NYTimes piece about a book of photography and essays about worship and church life in inner cities:

The title is a nod to the influential Jacob Riis book of photography published in 1890, ”How the Other Half Lives,” about tenement life on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

Vergara, also a New Yorker, filled his book with photos of churches in unlikely places: a former car dealership, a shutdown Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a former furniture store. Many still have iron bars and metal gates that had been used to protect merchandise inside.

A few of the congregations are located in houses of worship that once served another faith. A Jewish synagogue in a destitute section of Brooklyn has become a Latino church called La Sinagoga. Stars of David still adorn the facade and sanctuary.

Inside, the churches were often decorated with paintings by congregants, or items they found in vacant churches or bought cheaply in local stores. Hanging on the walls of one church was contact paper from a home supply store with a pattern that worshippers said reminded them of stained glass.

As compelling as the buildings are, Vergara said he was struck even more by the devastation that surrounded them.

Amazon link to the book.