photographs of abandoned places #29

Verlassen Protestantische Kirche

 

foto from new metropark trail, bell is still in tower 

Unabhängig Protestantische Kirche erbaut A. D. 1899 

 (Independent Protestant Church built A. D. 1899) 

Now it could read Verlassen Protestantische Kirche (Abandoned Protestant Church)

And that is about all the information available, probably someone who lives nearby knows, but i am not knocking on doors. There were a lot of Germans in Cleveland. This church is on West 44th next to an entrance ramp to I-90, which took many houses away. On the other side of the freeway, entrance on West 53rd, the huge Joseph Feiss/Clothcraft garment factory stood and was active from 1920 to 1977, and which employed many German speakers. 

Most people would assume that Germans were either Catholic or Lutheran, but many Germans who came to the United States were of other Protestant groups, and many of the Lutherans organised into synods that were more stringently "conservative" than old country Lutherans. 

For sometime these American Germans maintained their language. Germany in the first half of the 20th century was aggressively militaristic, started and lost two world wars; this did not bode well for American Germans wanting to maintain their ethnicity. Of course, the highways destroyed neighbourhoods, and dispersed populations. The census shows Cleveland's population began declining some time after 1950, and that decline has been continuous. Cleveland is a fraction of what it once was.

Social change has made Americans less church going. Cleveland had many churches built by European immigrants, and their families. Often they built successive buildings to replace lesser quality buildings. Demographic change that brought in new people to Cleveland, brought with it different religiosity and that religiosity had less attachment and concern with church buildings. Church buildings became empty, and passed to new owners. Decay and abandonment was a common result. The German word, "verlassen", is apt and à propos. In this context, "verlassen" means abandoned, but in neutral context "verlassen" means both lost, and forlorn.

 

I have driven past this church for over twenty years, and i think it may have been vacant the entire time. The red flag and white St. Andrew's cross placard has been posted by the fire department, marking it abandoned and unsafe. In the past, i remembered fragment of stained glass windows; i see none now. There is symmetry with the windows, and there are outlines of yellow brick that suggest placing for non-existent windows. I do not expect to see this building for long. There is several bits of new construction immediately nearby, including new highway overpasses, park trail, new multi-unit housing, and commercial establishments on Lorain Avenue.

There are two blank tablets that cover the yearstone, they were not original with the Germans. And they are not stone. They were made like high school stage props. Look and see 2x4s and chicken wire.