When a fire in 2006 nearly demolished Pilgrim Baptist Church, an architectural treasure by Louis Sullivan that is known as the birthplace of modern gospel music, many Chicagoans insisted that the building had to be restored.
Two years after the fire, architects hired by the Bronzeville neighborhood church's board of trustees revealed dazzling plans for a $37 million rebuilding project that would include a social services building and a cultural center. At the time, some architectural preservationists questioned how an aging congregation whose membership had declined from its height of 1,000 members to a couple of hundred would be able to undertake such a project.
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