to do that. So as you're watching the fire, you're you're are you already in the head space of like this is this was? This was arson the middle of the day, no lightning, no no spark, nothing like that. Yes. For me, yeah, first thing, I'm like, because I know it was fires. The first thought our sister Church and Queens six weeks prior had experienced a fire, right, Oh they had said no cause there's no call I don't think there still is a cause. In fact, so my first thought and this is now, because that was April, this is now July. And so I'm like, okay, first we got to make sure that that doesn't get there. So I'm thinking about all these other things. I'm like, want to get out to get in front of this. We want to make sure that we get out that this is a loss, this is this is not just another church of you know that this is a big loss. But the presidence of media who came showed us because again we would have lots of events that position in the media came to, so they knew about our church. They know about it. Oh yeah, and so you know, wanted that message out there. But yeah, I thought immediately thought Arson. And and again all the people who whether former members who had you know, grew up there, maybe moved. There are people that found out live in Pennsylvania and drove from Pennsylvania and from other places that come out and go like that. And so it was just like just so gut wrenching for the generations of lives and have been minister to in that space. And so yeah, did you know, so right away I thought, yeah, this is intentional. Now the question of why. Then you begin to think about is this another development scheme, because of course you have that right, you know, yeah, trying to steal the land and people coming up, don't let them do it. We want to support you. We can't let them get away with it. You know, you get you hear. Those messages, Oh for sure. Yeah, but property gets to a point you're dealing with someone who's agnostic. I'm sure they wouldn't mind it more than any other building going up in flames, right, and. That and that's and that's the thing because this is a housing crisis like it is everywhere. And as you mentioned, we see condos across the country. And so now we're where do you get property? Well, churches have property, many of them. Many churches have property. And that's yeah, that's a prime way because will people care, right, will this city do something? We know that it's probably more costs for the city to have the building to not be a church, right than for it to be a church. So you start thinking about all of those things. But then you get in perspective, Okay, this is a trauma, and we have to then support the carregation. We don't have to community and and so that's what it's been for these past three and a half weeks. Yeah, so pastor after after fire, you guys are probably wondering, like how bad is it? This whole sort of situation. I don't know how much you can talk about this stuff because I know it's like city law or whatever zoning. I don't know who handles it buildings. But there seemed to be a time where the it went from being a city problem to being a you guys problem. And then was that a decision that you made so you could get control of what happens next or was that foisted upon you as like you got to deal with this because we don't want to deal with it type of thing. Yeah, it's a good question. So I initially, you know there's a historic building, and yeah, Ammarks have supported you know, with donation nationally from the. City of course eighteen fifty three, right. Yeah, for us to get you to do previous work and restoration work on a steeple spire to roof the church building. And so of course there's a landmark. And but because they previously gave I think that our sense was when they came Landmarks did because they basically sat in through our face that oh, we previously gave you money, right, but here we are with this. This is what literally, this is what they said when. They came to them. You got one check and that's the thing. You're a landmark. But mister trauma, you're dealing with this. This is what you're bringing up. But so you have that right and of course with that, we have had some complaints from people who came in because the steeple was architecturally built. On a lean on an angle right for when but. When people but when people who moved in came they looked at it. It's angles like maybe one to two degrees. But if you look at any of the original photos you can see it. We got structural engineers where they said it structurally sund it's an archite textual design was done for win which actually have We have one tornado that hit Brooklyn in its history in two thousand and six, which is kind of what preceded all the work that needed to be done. It actually destroyed the steep wing roof. Yeah, and so but when people came in, they saw it leaning and they go, well, we feel like it's going to fall. So we reported to the city and that would have been an ongoing fighting issue for that long. What's we got the work. We did what he had to do, but that was on the radar, and we felt like, once you're on the city radar, you never get off. It's it's, it's it's so now this convergence and I'm bringing that