Dayton’s City Hall has been located in more than one building over the years, but only rarely did it occupy a structure actually built for municipal offices.
In 1845, a second floor was added to the Central Market House downtown, which ran all the way from Main to Jefferson where the bus hub is today.
That floor would house not only City Hall but also Dayton’s public library before it moved to its own structure in Cooper Park.
In 1876, the two-story market building was replaced by a new three-story structure with a mansard roof. City Hall remained, and the mayor’s office was on the third floor.
In 1940, the city moved its offices a few blocks over to a larger structure that had also originally been built for a very different purpose.
The YMCA building at Third and Ludlow Streets was the second largest YMCA in the world when it was constructed in 1908.
But the YMCA would only occupy it for two decades before itself moving to larger quarters on Monument Ave in 1929. (Classes for what is today known as Sinclair Community College went with it.)
At that time, the structure became known as the Dayton Industries Building until it was purchased by the City of Dayton eleven years later.
It took a major renovation to turn the former YMCA into City Hall, “including flooring over the three-story auditorium into new office space.”
The City of Dayton has remained in the building ever since, although more renovations have been needed in the years since.
Image credits: Dayton Metro Library, Wikimedia Commons
I was the marketing director for the YMCA for several years. The archives at Wright State have some amazing photos of the YMCA building at 3rd/Ludlow, including some great ones of the auditorium you mentioned in the article. There are also photos of the first classes that took place there that later evolved into Sinclair.
Awesome! I’ll have to try to track those down sometime. Thanks for sharing!