In recently releasing their statewide annual 10 Most Endangered list, Indiana Landmarks included a vacant building on South Bend’s west side that played an important role in the history of the city’s Black community.
With parts of its brick facade looking like they could crumble to the ground at any minute, preservationists are out to save the West Side Recreation Club building at 1415 W. Washington St.
A man who’s helped curate the 1905 structure’s history is George Garner, assistant director of Indiana University South Bend’s Civil Rights Heritage Center.
”The West Side Recreation Club has this incredible story behind it," Garner says.
Garner says his program has worked for years to sharpen the focus on what happened there, through researching documents and interviewing older Black residents.
It once housed offices of Black professionals like attorney J. Chester Allen, who worked to desegregate the Engman Natatorium.
”And you know it’s fair to say it has a little bit of a seedy side to it as well. It was a club, it was a pool hall, it was a place where maybe slightly less than legal things were going on.”
Garner says he was referring to chances people bought for a daily numbers game, which is not all that different from today’s legal lotteries.
WVPE was not immediately able to reach the building's owner, Mack Alonzo, for comment.
