Thursday, August 6, 2009

Avondale’s Reading Road Churches

There are some really nice buildings along Reading Road in Avondale, particularly churches. This will attempt to highlight some. We will head north from Martin Luther King Drive to Paddock Road looking at various houses of worship. Many were built for one denomination but are now used by another as the nature of the neighborhood changed over the years.


New Friendship Baptist Church
Original Name: Sh’erith Ahabeth Achim Synagogue
3212 Reading Road
Completed: 1907; Rededicated, 1971
Architect: Unknown at this time
Style: Neo-Classical Revival

This building was built for the newly merged Sherith Israel Temple and Congregation Ahabeth Achim in 1906. Sherith Israel Temple was located downtown and their former building still exists on Ruth Lyons Lane. Based on some research, I believe though this building or a nearby (and now demolished building) may have been associated with Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church or St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at one time. Those churches merged in 1945 and are now out in Finneytown. I’m still doing research on that one.


St. Andrew Catholic Church
3401 Reading Road
Dedicated: 1920
Architect: Samuel Hannaford & Sons
Style: Gothic Revival

Carmel Presbyterian Church
3549 Reading Road
Completed: Unknown at this time
Architect: Unknown at this time
Style: Gothic RevivalI'm still looking for more information on this one . . .

Southern Baptist Church
Original Name: Adath Israel Synagogue
3556 Reading Road
Completed: 1926; Rededicated, 1963
Architect: Oscar Schwartz
Style: Neo-Classical Revival

Episcopal Church of Saint Michael and All Angels
Original Name: Grace Church
3626 Reading Road
Completed: 1880 (Parish Hall only)
Architect: James W. McLaughlin and A.C. Nash
Style: English Gothic Revival
Closed 2008 Individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places


Zion Temple First Pentecostal Church
Original Name: Isaac M. Wise Temple
3771 Reading Road
Completed: 1927; Rededicated, 1973
Architect: A. Lincoln Fechheimer & Benjamin Ihorst
Style: Neo Romanesque Revival

Other churches of Reading Road include Church of the Lord Jesus Christ – 3136 Reading Road, Second Community Truth Missionary Baptist Church – 3662 Reading Road, and House of God of the Apostolic – 3863 Reading Road.

6 comments:

  1. Whoa, what happened to St. Andrew's?

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  2. I don't think they ever finished the towers.

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  3. What a magnificent place Avondale used to be. (sigh)

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  4. So that picture -- that's what it was supposed to look like? Or were the steeples removed somehow (like St. George looks now, poor thing)!?

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  5. Ann - The image of St. Andrew is a rendering from the architect so I'm pretty sure the towers were just never built.

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  6. I really like the blogs on the churches and some of them are very nice, but none have ever captured my interest or left me as awe stricken as the Basilica of the Assumption in Northern Kentucky. I attended a candle light wedding there once and it was simply breah taking beautiful. I was told that pieces of it were brought from Germany. I know your references are mostly concerned with Cincinnati, but this sanctuary is quite notable to not mention...

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