Well, I guess there’s not much to say but St. Louis has lost another beautiful church to fire, most likely set by squatters trying to keep warm on one of the coldest nights of the winter so far.

In this case, it was the former Friedens German Evangelical Lutheran Church, which I first looked at way back in October of 2013, revisited its history in February of 2014 and then came by again in February of 2018. I knew it had been abandoned for years and poorly secured from intruders, but had been hoping for the best. Clearly that was not enough.

The flames were truly huge, which you can see at the Fire Department’s social media page; this SUV seems to have been caught up in the conflagration or its ensuing suppression.

As we’ve seen before, ice sculptures formed on a bush out front.

There’s not much more to say.

I was wondering if the cool relief sculpture of Christ with Angels had survived behind the high altar, but it looks to have been completely destroyed.

I was looking at the congregation hall across the street and thought at first that it had been damaged by the flames, but then I realized the copper dormers had already been stripped off by thieves long before the fire.

As I had observed before, one of the nice things about the intersection of 19th and Newhouse streets was that all four corners had intact buildings. Not anymore, sadly.