up to set up the context. And when they show up there, I kind of have a feeling that there's a meeting before a. Meeting this general. And they show up and it's like, yeah, well we we gotta do something. We're gonna do full demo and you know, all of these things. So it felt like that they came in kind of with the what we're gonna do. Yeah, very strange when all of a suddition. And that's and that's the issue that it came in with that. But they did it in the guys I don't want it. They did it in the name of public safety. Obviously, we know that a fire presents public safety issues. Of course, building could collapse, that kind of stuff. But we knew ready and they never disputed it to this day that the parish Hall was structurally sound. Now they've made some technical things about sharing and the wall and and and all that. Those things. Again, you get a team, you figure it out. But we knew it was in a structury sound. We knew fire had not even gotten close to there, you know, fire the fighters you know, tapped the wall and checked the hot spots or whatever. But there was no water damage. There was no fire damage or anything. So we knew that. They knew it when we came in here. So why then the push to do a full demo. Oh, the city doesn't usually do partial demos. We know that's not the case because recently there was an issue in this There was a collapse of a building near collapse of a building in the city that made national new news, and they did partial demo, and we know that the partial demos before that. I wonder if this is a less desirable condo, potential building. And so exactly, and so this so of course here and all of it. We're we're like, okay, we see what it is. And then to our dismay because I don't even think it was a surprise. The Landmarks Commission has said nothing. They're like, well, dB says dB, Department of Building says, that needs to be a full demo's public safety issue. We're going to say a back seat to it. Well, we're a historic glandmark since nine eighteen fifty three, way before any of our times. How are you doing that? And so it just felt like it was like we're against it in this process. So part of this was we we want to take back, you know, ownership of this, right. Yeah, so is that a necessity to save it? Was out of necessity. But then also you know, the community rally around them was like, how is this possible? This is egregious. So now as that gone and that has gone along, we're trying to do our best to get team in there and do this. But you can't hire somebody. And they said particularly that it may be asbestos containing, Well, we know as specists don't grow on wood. The church is the wood building because most buildings were wood back in that time. Yeah, no, asbestus in eighteen fifty. Right, and we did work on the building, as has been chronic in the last decade, like six seven years ago, so we knew by reports from that there was no asbesis. That's all was filed. The only place where it might be a cm as SPECIs containing material would be from roof, you know, fire collapse the roof, so perhaps from the roof we'll know today, because that's one of the things that we have to do is trying to find a way to get in today when the city contractors refused to let us in to our own buildings. So now you have board members and church like, well we own this, you're owners to how we how are we not able to go into a building. We were having meetings, all of the initial agency meetings were in the building to begin to begin fire frost fire in the parish hall every single morning. And now they're saying there, so. We're saying, well, if it wasn't if it's not structuring sound, you need to do a full how we meeting it here? It made no sense and it still. Doesn't to the board. So you have these things that's going. And on and so up until Monday night. We had to meet. Monday afternoon, we left the meeting. Our team was like, they're setting us up to fail. We had to put out a statement and say we accepted, we grieve this, and we accept they want to do a full demo. We've done everything we can do. Monday afternoon and the gud Tuesday morning, you know, I woke up. We had already started grieving that Tuesday morning. Lawyer and engineer they called. They said, well, the chief, the chief lawyer for DOB just reached out and says, it's now only three things. It went from four on Friday the previous friday, they added ten more, so it's fourteen things. We got to the meet, which was what prompted us to call the meeting, because it was going from five to eight to two to one. It was always something yeah, and so then it went to fourteen. We're like, okay, enough of this. We got to have a meeting. It will be a once and for all meeting. Whatever happens happens, and then that meaning two hours. You know, the necessity of getting a good lawyer, right, Initially we tried to do this on our own. Don't recommend it, and people say get their lawyer, get a lawyer, get a lawyer, but we had to get one that was land used construction, not you know, really experts have lawyers, but you need people's specialty. And so, you know, one good thing that the Landmarks Conservacy did was refer one of their best lawyers to us, even though the Landmarks Commission