The Baptist Temple at Schermerhorn Street and Third Avenue in Boerum Hill was damaged during a three-alarm fire that broke out last night, Gothamist reported. The blaze started at 11:30 p.m. in the organ loft and was under control a few hours later. Four firefighters suffered minor injuries. “We’ll rebuild it, we’ll make it maybe prettier, maybe nicer,” Raymond
Ramos, the church’s pastor, told ABC 7. “God works everything out for the good.” The Brooklyn church is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. [Gothamist]

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From left: the Free Synagogue of Flushing, the Astoria Center of Israel, and the Rego Park Jewish Center

Three Queens synagogues on the national and state registers of historic places will be ceremoniously inducted this morning at the Queens Borough Hall. The three sites, which were placed on the registers earlier this year, Rego Park Jewish Center, Astoria Center of Israel and the Free Synagogue of Flushing, were inducted based on their historical, architectural and cultural significance, according to a press release from the New York Landmarks Conservancy and the Preservation League of New York State. All three synagogues were built in the first half of the 20th century, with the oldest, Astoria Center of Israel, built in 1925-26. Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, who plans to attend the ceremony today, said in a written statement that preserving the synagogues is essential to the neighborhoods. “They are distinctive living memorials that now have a new chapter written into their history,” Marshall said. “The listing of these synagogues on the national and state registers of historic places is proof of their enduring value through generations and helps ensure their future on our borough’s landscape.” TRD

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A Lower Manhattan church and an Upper West Side public school building
were named landmarks yesterday by the Landmarks Preservation
Commission. The former St. George Melkite Catholic Church at 103
Washington Street, between Carlisle and Rector streets, was built
around 1812 and served as a boarding house until a church took the
space between 1925 and 1966. The Mickey Mantle School, at 460-466 West
End Avenue at 82nd Street, opened in 1896 and was designed by architect
C. B. J. Snyder, who oversaw school construction. The building was
listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. [more]

Sites in Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan are among the 24 latest
landmarks recommended for the State and National registers of historic
places. The New York State Board for Historic Preservation issued the
recommendations to both lists yesterday after soliciting nominees from
property owners and towns. The list includes Trinity Lutheran Church,
at 168 West 100th Street in Manhattan; the Astoria Center of Israel, at
2735 Crescent Street in Long Island City; and Free Synagogue of
Flushing, at 4160 Kissena Boulevard in Flushing. [more]