Downtown Dayton’s YMCA Buildings: History and What’s Left

Today you can go for a workout at the downtown Dayton YMCA, a building which has stood since 1929.

But this was far from the first place in Dayton that the YMCA called home, as it previously occupied four other locations, some of which still survive today while others have been lost.

The first effort to form an organization in Dayton happened in 1858, “when Dayton was a town of not quite 10,000, with no paved streets and pigs for garbage collectors.”

It only lasted three years due to the Civil War, but in 1870, a meeting of Dayton pastors at the old First Lutheran Church, the YMCA was reestablished.

The first president of the board of the directors was prominent Daytonian Robert W. Steele who lived in a prestigious residence on West First Street.

From 1870 until 1875 the Y was located in rented rooms in Henry Brown’s home on N Main St, which was later replaced by the Gas and Electric building.

Next it moved to the Dunlevy house at 32 East Fourth Street, a property including “parlors, a lecture room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor; a library, reading room and the secretary’s office on the second, (and) a gymnasium and reading room in the basement.”*

A decade later in 1886 that building had become too small, so the organization launched a public campaign for a new YMCA building on the same Fourth Street location.

The Old YMCA and Later the Auditorium (State) Theater

This grand new building was intended to serve the association for 50 years, according to general secretary David Sinclair.

But it lasted only ten before it too became too small, due to the rapid growth of the organization.

The 1908 YMCA (Dayton City Hall)

A new building on the NW corner of Third and Ludlow was built in 1908, which had “six stories and a basement, gymnasium, showers, Turkish baths, a swimming pool, an auditorium, residence for 127 men, and two educational floors.”

Downtown Dayton’s Current YMCA (and Apartments)

By 1920, membership in the YMCA had grown to 4,100.

Its current home on Monument Ave was completed in 1929.

The new 13-story Spanish revival structure boasted “13 classrooms, 4 laboratories, facilities for up to 1,000 students, a swimming pool, chapel, library, handball courts, three gymnasiums, 245 residence rooms, a cafeteria, and an auditorium with seating for 450.”

In 1988, the downtown YMCA was sold to McCormack Baron, who renovated the residence rooms into downtown apartments which became part of The Landing complex.

Four years later the Y leased back its gym space and reopened, and in 1998 it repurchased it from the development company, who continued to own the apartments.

Today McCormack Baron Salazar, the firm is one of the partners redeveloping the Dayton Arcade, specifically the affordable housing component.

The 1887 Fourth Street location was converted into a theater (known as the Auditorium and then the State), before the building was demolished during urban renewal for Dave Hall Plaza park, which has recently been turned into the Levitt Pavilion.

The 1908 building was converted to Dayton’s City Hall in the 1940s, which moved over from the Central Market House which was located where the main bus hub is today. It still serves as City Hall today.

Historic images courtesy of Dayton Metro Library

* Young, Rosamond. History of the Young Men’s Christian Association of Dayton Ohio, 1870-1970. 1970. Dayton, OH: Otterbein Press.