refused to do nothing but the Landmarks Conservacy, which is an arm of the Commission that does grants and funding and things, have supported So we got we got a lawyer, and I think I was telling somebody today that was probably the beginning of the turnaround. And so we had to meet on Monday. But we got in there, they refused to let us go into the building to do a scope of work, which have been the issue to answer the questions they needed so that they would give a hold Well, how is this possible? That was so then then we was like, okay, fine, we put this out Tuesday night. Tuesday morning they put, well, you know, we don't need a scope of work really, and so we're like, well, what happened between this meeting on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning? Right? We don't know. I you know, I have been sending you know, to politician what was going on, BCC and folks or whatever. We do know that whatever the public public figures, politicians got win. And I didn't send to everybody. I sent this like our local council member yea, you know, the borough office and then the mayor. Right, But it felt like then all of a sudden, I get text there you know, things were changing and pressure works, and so I said, okay, maybe it's political public pressure. But then Tuesday came. Here we are and so now we get to a few minute it's ago. We have an extension of a week to transition from you know, the city's team to ours to you know, now start the long process of you know, rebuilding and everything. Yeah, blessing, right. Yep, it's a blessing. So you know, I'm just ready to keep praying for us and that you know, the support of the people, you know, locally, citywide, nationally, internationally. We calls have come in from everywhere and we're grateful for it. Never wanted to be known in this way. We didn't ask for this, certainly, but you know, God has put us in this position for a reason. Ultimately is a glory. And so we're just standing in strength of God and on a word that even out of this, that God that good will come from this. So the is the home website alf Bushwick Church dot org the best place to go find the GoFundMe page. Yes, and so we put it up on there. It is also on our social media pages. The GoFundMe is there as well. Well, there you go. Pban family, help out the pastor here and bring this pre Civil war building back to life so that it's still around in it for another hundred years at least. I mean, you stand to lose a lot when you lose buildings like this, especially in an old place like New York. So is it? So one more question before I let you go at the end of this process. Is this doing business in New York? Or is there is it? Is it something else? You know what I mean? Like is all because I know it's it's a place of permits and a place of red tape and a place of politics and a place of all those things. Or was your feeling being a native New York or was it like, hey man, this is trying to get something done in New York Or did it feel like something more is working against this year? I felt like in this situation something more was a foot. Yeah, I've even from being at the church almost fourteen years, we had to deal with red tape and permits and different things. You know, that is the price of doing business. But this felt afoot, and it felt afoot to most people right right off the bat. It felt even throughout this process, there was no reason that most people felt that we should have had to fight in the way we did to not have a full demo, even to the point when when you get politicians involved and stuff, it generally means they're. Gonna make out of course, yeah. Or there's something really a foot that we got to really address because if not, they make courtes in the long run too. And I think that, you know, I think most people saw that it was a foot. That's why I think that, you know, in most things, there's always a pre meeting, in an after meeting, usually when you get to the main thing, the thing has already been talked about a done, and so I felt like in that case, this was I think right away, there was this we need to get this building down now. Of course, with that being said, rationale behind it. We may never know or who might be who might benefit from it being taken down. We may we have our suspicions, but we may never know. But that situation feels like a lot of situations in America anymore, you know what I mean. Yes, when it feels like more than one hand is working on some strange plan that's affecting a person who's trying to do, you know, the right thing right well, pastor, I appreciate you coming on the show. Folks, visit the website again. It is South Brunswick. Sorry, South Bushwickchurch dot org. I keep wanting to call you guys New Brunswick, South Bushwick Church dot. Row Brunswick Seminary. So there you go. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe I read it in the bio and help them out any way you can, with the GoFundMe and God bless you. I hope it all comes together for you. It sounds like you got a good foot to start, on a good base to begin the construction. And I hope uh donations keep pouring in. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. Yeah, no problem, thanke it easy, sir,