Free to Worship

You'll be happy to know the Brown Memorial AME Church is in a new building and is no longer operating here. It's tough to do church services without sunlight streaming through the windows.

I tooled around the church's website and learned a bit of history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. I suggest you read it but in case you don't, in a nutshell the AME Church was founded in 1787. It was, and still is, an African American Methodist Church. Of course it's not that simple.

The website is going to be nice but it's not finished yet. I hope they'll add information about the Pasadena parish. And I'm curious to know more about this building. I don't know if the church still owns it or not. It's been boarded up for many months now, and I wonder if the neighborhood will find a use for it. Right now it's a hulking thing just sitting on Orange Grove Blvd. near the corner of Fair Oaks, not too far from some pretty fancy real estate like the Gamble House and the Fenyes Mansion. With plenty of free parking!