A Sliver of a Storefront, a Faith on the Rise
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Published: January 14, 2007

The storefront, it turned out, was more front than store: a drug den masquerading as an auto-sound business. And the sight of six hoodlums being paraded out in handcuffs was sadly familiar among the brick tenements of west Harlem.

But for Danilo Florian, who stumbled upon the police raid in November 2002, it was nothing less than a revelation.

“This could be a church,” he muttered. “Lord, that is the place.”

Mr. Florian, a factory worker by day and a pastor by night, was desperate to find a home for his small congregation, which faced eviction from its dank basement sanctuary. In a lucky confluence of real estate and religion, he tracked down the storefront’s building manager, cajoled him into a five-year lease at a nice rent and even talked him into joining the church.

Now, on most nights when the neighborhood winds down to rest, the fluorescent lights inside the room flicker to life, and the spartan, whitewashed space rattles under a sonic barrage of prayers, yelps and tambourines. As a teenage band pounds out bouncy Latin rhythms, men in crisp business suits that belie their dreary day jobs triumphantly pump their fists. Women in flowing skirts shout, stomp and gyrate wildly. The air crackles. the rest