The Gothic Revival sanctuary of the former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion was a strange edifice to house a dance club, but that’s what happened in the early 1980s
The Gothic Revival sanctuary of the former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion was a strange edifice to house a dance club, but that s what happened in the early 1980s with the infamous Limelight club in New York City.
The National Churches Trust reports that more than 2,000 churches have closed over the past decade, many abandoned entirely. Friends of Friendless Churches is a charity which tries to rescue and repair some in England and Wales that are no longer in use. They have more than sixty ancient, beautiful, and empty churches in their care, and they rely entirely on public donations to perform their melancholy work.
The Pentecostal preacher is in full flow – his voice raised to near-deafening volume, his gestures expansive but exact, the congregation murmuring back a chorus of ‘Amens’ – when he receives an unexpected interruption. ‘A woman asked me at the barbecue last week,’ he is telling us, ‘“Pastor, if I won the Lottery…”’ A voice