Another Historic New York Church Burned Down In Arson Attack

The building that was once St. Ann’s Church in Buffalo, New York, burned down after sustaining two fires in less than a week, and officials have confirmed the latest fire was arson. 

The 140-year-old church suffered a three-alarm fire last Friday, which the firefighters contained for the most part, per PBS. The building seemed to remain structurally stable after the fire, but firefighters were called back to the church at 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday as another fire tore through the building.

These were not the first fires at the St. Ann’s Parish this year, where the 140-year-old church resides. Back in January, a massive four-alarm fire gutted St. Ann’s schoolhouse, causing $600,000 in damages, according to WIVB.

St. Ann’s Parish was closed by Bishop Richard Malone in 2013, but the Vatican confirmed the closure in 2017, according to Spectrum News. The Catholic church was then sold to the Buffalo Crescent Holdings, which is associated with a Muslim group, in November 2022 for $250,000. It was set to be converted into a mosque. The multimillion dollar project, which included an Islamic school and college, shopping plaza, and Muslim funeral home. Developers have made no further plans for the project, according to EWTN News. 

Leah Halton-Pope, Buffalo Common Council Member, said that earlier on Tuesday she had talked about securing the building. 

“I literally just had a conversation this afternoon with a member of the administration asking what are we going to do about it and stressing that something has to be done over there to secure it, and then said it’s probably going to be set on fire again, but I just didn’t think it would happen today,” she said.

Bernice Radle, executive director at Preservation Buffalo Niagara, said that the owners of the property have been unresponsive and “refuse to secure the building.”

“Preservation Buffalo Niagara calls on the City of Buffalo to pull out all the stops to wrestle this landmark church from its negligent absentee owner,” Radle said. “Enough is enough!”

This church fire isn’t the first for New York in the past months. In June, a landmark 173-year-old church, whose congregation still met weekly, was burned in Brooklyn. Officials determined that the blaze was caused by a firebug. In April, a 138-year-old church in Astoria was destroyed by a five-alarm fire and still remains under investigation. Police also arrested a man on July 8 who allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at two different houses of worship in Queens.