Demolition of Brooklyn's Church of the Redeemer to Begin Within Weeks: Source

There is something of a borough-wide mourning taking place on Monday, after the Wall Street Journal announced that the historic Church of the Redeemer in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, is ”about to vanish.”

A sign on the construction fence, the Journal reports, says demolition is scheduled for fall.

But an engineer on the project, Santiago Helman, tells Patch that it will begin much sooner.

Demolition should begin “in the next two weeks,” he approximates. ”And I think it will be done in about two-and-a-half months.” (Helman is listed as the lead applicant for a city demolition permit at the site.)

Patch has reached out to the Jackson Group, who owns the property, for confirmation — and to find out what they’ve got planned as a replacement.

The Church of the Redeemer, located on 4th Avenue near Atlantic, closed to the public in 2010. And church officials, with $4 million in necessary repairs looming over their heads, reportedly sold the mid-19th-century relic to the Jackson Group for $20 million in fall of last year.

“It became clear in a short time there were no realistic prospects for a large increase in donations or in members that could have covered immediate and ongoing expenses,” Rev. Lawrence Provenzano told DNAinfo at the time.

Neighborhood groups tried to think up alternative solutions to demolition, to no avail.

The final death knell came in May of this year, when artifacts from the church went up for sale, Brownstoner reported.

“New York CIty is losing another important piece of its architectural history!” wrote Demolition Depot, the company tasked with selling off the items, in an email blast. “A perfectly intact 19th century church is being sacrificed for another residential development.”

Among the salvaged goods:

The stained glass windows are of Tiffany quality some with drapery and multi-layered glazing. In this particular job we can save the doorways with the hand cut stone surrounds. Additional features are historic fencing, very nice tiled floors, a large quantity of pressed tin walls and ceilings, nice lighting, etc.

Now, barring some divine (or gadfly) intervention, all that’s left is to wait for this gorgeous old beast to fall.