photographs of abandoned places #42

  Miles Park Methodist

OK, my information is sketchy on this building. Sometimes churches change their names, and sometimes different congregations succeed the previous ones. For over a century this was Methodist. The area was once Newburgh Village, and there were two churches on the village square: one a Methodist, and the other a Presbyterian. The Methodist building began in 1872. Congregation may have begun in 1832? as South Park Methodist Episcopal, 1894 Miles Park Methodist Episcopal, 1940 Miles Park Methodist, 1968-1979 Miles Park United Methodist. Then it was Allen Chapel Missionary Baptist. The last occupant was Pentecostal Determine Church of God. Newburgh was an early competitor to Cleveland, it was absorbed. It began with Yankees, and then immigrants from the British Isles, then with Slavonic immigrants who had Catholic, and Byzantine Catholic churches, and one Orthodox church. Then the 1960s had a change in racial demographics. First the Protestant churches became Baptist, and Penecostal. The tendency was slow decay of the former church buildings, and then demolition. This is what happened to St. Joseph Byzantine [click]. Nativity of Mary [click] is collapsing. This pattern has been repeated across the country.

Here it was yesterday, without a roof. The steeple was gone in 1925.

a side door seen through a chain link

This window is above the front entrance. Here it is seen in full sun at noon. The other windows are fine glass too, but without any scenes. Two much smaller windows, at the front of the church, have a harp.

The central three of five lintel bottoms are one scene, Jesus as the Good Shepherd.

Most of the original ceiling is still there, even with the flow of rain waters. A drop ceiling, with insulation is barely there.

The carpet is soaked, some places squishy. The flooring underneath is questionable in integrity.

There is extra furniture all over. There are several other rooms. Some explorer had a sense of humour.

The bishop has random capitalisation, not unlike Orange Caligula.

stereotypical 55 gallon barbecue