Abandoned Chicago South Side Church Built in 1895 and Closed in 2017

In 2016 this church on Chicago’s South Side was still in operation. By 2017 it was closed. It was built in the 1890s, and the video description puts the year at 1895. The roof has started to fall apart and the vandalism has gotten really bad. Crazy to think this place closed in 2017.

This was a return trip. For a lot of my early explores I only took pictures, so my videos of those places either didn’t turn out very good or I didn’t record at all. I needed to come back here anyway for a new video, and I’m going back to a lot of my old places for that reason. The exact location stays off this page.

What we found

The building is very decayed. There were spray paint cans lying around, and I didn’t feel sketched out this time coming back.

Some rooms had a lot of mold, enough that I’d tell you not to go in. In one spot there was a safe that somebody had already opened.

It’s definitely a really cool church, and it’s probably going to be demolished too. You can see why from the shape it’s in, especially the ceiling.

Further back, one room used to have a tire sitting right in the center. The stairwell goes up to the bell tower, and there’s not much to see up there. It’s a far hike that wears your legs out quickly. Some of the graffiti was new. It either wasn’t there before or I didn’t notice it. The bathrooms are absolutely destroyed. There’s no basement, just a crawl space, and it doesn’t look good.

You can tell nobody cares about the place anymore because it’s so trashed, which is why the entry never got sealed. In one spot somebody built a wall that gets in the way of the view, and people have punched holes in it to see through. I don’t understand that, because you can’t take a good picture from there anyway. There used to be a ladder propped up in the same spot, blocking the view too. From there the stairs go straight up to the bell tower, and it’s a long hike and a painful one.

Why places like this end up empty

I don’t know why this congregation closed, and the video doesn’t say. What I can give you is what’s reported about church buildings in Illinois.

Congregations shrink. A 2019 NPR Illinois story on sacred buildings in the state described members aging faster than younger people joined, and the cost of maintaining the buildings rising. One Jacksonville church that opened in 1866 held its last service in 2017, with an average Sunday attendance of 10 to 15 people. The story cites Gallup data showing church membership down 20 percent over recent decades.

Then the building has to wait. A downtown Springfield church sat empty for about ten years before it became apartments and offices. A Peoria church built in 1909 changed hands several times and was nearly demolished, then sat untouched for almost five years before a restaurant group converted it. Plenty of buildings don’t get that. In January 2024 Preservation Chicago described another Chicago church as vacant and vandalized after at least four years empty, with crumbling drywall and flooded floors.

I put my money on demolition, and the ceiling is the reason.