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Sunday, September 24, 2023

Bookworm

 

Bookworm

Post rewritten in 2024

Attending church and being in a library at the same time? This is probably what Boomers imagine to be the perfect torture chamber for a Gen Zer. This time around I am writing this post for the 3rd time. The 1st post was on my old and now defunct website and the original version of this post sucked. The current date of writing this post is 04/11/2024.

The exterior of the church on Google Street View.

Tucked away in Toledo's Old West End is the overgrown remains of a cathedral. This building started its life in September of 1908 as Epworth Methodist Church. The original building featured only a single auditorium, Sunday School rooms, a kitchen and a dining room.

A sketch of the original church. (Image source here)

In 1922 the building underwent massive upgrades too add a sanctuary and other new facilities.
 
Floorplan of the new Church.

The church would continue routine operations until September 7th, 1958 when an arson attack against the church would leave the building a smoldering ruin. "We have lost a building so beautiful that in its ruins it lays a spell upon our hearts-and in our loss we have found a church that no vandal can destroy", This is how the church's reverend started his sermon the Sunday following the destruction of the church.  


Following the loss of the building the church began holding sermons and Sunday school at the now demolished DeVeaux School on Sylvania Ave. Eventually the churched settled down at a building on Valleyview and Central, where they still operate to this day.


As for the remains of the original cathedral, the building was purchased by the Mary Manse College in 1960 who renovated it into a state of the art library. The new facility featured a 154 seat auditorium, reading and studying lounges, and over 52,000 books. It even had a room dedicated to JFK.


The library conversion costed roughly $6,592,636 in todays money and took 7 years to complete. The college made an interesting choice by integrating the old style Gothic architecture with 1960s Modernist architecture. Sister Virginia Marie described the newly constructed library as "One of Toledo's showplaces". However, during these renovations the college made a grave mistake, the former peaked roof was converted to a flat roof. This choice would lead to disastrous consequences down the line.

Regrettably at this point I was still using my iPhone 7 as my main camera for exploring. 

Mary Manse College had been operating in Toledo since 1922 as a Catholic college. Ran by the Ursuline Order of nuns, the college offered degrees in arts, sciences, music, medical, and nursing education. The college was primarily a girls only college until it became coeducational in 1971.


By the 1970s the college was struggling severely with finance, resulting in its bankruptcy and eventual closure in 1975. Today most of the buildings of the former college are being utilized by the Collingwood Arts Center. Before coming here me and my friend goofed off in an old nun school on the campus for a bit before making our way over.


Funnily enough the Academy of Business & Tech (The same people that ran St Teresa into the ground) operated a school on the campus as well until it was shuttered with those signature red boards at an unknown date. Sadly we couldn't find any weak spots in that building.


The library would sit vacant until 1991 when Prayer Tower Church of God purchased the site for around $123,798 in todays money. The church (A small congregation), only ever utilized the 1st floor and basement of the building leaving the 2nd and 3rd floor in its library form still.


In 2003 the city of Toledo deemed the church a "public nuisance", the reason was never expressly stated. Assumedly pre recession Toledo was getting a bit cocky about their beautiful and historic Old West End, blissfully unware that the impending housing crisis was going to turn the entire area into a public nuisance. 


In 2005 Prayer Tower and the building shuttered for unknown reasons. Over the years other variations of the former Prayer Tower Church have formed and still operate to this day. In 2006, during a high point in scrap metal prices, the building was hit by a wave of scrapping in which scrappers tore copper pipping, tubing, and air conditioner units from the building. 


Despite the building being re-sealed afterwards the building quickly became infested with water which caused severe decay over the following years. I personally feel the building's flat roof is more to blame for this than the scrappers. Changing a peaked roof building to a flat roof is a terrible idea for longevity, buildings with flat roofs will almost always decay faster than peaked roof buildings, as once the gutters jam up these buildings are basically sentenced to death.


After another scrapping spree in 2008, the building was never resealed allowing for those curious to wander as they please through the soggy decaying wreck that was once a grand cathedral and modern library. I stopped here briefly sometime around 2015 when I was still exploring with family members. At that point you could simply walk in the front door. I don't have any useable photos besides exterior shots from that trip unfortunately.


My second visit to the library was in winter of 2022. I had finally gotten the brace off my ankle a week prior. I can say with experience that urbex with a broken ankle is difficult by still doable (It actually got us caught in an older post). When me and my friend arrived we were disappointed to find that the easy entrances of yesteryear had been boarded up. I assume the city did this in early 2022 when the property was forfeited to them. 


We ended up having to jump into the basement from a surface level window to get inside, all while being glared at by people from the neighboring apartments. I handed my friend my GoPro to record my leap of faith incase I re-broke my ankle again we would at least have a funny moment, unfortunately he forgot to start recording.


The building was a total mess, we could hear water dripping throughout the building and snow had accumulated on the ground in some areas. Everything inside the building was extremely brittle as well, simply touching walls or rebar would result in them turning to dust in your hand. I'm honestly surprised the building itself hasn't completely collapsed.


We nearly fell through the floor in several areas and my friend kept hitting his head on random things for some reason. We never ended up going to the 3rd floor of the building as I knew from my prior explore that it was completely empty, and the staircase we attempted to climb up started to break the second anyone put pressure on it, kind of like me!


We had a fun day checking this place out though, ignoring the cold winter temps obviously. The second floor still contained lots of books many of them dating back to the early 1900s. It's honestly a shame nobody ever came and picked through these books to see if any where of value to the Toledo Public Library.


In order to climb out we had to use a crunchy desk that allowed my friend to exit but broke when I attempted to use it. After a mad search I was able to locate a ladder behind a door. When I attempted to move the door to grab the ladder behind it, the door literally disintegrated. With my trusty ladder in hand I climbed out the basement window and onto the grass outside, not before loosing my pants because they got hooked on a piece of metal however. 


After putting my pants back on and enduring the laughter from my friend, we headed back to the car to drive home. At this point the both of us were tired, cold and exhausted. After this explore clothing was probably 1/2 clothing and 1/2 building debris.

Yikes

Before I redid this post it was one of my least favorite posts on my blog, at least now the improved text makes up for the crappy photos.

Mutagen Out!





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