While exploring the city I stumbled on this rare (for Buffalo) wood frame church at 23 Glendhu Avenue. Glendhu is in a section of South Buffalo off Cazenovia Street which holds great untapped potential. The street is a bit ragged but is quite charming with its red brick pavement, assortment of house styles, and not one, but two churches. This little mid-block church is from a time when people were less concerned about sterilizing the urban landscape with a monotonous uniformity of land use planning. The church sits comfortably together with traditional city doubles and single-family houses. I can guarantee that anyone wanting to put a church on a residential street today would be met with a stone wall of protest.
I snapped a few pictures of this church thinking it was an interesting, simple little building with a lot of potential. I also thought it was empty, based on its rather tattered exterior condition. An empty church is not uncommon in Buffalo and across the country, with many being so big they pose major challenges to reuse. I thought the small size of this church would make for a magnificent conversion to residential use. The size was not too big, but would still yield a very substantial house – a house of very unique character. Imagine this exterior restored with cedar shingles and with the bell tower opened up. Wow, what a place to call home.
Alas, it seems I jumped the gun a bit. After doing a bit of digging, the building does appear to still be in use serving as the Buffalo home of a Christian denomination known as the Christadelphians. This is a very small branch of the Christian faith, which is often labeled as a sect by more established Christian groups. I could not get in contact with anyone at the church, so please chime in if you know anything about them. Their beliefs are similar to other Christian denominations except for several strong differences. For instance they do not believe in Satan. Nor do they believe in eternal life in the common terms of Heaven and Hell. The Church was founded in the 1860’s by Dr. John Thomas and spread around the globe but never gained huge numbers of followers. It is estimated that there are only 50,000 members worldwide. Buffalo claimed two churches, known as Ecclesia, with a total of 77 members back in 1926. Today there appears to be only one church. There is also a bible study school in Niagara Falls, Canada. Check out more on this group here. The Buffalo church holds Sunday school at 10:00 am, Worship at 11:00 am and Bible study on Wednesdays at 8:00 pm.