George Bray Neighborhood Center
Racine, United States
Open to visitors
The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.
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Built in 1927 as the United Laymen Bible Student Tabernacle, the George Bray Neighborhood Center stands at 924 Center Street in Racine, Wisconsin's School Section neighborhood. Designed by J. Mandor Matson, a Norwegian immigrant architect, the Art Deco brick auditorium features a striking two-story facade trimmed with two ranks of pilasters topped with finials and crowned by a large tympanum composed of concentric brick arches. The building's symbolic vocabulary—the three circles within the large circle evoking the Trinity and the finials suggesting candles—reflects its evangelical origins: the structure was dedicated in May 1927 by the Racine Laymen's Bible Union, an inter-church group formed in 1924 for Bible study. After the Racine Bible Church vacated in the early 1960s, the building served various community functions, including housing the local Boy Scouts before the Franklin Neighborhood Association established it as a community center in 1969. The center was renamed for George Bray, a civic leader and founder of the Racine NAACP chapter, in 1980. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, the building is now operated as a YMCA branch.
Architect
Movement
- Built
- Type
- community center
- Materials
- brick
- Heritage
- listed in the Wisconsin State Register of Historic Places, National Register of Historic Places listed place
- Place
- Racine, United States
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Location