Friendship Church, originally built in 1894 as the Temple on Willson, or simply, The Temple, and is now the Friendship Baptist Church that officially closed in 2014, but had been in serious decline for many years.
There’s a name for this sort of thing, endolithic lithophytes For instance the Welsh had a name for trees growing from stone and masonry. The tree, is twenty years old.
“Paulownia, which has broad, heart-shaped leaves, was named for a Dutch princess, leading to the nickname “Princess Tree.” Ailanthus has spindly leaves that grow in symmetric rows along its branches. It is called the “Tree of Heaven” because of its rapid ascension to the sky.
In the 1800s, both species were planted in fine estates. But soon they were choking out other varieties of trees. By the early 1900s, gardeners no longer prized the two species. But they had taken root, especially in urban areas.
The “Tree of Heaven” inspired the title of the 1943 novel “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” Author Betty Smith described it as a tree that “liked poor people.”
“It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement,” she wrote.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture considers both trees invasive species. Once they send down roots, they are very difficult to remove.”
This is neither an anthulus or paulownia tree.