Pacific Street, north side, east from Buffalo Avenue, 1940.

According to P.L. Sperr, the photographer, this large tent was the set up of an African American female evangelist. Because Brooklyn was becoming the center of Pentecostal churches in the 1940s and 1950s, it is not hard to imagine that this might have been the preaching or healing space of a member of that religious sect.

A 1935 New York Times article describes the rivalry between two evangelists that resulted in a march by the followers of one man to the tent location of the second man. The second preacher, named Prophet Costonie, had his tent located on Pacific St. between Rochester and Utica Avenues, only a block from the pictured 1940 location.