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This is From the Archives, where we present something from our extensive collection of archival photos, records and all manner of materials dating back to when the church was First Methodist Episcopal, to First Methodist, to Church of the Savior, to St. Paul's to Crossroads.
Our church building has many interesting and beautiful windows within and without that people will come from miles around to see.
But there is one notable window which the church has that almost no one ever sees anymore - except from the inside.
The first picture below is a rare picture of the church from Cleveland Ave taken sometime in the 20th century before the 1920s. The reason we can reasonably guess that time frame is because 1) there are visible power lines in the photo, so it probably wasn't taken in the 1800s and 2) the part of our building we call the education wing wasn't built yet. And so you can see in that picture the house where the church's pastor and family used to live where the education wing is now.
But you can also see very clearly a window on the old south wall of the church that matches in style, shape and dimensions the windows on our north wall, the windows we see every week in worship in the sanctuary.
Many of you reading this may not know that that south window is still there.
If you have ever been to the attic space of our church, the still very 1800s-esque part of the church that is above the sanctuary and below the roof, you have seen this south-facing window from the inside, still just peeking out above the education wing. That window has probably never had stained glass in it (like the north-facing windows in our sanctuary), but it likely served a real and practical purpose in our 1883 building that had no electricity. People would have needed ample natural light in that dark attic space, and if you've ever been up there, you know even partially blocked that window still lets an awful lot of light into that otherwise dark and sometimes foreboding space.
And the other thing you may not know about this window is that is still partially visible from the outside - you just have to be standing far away enough or be high enough above the building to see it.
Whether anyone ever sees that window on the outside or not, it is still there, serving its main purpose - letting light into the darkness.
(Click to open the images in new windows.)
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