Dorchester Illustration no. 2130
Immanuel Church
Postcard. Caption on front: Immanuel Church, Dorchester, Mass. Postmarked Mar 6, 1908. Dorchester Station, Boston. With one cent stamp. On verso: No. H 12696. The Robbins Bros Co., Boston, Mass. and Germany.
This Baptist church building was located next to the municipal building in Fields Corner. It suffered a fire in the 1983, and the site is now a parking lot .
The Fire (From the Boston Globe)
Feb. 24, 1983
Fire struck the Immanuel Baptist Church at 191 Adams St. in Dorchester yesterday, destroying the top two floors of the religious home of a small Hispanic congregation, firefighters reported. The blaze began at 5:15 p.m. in the second floor office of the pastor, Rev. Juan Phillips, firefighters at the scene said, and spread to the steeple before it was brought under control at 6 p.m. Firefighters estimated the damage at $25,000. Rev. Phillips said the steeple housed the church’s library and records.
“I was just in the process of buying insurance, so we didn’t have any,” Rev. Phillips said as he watched firefighters pry planks of charred wood from the 90-year-old building. He said his congregation of 45 Hispanics is “too small and too poor” to contribute to repairing the church building. Firefighters and policemen said they suspect the fire may be the result of arson, and that the arson squad is investigating.
The building next to the church, the Fields Corner Municipal Building at 195 Adams st., has gone up in flames several times in the past month, firefighters said, and has been under 24-hour surveillance last few weeks. “The proximity and the timing make this fire look all too suspicious,” one policeman at the scene said of the church’s fire.
The Hispanic congregation has been using the Immanuel Baptist Church as its home since 1976, Rev. Phillips said.
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