Here I am on Tuesday afternoon, 70 degrees, walking on the corner of Fifth and Sycamore Streets. This building. A sight to behold. Commuters and visitors alike pass by here everyday. I have walked past this building so many times, but little did I know that this has some cool history behind it.
Proctor and Gamble has been a stalwart in the community since 1837 and in the current location since the 1950s, but long before this, this site was the site of two different places of worship.
Founded in 1824, Bene Israel Temple (now Rockdale Temple) is the oldest Jewish congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains. The leaders of the time knew that a place was needed to worship, so it went through two locations: In 1836, the Sixth and Broadway location, and in 1852, a second synagogue was built on site. The 1852 building was ultimately sold to another congregation.
On the other end of the spectrum, a group of African Americans were worshipping with White Methodist Episcopalians, but they were treated in a discriminatory manner. After one campmeeting, African American ministers Rev. James King and Rev. Philip Brodie couldn't put up with the prejudice anymore, so in 1824, they founded the Cincinnati AME congregation.
Continued growth and increased vandalism caused the AME congregation to look for another location. In 1870, the congregation bought the former Bene Israel Synagogue.
In the late 1970s, Allen Temple moved the congregation to Roselawn Baptist Church, the former synagogue demolished, and the property sold to Procter and Gamble.
That, my people, is your Cincy history lesson for today.
If you are hungry for more of this, check out http://library.cincymuseum.org/aag/history/allentemple.html & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockdale_Temple
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