Fire disrupts restoration at 97-year-old Chicago church

National Catholic Reporter, April 11, 2003 by Gill Donovan

For St. Gregory the Great Church on Chicago's North Side, recovery from an early morning fire that broke out in the choir loft March 8 has meant more than just cleaning carpets and repainting. The 97-year-old Gothic church was nearing the end of a two-year project to clean and restore its ornate shrines and paintings, and now much of that work will have to be crone over, said artist-in-residence Joe Malham.

The fire was discovered when a woman who had arrived early to pray before daily Mass smelled smoke and notified the pastor, Fr. Bartholomew Winters. Her presence, at 7 a.m. on a Saturday, and the quick arrival of the fire department, saved the church building, despite heavy smoke and water damage to the interior.

Overall, Winters said, experts have predicted that the church will be out of commission for at least seven months. He and Malham expect the cost for repairs to reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. Fire officials said it was an electrical fire, which apparently started near the organ. If firefighters had not gotten to it when they did, or if the stained-glass windows in the choir loft had not already been removed for repair, the church could have been lost.