I have always been told that the building wasn’t demolished, it was revamped. I was raised at First Baptist and there were still “backstage” passageways behind the pulpit — we were roaming thru them one Sunday when we were supposed to be in church and we found this small door. When we opened it, we were quite surprised to find we were staring at the congregation from about halfway up the architecture behind the pulpit, LOL! The dressing rooms on the third and fourth floors were converted to Sunday school areas and the lower floor turned into a gymnasium/fellowship hall. The box office area became the church secretary’s office. There were many places and areas that made it pretty obvious that the building was a former theater/opera house. It was a wonderful building. When the church moved out, Mahoning Bank redid the facade and took the building over. I was working there at the time, they let us use the gym and opened up the vehicle ramp on the west side of the building so the repossessed vehicles could be stored on one of the lower levels. The access ramp was used to get props and such in and out of the opera house. We found the old bomb shelter and the access stairway to the roof which was accessible from the gym level which also had a stage (practice area maybe?) and a shower area. It was a great place to roam around. I am searching for the church history that was published in conjunction with one of the later anniversaries, I hope I still have it. When the church left downtown, it became Western Reserve Baptist at Western Reserve and Hitchcock and was dissolved some years ago.
I have always been told that the building wasn’t demolished, it was revamped. I was raised at First Baptist and there were still “backstage” passageways behind the pulpit — we were roaming thru them one Sunday when we were supposed to be in church and we found this small door. When we opened it, we were quite surprised to find we were staring at the congregation from about halfway up the architecture behind the pulpit, LOL! The dressing rooms on the third and fourth floors were converted to Sunday school areas and the lower floor turned into a gymnasium/fellowship hall. The box office area became the church secretary’s office. There were many places and areas that made it pretty obvious that the building was a former theater/opera house. It was a wonderful building. When the church moved out, Mahoning Bank redid the facade and took the building over. I was working there at the time, they let us use the gym and opened up the vehicle ramp on the west side of the building so the repossessed vehicles could be stored on one of the lower levels. The access ramp was used to get props and such in and out of the opera house. We found the old bomb shelter and the access stairway to the roof which was accessible from the gym level which also had a stage (practice area maybe?) and a shower area. It was a great place to roam around. I am searching for the church history that was published in conjunction with one of the later anniversaries, I hope I still have it. When the church left downtown, it became Western Reserve Baptist at Western Reserve and Hitchcock and was dissolved some years ago.