Olney Street Baptist Church was designed by architects Johnson & Haynes and built in 1962-1963. The church is brick-clad with a flat, overhanging roof, cast-stone trim, windows at the roof line and the corners, and a smaller entry block on the east side. The building is set on a high basement with relatively large windows to illuminate the assembly rooms in the under croft. This building, constructed during the time when urban renewal and restoration began to change the face of northern Benefit Street and Lippitt Hill, became the new home of a largely black congregation long established in the neighborhood.

Bibliography:

Providence: A Citywide Survey, p. 205

–Providence’s Recent Past (2010), a PPS map by Ned Connors.

Last edited March 26, 2025 by Elisabeth Brown