Third Presbyterian Church
Updated May 2, 2022 | By Matthew Christopher
Designed by noted architect Isaac Pursell in the Gothic Revival style, the Third Presbyterian Church was built at 9th and Potter streets in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1895 and opened in 1896. It featured several unique design elements, including double-hinged doors and walls that could be rolled up or down to extend the size of the sanctuary and other classrooms, and is notable for being the site of the first bible summer school, opened in 1912.
At the time the church was built, Chester was a prosperous town, boasting the largest shipbuilding yards in the United States, textile mills, steel and iron production plants, and (later) a Ford assembly plant. Its population soared in World War I as people migrated from the south and Eastern Europe for factory jobs, but struggled to keep up with the influx. Racial conflicts boiled over segregation of the public schools as manufacturers shuttered plants in the 1960s, and by the 1980s few of the businesses that supported the town were left. Corrupt politicians and organized crime helped further bankrupt the town.
A pre-1923 postcard view of the Third Presbyterian Church in Chester
With no economy left and a dwindling population in the city, the congregation of Third Presbyterian Church was unable to support themselves and folded in 1986. Chester Eastside Ministries took ownership of the building but was unable to maintain it, and left in 2013. The school portion of the building was in relatively good shape but the sanctuary was in need of expensive repairs; without any clear idea what to do with the site, it was slated for demolition until the Chester Historic Preservation Committee (CHPC) purchased the building for $1 in 2015.
A small group of individuals fiercely devoted to the restoration of the building and their town, CHPC envisioned the building becoming the community center the area so desperately needed. In 2018 I contacted them to request permission to photograph the building, and upon meeting them quickly came to deeply admire and respect their passion for saving the church. They were thrilled to share the Third Presbyterian Church with others, and loved to chat about the history of the town and the building. When I proposed that hosting photography workshops there would be a good way of generating income, they agreed and for the next year I brought in dozens of people who shared our awe at the gorgeous sanctuary and produced a stellar portfolio of photos of the interior and exterior of the building.
As for my own photos, I had only the hour and a half from my initial visit during which time I was talking to CHPC - I feel that being distracted always makes the quality of my work suffer - but I figured there was plenty of time. I have a policy during most workshops that I am there to help attendees and not do my own work, and by the end of the events I was tired and the light was poor, so I always told myself I'd come back to do a more comprehensive catalogue. It seemed like I had plenty of time; CHPC was making strides towards preservation, getting the church listed on the National Register of Historic Places with Partners for Sacred Places' help in November 2019. While much of the money made from the workshops went towards repairing doors and windows people broke to gain access to the interior to photograph the building without permission, we all felt that the efforts were gaining momentum.
Then the church burned in a five-alarm fire on May 28, 2020. I talked briefly with my friend and CHPC's president, Dave Guleke, to see how bad the damage was and express my condolences, and he sounded crushed. It was hard to know what to say. Dave had always been kind and welcoming, quick with a joke and glad that there were finally people outside Chester that were realizing what a gem the building was. After more than five years of struggle to save the church, it was completely destroyed in a night. Since there was no power to the building, arson seemed the only likely cause - by someone who had come in by one of the entrances they had worked so hard to keep sealed.
The gorgeous abandoned Third Presbyterian Church in Chester, PA
I visited two days later, and while the stone walls were still mostly intact, nearly everything else was ruined. The beautiful stained glass windows, which filtered soft sunlight through the dust particles inside, were all gone. Poking through still-smoldering ashes, I could only find two sides to the curved pews of the sanctuary. By tracing my way around the footprint of the building I was able to find the remains of a stairwell that had been a favorite among visiting photographers; I could barely make out one of the steps beneath the debris, and the rest was erased.
The church building had been so thoroughly obliterated that it was hard to even tell what had been there. Aside from some charred rafters, all that was left was a wasteland of burnt boards, save for the brick fireplace from one of the meeting rooms, which loomed up from the rubble from a hole in the floor that one could see the basement through, and a portion of a school building which had been added later and was not particularly historical or noteworthy.
The aftermath of the fire at Third Presbyterian Church
You see a lot of buildings destroyed when you photograph abandoned places. Thanks to the spread of information on them through social media, arson and vandalism have become exponentially worse over the last few years. Every time you see some place that should have been saved get destroyed, you get angry, depressed, frustrated - and you feel an ever-deepening sense of hopelessness about working to save historically significant places from the parking lots and cheap strip malls they're invariably replaced with. It's the same feeling, again and again, but you can't really get used to the ache and it still manages to hurt even after you've told yourself a hundred times it's just the way things are.
For the members of the Chester Historic Preservation Committee, it's different. This place was their project. They hadn't worked with hundreds of abandoned churches, this one was the one they had. It was blocks from their homes, and they had seen its descent as they lived in the community it served. They were the ones that set flowers on the step of the church after the fire. When you see the dreams of a group of people you care about incinerated, what do you say? "I'm sorry" seems so shallow and useless. Words can't fix it, and sympathy doesn't bring it back.
When you write something like this, I've found the tendency is to try to wrap things up on some hopeful note, a lesson learned, a little bit of resolution that the reader can take away. I'm not here to give that to you. There isn't one. The church is gone, and below you'll find the few photos I have, both the few from before the fire and those of what was left. You can sift through the ashes and take away from it what you will.
If you'd like to donate to the Chester Historic Preservation Committee's effort to save the walls of the building, you can do so on their Facebook fundraiser here.
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